On Monday 04 May 2009 18:29:26 L. V. Lammert wrote: > At 06:06 PM 5/4/2009 -0400, STeve Andre' wrote: > >The best way is to get a new disk. I'm serious. Disks are cheap enough, > > and the value of whats on them is high enough that if you think its > > going, get a new one. Even if this is a hobby system, I'd do that. > > And I'm serious too - how many hard drives to you throw away before you > realize that might not be the problem? > > >There is disk testing software from the OEMs you can use. > > > >But if you think its acting weird don't trust it. > > That's why I'm looking for a way to gather some hard data. > > Lee
I have a pile of disks that I suspect. Looking at the drawer, I see 8 of them. As I have time I test them, usually with dd: dd if=/dev/sd1c of=/dev/null bs=64k and try that a bunch. Usually I shake loose a few errors after a while. And of course, listen to them. Hearing many clicking noises for recalibrates in a row is another sign of impending death. For laptop disks I've used IBM/Hitahi's drive fitness test, and that usually works well, but earlier this year it gave a drive a clean bill of health, and the disk died about 2 weeks later. --STeve Andre'
