Calomel wrote: > > If you really want to check the drive and verify it has > errors then check > out the binary called badblocks. I do not believe OpenBSD has > badblocks but > you can use the cd distro "system rescue cd" and run > badblocks from there > without removing the drive from the current machine. > > NON-destructive BadBlock test (1gig ram in machine) > badblocks -b 4096 -c 98304 -p 0 -s /dev/hda > > For a more detailed explanation http://calomel.org/badblocks_wipe.html > After spending (most of) the weekend recovering a failed drive (XP), there's a few things about disks that are worth knowing. (ALSO READ ANY AND ALL BY NICK HOLLAND! -- He knows whereof) With a rescue CD (Don't use Windows without one) (OpenBSD's purpose in life is NOT rescuing Windows computers) ONE (only one) sector was "unreadable" (irrecoverable) A good disk cloned from bad-disk was very unusable. Running destructive badblocks showed that the disk had no errors.
Until the disk further degrades, it will test out good. That disk is "reserved" with a "EMERGENCY USE ONLY" tag. If things work the way I think they work, the "non-destructive" read test will actually destroy ALL ability to tell that the disks had (past tense) errors. (remapping bad sectors) (This oughta be off-list, but where else can you get good info ;-) There's people on this list who actually know what I'm trying to talk about.
