I'm not quite sure that I follow your question, so please forgive me if this
response isn't to the point.
The "first few sectors" of a hard disk are essential for booting from it,
but not for running a filesystem on it. Any decent formatter (including
mke2fs) should be able to block out the bad sectors in a drive partition.
(Conceivably, you'll need to do a low-level format before partitioning,
something that isn't a Linux issue -- consult your drive's documentation
here.) So you should still be able to create a root partition for Linux on
the drive.
You probably can't run LILO on it to boot, though, if you are unable to
create a Master Boot Record on the disk due to the bad initial sectors. To
boot Linux, you'll need a boot floppy -- your distribution probably had you
make one as a rescue or recovery disk. A different boot floppy should let
you boot into DOS.
All that said, I'd be cautious about continuing to rely on a hard drive that
is showing signs of failure. Unless the failures are "soft" -- that is,
correctable by repartitioning and reformatting the drive -- I'd expect
failures to get worse and not put on the system anything I would be unhappy
to lose (like any of my writing or programming). But that's your call, of
course.
Good luck, whatever you decide to do.
At 08:57 PM 1/31/99 +0100, Svein Hallan wrote:
>Hi guys!
>My hard drive draw its last breath this morning, leaving me with nothing
>but sorrow. When checking, I found that it's the first few sectors that's
>damaged, and since I also run DOS on my computer, I've realized that I'm
>stuck with big trouble.
>
>My question is: Does Linux currently support a file system which not depend
>on those first few sectors? And if so, how am I installing it?
------------------------------------"Never tell me the odds!"---
Ray Olszewski -- Han Solo
762 Garland Drive
Palo Alto, CA 94303-3603
650.321.3561 voice 650.322.1209 fax [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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