STeve Andre' wrote: > On Monday 04 May 2009 17:56:43 L. V. Lammert wrote: > > Been trying to build a replacement HD for a system, .. and it seems > > impossible to verify whether a disk is bad or not (having > wasted some hours > > rsync'ing data only to have the HD lock up the system when > doing the final > > rsync). > > > > What is the best way to do a surface analysis on a disk? > badsect seems like > > a holdover from MB-sized disks, and it doesn't do any analysis. > > > > TIA, > > > > Lee > > 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. > > There is disk testing software from the OEMs you can use. > > But if you think its acting weird don't trust it. > > --STeve Andre' > There is, in the e2fsprogs package, something called badblocks. I have used it (on Linux) to "rescue" bad disks. (Windows laptops -- kinda redundant?)
If you care about your data, follow Steve's advice. The reality seems to be that this does exercise a disk's ability to relocate bad sectors so that a bad disk suddenly goes good. This is using a destructive surface test (badblocks -sw ...) Realistically, seems like the most reliable test is that disk is slower than it should be. Me, if I want to rely on a disk drive, I will run badblocks on it. The long-winded destructive test And I will time it, at least sporadically. (New disks are not immune from having problems ;-) The exercise maybe loses out to watching grass grow.
