Quoting Holden Hao ([EMAIL PROTECTED]): > If the file system is Dos or Windows, try using Spinrite.
Here's my list of hard drive manufacturers' pseudo-low-level formatting and diagnostic utilities for their drives: http://linuxmafia.com/pub/hardware/hdutils We SCSI users, of course, don't need those. We just use the low-level formatting utility built into the host adapter ROM. > If you suspect that the problem is a mis-aligned cylinder head and if > the data is not that important but you would like to get the data if you > could, then why not try gently slapping your drive on a table. The particular problem this remedy addresses is called "stiction", and used to endemic in Seagate drives, in particular. That is, the lubricant on the voice-coil motor (or stepper motor) would partially harden, glueing the head assembly in its retracted position. Knocking the drive _sharply_ and _hard_ against a solid surface would most often jar loose the head assembly. Since it was retracted, this would not cause any disk surface damage. Subsequently, as such a drive warms up, the lubricant re-liquifies, so you see no further problems during runtime. However, the syndrome is very likely to recur following extended power-offs. Diagnosing stiction: You can spot a likely case of stiction by listening carefully to drive startup in an (otherwise) quiet environment. If the main motor spins up the drive OK, but then you fail to hear the heads unlatching from their parked position and go through their initial seek routine, then it's either stiction or drive-electronics failure. In that case, you have nothing to lose from giving the drive a sharp, hard rap. (Warning for the inattentive: Do NOT do that to drives unless the above _is_ the case.) The classic stiction scenario is when you're called in because the server drive fails to initialise after being powered off for a day, e.g., to move the facility. If that happens to you, don't forget to send the client out of the server room, so he doesn't have a coronary watching you smashing the server HD against a concrete pillar. ;-> -- Cheers, "I don't like country music, but I don't mean to denigrate Rick Moen those who do. And, for the people who like country music, [EMAIL PROTECTED] denigrate means 'put down'." -- Bob Newhart -- Philippine Linux Users' Group (PLUG) Mailing List [EMAIL PROTECTED] (#PLUG @ irc.free.net.ph) Official Website: http://plug.linux.org.ph Searchable Archives: http://marc.free.net.ph . To leave, go to http://lists.q-linux.com/mailman/listinfo/plug . Are you a Linux newbie? To join the newbie list, go to http://lists.q-linux.com/mailman/listinfo/ph-linux-newbie
