[ILUG] OT-ish: hard disks + M$

[John McCormac]

Paul Curtayne wrote:
> So, I went to do this on a 486 with 36MB RAM, and an almost new 2GB

How old is the disk and what brand?

> Scandisk started marking them as bad. This was unbelievably slow, and
> when it got to the latter parts of the disk which contained no data, I
> aborted it.

Low level checking is always slow on an old machine.

> My clients are naturally perturbed as it is a new-ish HD, and they
> have had lots of miscellaneous problems recently. They are pressuring
> me heavily for an explanation, and I need reassurance that my patches
> didn't cause damage.

Given that the box is a 486, it is probably going to be 5 years or so
old. It sounds more like failing technology than software. However the
bit rot on the harddrive is more characteristic of a drive at the end of
its operational life.
 
> Question: apart from the disk being a factory dud, what explanations
> can I offer? What causes bad blocks?

Since the drive is not a new one (see earlier), you may have got an
older ex-equipment drive. One other thought - have you any AntiVirus
progs checking the harddrive?

Regards...jmcc
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