From: Brady, Padraig (Padraig.Brady at domain compaq.com)
Date: Wed 16 Feb 2000 - 15:39:26 GMT
If you really want to get down to this level,
then I find spinrite fantastic. (www.grc.com),
It'll give you a good indication if your drive
is about to fail also.
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Dunphy Richard-rdunph01 [mailto:Rik.Dunphy at domain motorola.com]
> Sent: 16 February 2000 15:36
> To: 'David Nicholls'; 'Dave Airlie'; 'Irish Linux Users Group'
> Subject: RE: [ILUG] [OT] reason for replacing a HDD....
>
> > However if you are looking for a way to recover from a bad
> > sector I think
> > the only way is a low level format utility. I believe some
> > companies (WD
> > springs to mind) provide low level format utils which hide
> > bad sectors from
> > the user so that when you format the drive it appears undamaged.
> > As far as I know HDD manufacturers use this technique when
> > they don't get
> > 100% good sectors in their manufacturing process. In fact in
> > the "good old
> > days" when processes weren't so good I heard that HDD's used
> > to come with a
> > list of sectors which were bad.
>
> Do not do this unless you have talked to the drive
> manufacturer first!!
>
> In the 'good old day' it was ok to do this as the drives
> geometry reported
> was the actual physical geometry. But as technology has
> changed the user
> rarely has to do this because the drive now translates the
> geomtries..
>
> If you do a low level format before talking to the
> manufacturer and the
> drive dies you are up shit creek without the preverbial paddle!
>
> RikD
>
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