Harddisk Checking utility

Bruce Samhaber

7 Oct 2005 7 Oct '05

19:22

Is there a utility to check a harddisk integrity and to perhaps block off bad sections of the disk? I have been looking but have not found it in the SUSE books and Help Centre. I thought that I had seen this before. Something in the basic bootup? Thanks, -- Bruce Samhaber Senior Hardware Design Consultant Tel: 613-724-5987 112 Kenora St. Fax: 613-724-5987 Ottawa, Ontario Cel: 613-297-6961 K1Y 3L1 mailto: bsamhaber@sympatico.ca http://www3.sympatico.ca/marypat/

Show replies by thread

Sandy Drobic

7 Oct 7 Oct

19:35

New subject: [SLE] Harddisk Checking utility

Bruce Samhaber wrote:

...

Is there a utility to check a harddisk integrity and to perhaps block off bad sections of the disk? I have been looking but have not found it in the SUSE books and Help Centre. I thought that I had seen this before. Something in the basic bootup?

badblocks perhaps? Sandy

Jerry Feldman

20:11

New subject: [SLE] Harddisk Checking utility

On Friday 07 October 2005 3:22 pm, Bruce Samhaber wrote:

...

Is there a utility to check a harddisk integrity and to perhaps block off bad sections of the disk? I have been looking but have not found it in the SUSE books and Help Centre. I thought that I had seen this before. Something in the basic bootup? Yes. As was mentioned, badblocks is one utility, but the main utility is fsck. fsck is called everytime a system transitions from single user to multi-user (eg. everytime you boot essentially). Each filesystem (eg. ext3, Reiserfs) maintains its own set of utilities that are called by fsck.

You can do a man fsck, man fsck.ext3, man fsck.reiserfs (eg reiserfsck). -- Jerry Feldman Boston Linux and Unix user group http://www.blu.org PGP key id:C5061EA9 PGP Key fingerprint:053C 73EC 3AC1 5C44 3E14 9245 FB00 3ED5 C506 1EA9

Kurt Wall

8 Oct 8 Oct

02:16

New subject: [SLE] Harddisk Checking utility

On Fri, Oct 07, 2005 at 04:11:33PM -0400, Jerry Feldman took 28 lines to write:

...

On Friday 07 October 2005 3:22 pm, Bruce Samhaber wrote:

...
Is there a utility to check a harddisk integrity and to perhaps block off bad sections of the disk? I have been looking but have not found it in the SUSE books and Help Centre. I thought that I had seen this before. Something in the basic bootup? Yes. As was mentioned, badblocks is one utility, but the main utility is fsck. fsck is called everytime a system transitions from single user to multi-user (eg. everytime you boot essentially). Each filesystem (eg. ext3, Reiserfs) maintains its own set of utilities that are called by fsck.

You can do a man fsck, man fsck.ext3, man fsck.reiserfs (eg reiserfsck).

Perniciously incorrect. fsck checks the integrity of filesystems. It does not identify and mark bad blocks on the disk, which is what the OP wanted. Kurt -- E Pluribus Unix

Kevanf1

09:49

New subject: [SLE] Harddisk Checking utility

On 08/10/05, Kurt Wall wrote:

...

On Fri, Oct 07, 2005 at 04:11:33PM -0400, Jerry Feldman took 28 lines to write:

...
On Friday 07 October 2005 3:22 pm, Bruce Samhaber wrote:

...
Is there a utility to check a harddisk integrity and to perhaps block off bad sections of the disk? I have been looking but have not found it in the SUSE books and Help Centre. I thought that I had seen this before. Something in the basic bootup? Yes. As was mentioned, badblocks is one utility, but the main utility is fsck. fsck is called everytime a system transitions from single user to multi-user (eg. everytime you boot essentially). Each filesystem (eg. ext3, Reiserfs) maintains its own set of utilities that are called by fsck.

You can do a man fsck, man fsck.ext3, man fsck.reiserfs (eg reiserfsck).

Perniciously incorrect. fsck checks the integrity of filesystems. It does not identify and mark bad blocks on the disk, which is what the OP wanted.

Kurt -- E Pluribus Unix

What is wrong with downloading the drive manufacturers own disk checking software? It is, after all, tailored to that specific make of disk. Most are now OS independent too. -- ============================================== I am only human, please forgive me if I make a mistake it is not deliberate. ============================================== Take care. Kevan Farmer 34 Hill Street Cheslyn Hay Staffordshire WS6 7HR

Jerry Feldman

12:52

New subject: [SLE] Harddisk Checking utility

On Fri, 7 Oct 2005 22:16:05 -0400 Kurt Wall wrote:

...

On Fri, Oct 07, 2005 at 04:11:33PM -0400, Jerry Feldman took 28 lines to write:

...
On Friday 07 October 2005 3:22 pm, Bruce Samhaber wrote:

...
Is there a utility to check a harddisk integrity and to perhaps block off bad sections of the disk? I have been looking but have not found it in the SUSE books and Help Centre. I thought that I had seen this before. Something in the basic bootup? Yes. As was mentioned, badblocks is one utility, but the main utility is fsck. fsck is called everytime a system transitions from single user to multi-user (eg. everytime you boot essentially). Each filesystem (eg. ext3, Reiserfs) maintains its own set of utilities that are called by fsck.

You can do a man fsck, man fsck.ext3, man fsck.reiserfs (eg reiserfsck).

Perniciously incorrect. fsck checks the integrity of filesystems. It does not identify and mark bad blocks on the disk, which is what the OP wanted. His question included both. The badblock question was answered, which is why I referred to the fact that it was answered. -- Jerry Feldman Boston Linux and Unix user group http://www.blu.org PGP key id:C5061EA9 PGP Key fingerprint:053C 73EC 3AC1 5C44 3E14 9245 FB00 3ED5 C506 1EA9

Carlos E. R.

17:01

New subject: [SLE] Harddisk Checking utility

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 The Saturday 2005-10-08 at 08:52 -0400, Jerry Feldman wrote:

...

...
Perniciously incorrect. fsck checks the integrity of filesystems. It does not identify and mark bad blocks on the disk, which is what the OP wanted. His question included both. The badblock question was answered, which is why I referred to the fact that it was answered.

You are forgetting that badblocks can be marked/remapped at a lower level, idependent of the filesystem or OS. The HD itself can do it on its own. There is smartctl, an utility that amongst other things can fire up the SMART tests of the HD, done by the HD firmware: the test can run while the system is up and running with no interference (a slower disk response till it finishes). The manufacturer utility mainly checks this tests as well. - -- Cheers, Carlos Robinson -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.0 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Made with pgp4pine 1.76 iD8DBQFDR/uItTMYHG2NR9URArVkAKCQ5K60KUMGtW5xs1Eb4AoU/1YPYgCfaR4u 5iQoE+2Ty4MLLEj4W3K19ms= =WNmr -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

Jerry Feldman

9 Oct 9 Oct

12:55

New subject: [SLE] Harddisk Checking utility

On Sat, 8 Oct 2005 19:01:47 +0200 (CEST) "Carlos E. R." wrote:

...

You are forgetting that badblocks can be marked/remapped at a lower level, idependent of the filesystem or OS. The HD itself can do it on its own. This is very true.

...

There is smartctl, an utility that amongst other things can fire up the SMART tests of the HD, done by the HD firmware: the test can run while the system is up and running with no interference (a slower disk response till it finishes). The manufacturer utility mainly checks this tests as well. The manufacturer's utility is a very useful product to have. I found years back that some drives had not been properly checked for bad blocks. One word of caution is that these utilities can cause destruction of data since they don't really care about the high level formatting. But, the file system utilities (Reiserfsck et. al) can also be destructive. -- Jerry Feldman Boston Linux and Unix user group http://www.blu.org PGP key id:C5061EA9 PGP Key fingerprint:053C 73EC 3AC1 5C44 3E14 9245 FB00 3ED5 C506 1EA9

Carlos E. R.

14:17

New subject: [SLE] Harddisk Checking utility

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 The Sunday 2005-10-09 at 08:55 -0400, Jerry Feldman wrote:

...

The manufacturer's utility is a very useful product to have.

I know. But you can not trust them blindly. Seagate's utility told me to return my HD to the manufacturer, because it was bad. I didn't, and it is still working 10000 hours later. Interestingly, if I run the same utility again it doesn't find any fault whatsoever. It was just complaining because there were some bad blocks that had not been remapped yet (the remapping occurs while writing, not on reads).

...

I found years back that some drives had not been properly checked for bad blocks. One word of caution is that these utilities can cause destruction of data since they don't really care about the high level formatting.

Seagate's warn about those tests.

...

But, the file system utilities (Reiserfsck et. al) can also be destructive.

Right. - -- Cheers, Carlos Robinson -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.0 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Made with pgp4pine 1.76 iD8DBQFDSSZ5tTMYHG2NR9URApxuAJ4sVpRKcdsygfo5quJeZMZqvcJAowCfbKkG SIz1mbF+k6K5HeVXp3i3+AY= =xQ1E -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

6793

Age (days ago)

6795

Last active (days ago)

List overview

Download

8 comments

6 participants

participants (6)

Bruce Samhaber
Carlos E. R.
Jerry Feldman
Kevanf1
Kurt Wall
Sandy Drobic