On 11/25/06, Dinesh Joshi dinesh.a.joshi@gmail.com wrote:
On Saturday 25 November 2006 18:55, Mohan Nayaka wrote:
Hi all, Is a clean chit from badblocks enough to rule out hard disk damage? fsck had earlier reported errors but they were only errors related to fs inconsistencies, not hdd errors.
Anything short of a visit to Lamington, I hope.
No need to visit lamington road. Badblocks tells ya if your disk is damaged physically. If it gives a clean chit then theres nothing wrong.
Yes and No. If you're IDE device is doing the internal re-mapping thingy, badblocks will be none the wiser. If you're getting fs-inconsistencies without improper shutdowns, then your hdd is already on a downward spiral. But, by the time you get around to running badblocks, those may have already been re-cycled internally and will not show up.
If you're really unlucky (like your's truly :( ) badblocks will never show anything until one fine day when *block 0* goes bust and there is nothing the hardware or the software(badblocks/fsck/...) can do about it
Bottomline: a regular constant set of badblocks is not a problem. But if you frequently get random and senseless filesystem inconsistencies, then you're in trouble inspite of a clean chit from badblocks.
. farazs