[Leaplist] I need help with fixing bad blocks

[Chris]

andrei raevsky wrote:

> Hi LEAPers,
> [snipology...]
> I am currently running my system off a live-CD so I am able to access 
> the web.
>
> My questions are:
>
> 1) Is there a way to map and isolate the bad blocks and keep on living 
> happily with my hard drive
>
The short answer - yes and no, in that order.

The long answer. Yes you can "remap" bad blocks, but you really
don't want to. All hard drives have bad blocks. The manufacturer
allocates a little extra space on the hard drive for just that reason.
Modern drive controllers already remap bad blocks into that spare
region of the drive, transparently.

So, by the time you are seeing bad blocks, it's an indication that
your drive is failing so badly that the drive controller has already
encountered so many bad blocks that it's used up the spare area
of the drive, and has no choice but to inform the O/S that the
ship is sinking.

The important thing now is the preservation of your data,
and how you do that is strictly a matter of your time, money
and resources. I even know one guy who tarred chunks of
his data and emailed them to several Yahoo! accounts he
created until he could afford another drive. Probably not what
Yahoo! had in mind, but, hey, it worked.

And sooner, when it comes to a failing drive is better, much
better, than later. Like now.

Cheers,

Chris

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