[ale] what exactly does a long smart hdd test do?

[Jim Kinney]

On Sun, May 13, 2012 at 11:28 PM, Scott Castaline <skotchman at gmail.com>wrote:

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> On 05/13/2012 07:42 PM, Jim Kinney wrote:
> >
> > I have thoroughly enjoyed this thread. Lot's of stuff going around
> > that in my desire for brevity sums up as:
> >
> > If any tool start reporting a drive failure, make backups now while
> > the new drive is being delivered or picked up. Once failed, a drive
> > is not data safe to use as a drive and should be considered as
> > nothing more than metal for recycling. There is no tool that can
> > bring a drive back into reliable service. Any software maker that
> > claims to be able to "repair a bad drive" is blowing smoke up a
> > kilt. At most they can relocate bits from a failing sector to
> > another location. The failing sector(s) is(are) not fixable.
> >
> > I had 4 drives in my main home desktop. SMART data said two of them
> > were failing. I did not see this data as I did not look. There were
> > date stamps on the data that indicated those drives reached their
> > state of impending failure about 2 years before I read the SMART
> > data. During those 2 years, I noticed no problems nor lost any
> > data. Once I notice the state of the drives, I migrated the
> > contents (with tar, not dd) to a new drive and pulled those drives
> > from service. About 6 months later I needed a drive to be an
> > intermediary storage point for a temp processes and I pulled one of
> > those from the junk pile. I ran badblocks on it and it reported a
> > pile of repairs. I then formatted it. At the end of the format the
> > drive utility in Fedora popped up and began spewing SMART data
> > failure messages. The relocated blocks count had exceeded what the
> > SMART process could hold. I reworked the drive with badblocks and
> > partitioned it to avoid the failed areas. The SMART subsystem was
> > still unimpressed with my attempt at dodging failures and STILL
> > puked errors out. In short, I was able to partition around the
> > multiple failed areas and my drive went from 250GB to about 80GB
> > usable.
> >
> > At this point I went to MicroCenter and bought a new drive. The
> > old drive is now in pieces having surrendered it's positioning
> > magnets to my son and the platter will become a nice wind chime. --
> >
> Platters make good clock faces too ;-)
>


AND!!! If you heat them in spots with a torch, they will hold the colors
well while remaining rather shiny and not bit free!



> > -- James P. Kinney III
> >
> > As long as the general population is passive, apathetic, diverted
> > to consumerism or hatred of the vulnerable, then the powerful can
> > do as they please, and those who survive will be left to
> > contemplate the outcome. - ////2011 Noam Chomsky
> >
> > http://heretothereideas.blogspot.com/ ////
> >
> >
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> > Ale at ale.org http://mail.ale.org/mailman/listinfo/ale See JOBS,
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>
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-- 
-- 
James P. Kinney III

As long as the general population is passive, apathetic, diverted to
consumerism or hatred of the vulnerable, then the powerful can do as they
please, and those who survive will be left to contemplate the outcome.
- *2011 Noam Chomsky

http://heretothereideas.blogspot.com/
*
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