[clue-tech] fsck and badblocks

[Angelo Bertolli]

> Well, it's worth noting that most modern IDE drives have a "pool" of
> extra blocks/sectors. So, if the drive sees that one sector/block is
> failing to read or write, it will remap that block transparently
> behind the scenes. The OS never knows about that kind of block
> remapping except when the data on it is lost. 
> 
> smartctl -a /dev/hd? 
> 
> will get you some more information on a modern SMART capable drive as
> to how many sectors it has remapped and how many are left. 
> For example, my laptop drive shows a "Reallocated_Sector_Ct"
> (thankfully 0). 

I don't seem to have smartctl.

> - - If you start seeing bad blocks at the OS level, odds are very good
> the drive is heading down a steep cliff, and even if you don't use the
> bad blocks you find today, there will likely be many more in days to
> come. 

Does the OS report them specifically as bad blocks?  I was having an IO 
error when trying to cat a 64 MB text file.  I ran badblocks after that 
happened, but it's unclear to me whether or not the bad blocks reported 
are ones that were already found, or new ones.