disk problems or false alarm??
jludwig
wralphie at comcast.net
Fri Apr 30 21:39:54 UTC 2004
On Fri, 2004-04-30 at 15:01, Guolin Cheng wrote:
> Hi, jludwig,
>
> Thanks for your helpful information.
>
> Because I'm running Linux, so I assume there are no viruses. Then comes
> several questions:
>
> 1, How can I know whether all the spare sectors are in use and the disk
> will lose data, or it is just the beginning of disk failure?
>
There is no real way to know if you are using spare sectors (even new
drives use a few since perfect media is rare) since this is part of the
hard drive system's firmware and happens automatically.
> 2, How I can identify that the hard drive becomes dying at the first
> minute?
Run the smartd daemon < chkconfig smartd on >
> 3, How to identify the malfunctioning hard drives? Should I idle the
> machine and test hard drives one by one to figure it out? Mostly it is
> the faiure-reporting hard drive failed, but I remember for sure, in a
> few cases, other alternative hard drives failed instead.
The only way to really check a hard drive is a multiple 100% read/write of
each sector. Needless to say the drive must be taken out of service and all
data is removed.
>
> 4, Should I replace hard drives when I first see this kind of disk error
> messages in case data begin to lose?
When you see this it usually indicates a drive has used up all the spares.
When you do see this;
1) back up your data
2) watch for another R/W failure
3) Depending on the nature of the drive and system have a new drive
ready
4) Don't assume the drive has failed or lost sectors. I have had drives
that were "thrown out" when all that was really needed was a factory
"low level format" which rechecks all sectors. (This is not a true low
level format which can only be done at the factory or other facility
with the proper equipment).
> Thanks a LOT...
>
> --Guolin Cheng
>
Snip
--
jludwig <wralphie at comcast.net>
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