patching a crashed hard drive

[Mike McCarty]

Tony Nelson wrote:
> At 10:55 PM -0700 7/23/05, Craig White wrote:
> 
>>On Fri, 2005-07-22 at 22:44 -0700, Roy W. Erickson wrote:
>>
>>>All:
>>>
>>>My computer fell over hitting the floor with a pretty good thud, while
>>>up and running. The screen froze along with the mouse and keyboard.


[snip]

> 
> Yes indeed, you should replace it right away.  After copying all the data
> to a new drive (and noting which files must be recovered from backup -- or
> just admitting that the data is lost if there is no backup), you could try
> a full format of the old drive.  That will cause the drive to write to
> every sector and mark as bad (and not use) the sectors in the damaged area.
> If this works, you will have a smaller drive; if it doesn't, the drive will
> tell you.

I strongly advise against using that drive any further. The magnetic
coating on the drive has been compromised. Possibly the heads are
damaged. Bits of the magnetic coating may flake off later, or may
already have done so. If this occurs, there could be a complete
head crash, resulting in the loss of all data stored on that disc.

Simply "avoiding" the damaged areas for data storage is not
adequate protection. The heads still pass over those areas,
even if not to read or write. A few microns of raised damage
could eventually cause a lot of trouble later.

I advise to get what data may be recovered from that drive, and
then consider it otherwise to be a total loss. Or it could be used
as a junk disc just for test installs of new versions of Fedora
or whatever, which one doesn't intend for anything but fooling
around.

In any case, it should be prominently marked with DO NOT USE
THIS DRIVE if you keep it around. I'd use a laundry marker or
other indelible marker.

Just my $0.02 worth.

Mike
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