On Thu, 20 May 1999, Shao Zhang wrote:
> I would like to know: if a hard disk died with a couple of bad
> sectors, what is the best way to repair it??
>
> I use badblocks, mkfs and fsck. Are there any other methods??
>
> Also, when I mount this dead harddisk, the kernel sometimes will pop
> up some messages like:
>
> hda: irq request timeout. Error code 0x5f
> hda: ide reset ok.
>
> There are heaps of them. I cannot remember them all.
> Is this hard disk still usable??
Shao
There is lowlevel IDE drive formatting software available from the
drive manufacturers. This may offer some hope.
That said, my experience with fixing ide drives has not been good.
As I understand it, the on-drive controller "spares" out some
tracks and automatically uses them when it finds a (potentially)
bad block. By the time you have visible bad blocks, your drive is
in a bad way. You should (quickly) retrieve any data you need, and
throw the drive away.
With fairly fast 10Gig drives available for a cost less than $200,
I don't think it is economical to spend much time with that drive.
--David
David Teague, [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Debian GNU/Linux Because software support is free, timely,
useful, technically accurate, and friendly.
(Hope this qualifies.)
