Mark Knecht writes: > Yes, I do use smartctl on some other machines although I'm not very > good about it and your write-up is helpful so thanks for that. > > My wife's machines is older and and I don't think SMART is > supported on her drive. Note the lack of a * on the SMART line in > hdparm -I:
Okay, but it still states: > * SMART error logging > * SMART self-test So maybe smartctl -t long /dev/hda still works? Just give it a try. > dragonfly ~ # smartctl -H /dev/hda > smartctl version 5.38 [i686-pc-linux-gnu] Copyright (C) 2002-8 Bruce > Allen Home page is http://smartmontools.sourceforge.net/ > > SMART Disabled. Use option -s with argument 'on' to enable it. > dragonfly ~ # smartctl -s on /dev/hda > smartctl version 5.38 [i686-pc-linux-gnu] Copyright (C) 2002-8 Bruce > Allen Home page is http://smartmontools.sourceforge.net/ > > === START OF ENABLE/DISABLE COMMANDS SECTION === > Error SMART Enable failed: Input/output error > Smartctl: SMART Enable Failed. > > A mandatory SMART command failed: exiting. To continue, add one or > more '-T permissive' options. > dragonfly ~ # > > I've not tried the -T permissive options. I would :) There is also a BIOS setting for SMART, but I think this does not matter here, and it's only for being able to report a failing drive before booting. > I've never used badblocks as it seems I should only do that off-line. > This might be a good time to boot with a CD and try it out. In read-only mode, you can use it when the system is running. Only the write test (option -n) refuses to run if partitions are mounted from the drive. So I'd do the 'badblocks -sv /dev/hda' right now, if you do not need the drive at full speed for a while. You can interrupt it at any point with Ctrl-Z and continue with the fg command. > Maybe I should just get a new drive that supports SMART? When the drive is that old it does not support SMART, you probably can get one ten times as huge for much less than it had cost you. And I would trust a new drive much more than such an old one. Depends on how important the data is, if a total loss would not be too painful and I had backups, and I would not need more speed and size, I would keep it if it shows no errors. Wonko
