<html><head></head><body>I learned the hard way when I took some drives apart a few years ago that some of the platters are made of GLASS. I'm sure some of you know that but it was news to me at the time. I was used to good old trusty sturdy aluminum. I was quite surprised when one broke. Fortunately, I wasn't injured. If you drop one, they sometimes break in about a hundred LITTLE pieces. This certainly limits some of the fun you can have with them. I have a few hanging on a string in my basement office as a piece of techno art.<br>
<br>
Ron<br>
<br>
--<br>
<br>
Sent from my Android Acer A500 tablet with bluetooth keyboard and K-9 Mail.<br>
Please excuse my potential brevity.<br>
<br>
(To whom it may concern. My email address has changed. Replying to former<br>
messages prior to 03/31/12 with my personal address will go to the wrong<br>
address. Please send all personal correspondence to the new address.)<br>
<br>
(PS - If you email me and don't get a quick response, you might want to<br>
call on the phone. I get about 300 emails per day from alternate energy<br>
mailing lists and such. I don't always see new email messages very quickly.)<br>
<br>
Ron Frazier<br>
770-205-9422 (O) Leave a message.<br>
linuxdude AT <a href="http://techstarship.com">techstarship.com</a><br>
<br><br><div class="gmail_quote">Scott Castaline <skotchman@gmail.com> wrote:<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); padding-left: 1ex;">
<pre style="white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap:break-word; font-family: sans-serif">-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----<br />Hash: SHA1<br /><br />On 05/13/2012 07:42 PM, Jim Kinney wrote:<br />> <br />> I have thoroughly enjoyed this thread. Lot's of stuff going around<br />> that in my desire for brevity sums up as:<br />> <br />> If any tool start reporting a drive failure, make backups now while<br />> the new drive is being delivered or picked up. Once failed, a drive<br />> is not data safe to use as a drive and should be considered as<br />> nothing more than metal for recycling. There is no tool that can<br />> bring a drive back into reliable service. Any software maker that<br />> claims to be able to "repair a bad drive" is blowing smoke up a<br />> kilt. At most they can relocate bits from a failing sector to<br />> another location. The failing sector(s) is(are) not fixable.<br />> <br />> I had 4 drives in my main home desktop. SMART data said two of them<br />> were failing. I did not see this data as I did not look. There were<br />> date stamps on the data that indicated those drives reached their<br />> state of impending failure about 2 years before I read the SMART<br />> data. During those 2 years, I noticed no problems nor lost any<br />> data. Once I notice the state of the drives, I migrated the<br />> contents (with tar, not dd) to a new drive and pulled those drives<br />> from service. About 6 months later I needed a drive to be an<br />> intermediary storage point for a temp processes and I pulled one of<br />> those from the junk pile. I ran badblocks on it and it reported a<br />> pile of repairs. I then formatted it. At the end of the format the<br />> drive utility in Fedora popped up and began spewing SMART data<br />> failure messages. The relocated blocks count had exceeded what the <br />> SMART process could hold. I reworked the drive with badblocks and <br />> partitioned it to avoid the failed areas. The SMART subsystem was<br />> still unimpressed with my attempt at dodging failures and STILL<br />> puked errors out. In short, I was able to partition around the<br />> multiple failed areas and my drive went from 250GB to about 80GB<br />> usable.<br />> <br />> At this point I went to MicroCenter and bought a new drive. The<br />> old drive is now in pieces having surrendered it's positioning<br />> magnets to my son and the platter will become a nice wind chime. --<br />> <br />Platters make good clock faces too ;-)<br />> -- James P. Kinney III<br />> <br />> As long as the general population is passive, apathetic, diverted<br />> to consumerism or hatred of the vulnerable, then the powerful can<br />> do as they please, and those who survive will be left to<br />> contemplate the outcome. - ////2011 Noam Chomsky<br />> <br />> <a href="http://heretothereideas.blogspot.com">http://heretothereideas.blogspot.com</a>/ ////<br />> <br />> <br />><hr />Ale mailing list <br />> Ale@ale.org <a href="http://mail.ale.org/mailman/listinfo/ale">http://mail.ale.org/mailman/listinfo/ale</a> See JOBS,<br />> ANNOUNCE and SCHOOLS lists at <a href="http://mail.ale.org/mailman/listinfo">http://mail.ale.org/mailman/listinfo</a><br /><br />-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----<br />Version: GnuPG v1.4.12 (GNU/Linux)<br />Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - <a href="http://enigmail.mozdev.org">http://enigmail.mozdev.org</a>/<br /><br />iQIcBAEBAgAGBQJPsHvcAAoJEIefqZ0kni1dQwsP/0qQg7ideyw2nW6G0RF8KPas<br />AFsdT2zUi5UCGSJd/usQC6427qn84UBJY68js1Ot+xi0qioXfTS658zNib4yVPN/<br />FmxBjtq0dwMS51DKiSJU8S6NrV6yRXADemfGo3PZuUdgXTH57Sd+s2ABkjXYlFvL<br />EwRlN6xnrnYR6ikbV++h8JZKIivtB03dYPgS3PDmsqyapTCaQ76LO4oPcVz6qhag<br />3KnypKY/HbwukGupGCwUoTtYyXJZW+ukoiENij0DBxvOMvLbvygZlP52ptGOa+zR<br />l1XuxOQ73aqUCw6dhpb4ubprPoRku+EU2iamG2EGKDB+wa2n1ulv2WBFWYUWmi2F<br />axO+rfTE4tf7dxxZUtsqdYqU5hjDX/Mixhqqo+JlDNqhCmrOHYyQIzWJr4Ncyxhm<br />Nm5T07o+me2Kafc7ZfUbL4CMrkwTJWy81n4YOopUS4pEAnh6LFCU2LuSC2Dspj5Y<br />wVhl92rZ/bfoBTVEJ6NuIBewz/tI16F5ykuNBtkE0MuiwhcsQMUbLcvEfXotfCM7<br />RCg24eau2UdnkPC4TemFL/PRQVa7sOrxxU+Yh6VuX7Wgj2y8aMqRKx2kBCpDPIXD<br />bB2Q/UKXFOlTkacukhi0FxQUYRvNRC17KKiL/VsitXWthQdx1i2DMFEH92Qs8YkS<br />UnhFIpzwvZC7MDsvXSdm<br />=Z0Dp<br />-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----<br /><hr /><br />Ale mailing list<br />Ale@ale.org<br /><a href="http://mail.ale.org/mailman/listinfo/ale">http://mail.ale.org/mailman/listinfo/ale</a><br />See JOBS, ANNOUNCE and SCHOOLS lists at<br /><a href="http://mail.ale.org/mailman/listinfo">http://mail.ale.org/mailman/listinfo</a><br /></pre></blockquote></div></body></html>