[ale] Strange drive (fdisk) output?

[Matt Kubilus]

count=16 will obliterate more than just the MBR.

On 1/30/07, James P. Kinney III <jkinney at localnetsolutions.com> wrote:
> On Mon, 2007-01-29 at 23:35 -0500, Christopher Bergeron wrote:
> > Thanks for the tips!   Is there a way I could take a bootsector from the
> > working drive and copy it onto the failed drive?
> > Perhaps:
> > dd if=/dev/hda of=/dev/hdb bs=1024?  What bs size should I specify, and
> > does it even matter?
>
> Given that the drive doesn't work at all, I suspect that the damage is
> physical and not logical. The 'dd' command would certainly overwrite the
> entire drive but it would fail at the end if hda is logically larger
> than hdb.
>
> I don't think the boot sector is corrupted, I think it is physically not
> accessible. Unless the data on the flaky drive is important (slurp it
> off using a 'dd' command like above) I would try using the 'dd
> if=/dev/zero of=/dev/hdb bs=512 count=16' to obliterate the MBR and then
> try to reformat the drive using fdisk.
> >
> > In fact, now that I think about it, I may have killed the drive that
> > way.  I was mirroring my drives using dd, so maybe I specified an
> > incorrect block size and corrupted the drive?
> >
> > Is there any way to correct the geometry of the drive using utilities,
> > or would my best bet be to copy the boot sector from another drive?
> > Failing that, I'm going to look into the warranty items (assuming, I
> > didn't corrupt it myself).
> >
> > Kind regards and thanks again!
> > Chris Bergeron
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > Michael B. Trausch wrote:
> > > On Mon, 2007-01-29 at 21:14 -0500, James P. Kinney III wrote:
> > >> Given the low cylinder count that is missing and the total failure of
> > >> the drive, I would surmise the boot sector has been destroyed.
> > >>
> > >> It ma be possible to resurrect the bad drive if the maker supplies a
> > >> special "driver" disk that has low level format tools.
> > >>
> > >> If not, start looking for the receipt and the warranty.
> > >>
> > >
> > > Western Digital, at least in my experience, does not require a receipt
> > > or proof of purchase.  All they require for a warranty replacement is
> > > the serial number.  They look it up, determine whether or not it is
> > > still eligible for warranty, and if it is, they'll replace it provided
> > > that you follow their RMA instructions.
> > >
> > >     -- Mike
> > >
> > > --
> > > Michael B. Trausch
> > > fd0man at gmail.com <mailto:fd0man at gmail.com>
> > > Phone: (404) 592-5746
> > > Jabber IM:  fd0man at gmail.com
> > > fd0man at livejournal.com
> > >
> > > *Demand Freedom!  Use **/open/** and **/free/** protocols, standards,
> > > and software!*
> > >
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> --
> James P. Kinney III
> CEO & Director of Engineering
> Local Net Solutions,LLC
> 770-493-8244
> http://www.localnetsolutions.com
>
> GPG ID: 829C6CA7 James P. Kinney III (M.S. Physics)
> <jkinney at localnetsolutions.com>
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