[ale] low level format

[Chuck Payne]

On Wed, Jun 27, 2012 at 5:57 PM, Chuck Payne <terrorpup at gmail.com> wrote:
> Thanks guys, I am going to see if I can use the Boot DVD. I love to
> get spinrite, but I have beg and steal to the money to replace the bad
> drive. The CFO of my family looks at my computer as toy and not a tool
> to improve myself.
>
> Chuck
>
> On Wed, Jun 27, 2012 at 5:13 PM, Brian Mathis
> <brian.mathis+ale at betteradmin.com> wrote:
>> On Tue, Jun 26, 2012 at 5:29 PM, Chuck Payne <terrorpup at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> I haven't done a low level format since the days when I ran only SCSI.
>>> Can I do a low level format on SATA Drives? I am trying to see if a
>>> drive is really toast, or can be save. I am running Linux on the host
>>> that it is on.
>>>
>>> --
>>> Terror PUP a.k.a
>>> Chuck "PUP" Payne
>>
>>
>> The discussion seems to have taken a turn directly into "secure
>> wiping" which has nothing to do with what most people are talking
>> about when they say "low level format", and even when people say that,
>> that's not what they really want either.  There's almost never a time
>> when you wanted to, or even could, do a real "low level" format.
>> That's a factory-only operation.
>>
>> You mentioned that you want to see if your drive is bad.  In Linux,
>> the way to do this is to run the "badblocks" program.  You can choose
>> a destructive or non-destructive.  You can run it on a whole device,
>> or a partition.  You can also run it through e2fsck, if you have an
>> existing filesystem on there.
>>
>> Another option is "spinrite", which works really well and can almost
>> perform miracles for recovering data.  It's able to locate bad blocks
>> as well as recover data.  Spinrite is a commercial product though.
>>
>>
>> ❧ Brian Mathis
>>
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>
>
>
> --
> Terror PUP a.k.a
> Chuck "PUP" Payne
>
> (678) 636-9678
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>
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> See you at Southeast Linux Fest, June 8-10, 2012 in Charlotte, NC.
> www.southeastlinuxfest.org

More information, smartd was reporting 4 bad sectors, then last week I
was getting a weird error that there was a hole in the EXT in dmesg
and the drive went missing until I reboot and next I am see this in...

[41442.498058] ata8: softreset failed (device not ready)
[41442.498068] ata8: hard resetting link
[41446.996085] ata8: SATA link up 1.5 Gbps (SStatus 113 SControl 310)
[41447.010713] ata8.00: configured for UDMA/33
[41447.010801] ata8: EH complete

So I am hopeing that the lowlevel will fix this, if not I have a 1.5T
to replace 1T.

-- 
Terror PUP a.k.a
Chuck "PUP" Payne

(678) 636-9678
-----------------------------------------
Discover it! Enjoy it! Share it! openSUSE Linux.
-----------------------------------------
openSUSE -- en.opensuse.org/User:Terrorpup
openSUSE Ambassador/openSUSE Member
Community Manager -- Southeast Linux Foundation (SELF)
skype,twiiter,identica,friendfeed -- terrorpup
freenode(irc) --terrorpup/lupinstein
Register Linux Userid: 155363

Have you tried SUSE Studio? Need to create a Live CD,  an app you want
to package and distribute , or create your own linux distro. Give SUSE
Studio a try. www.susestudio.com.
See you at Southeast Linux Fest, June 8-10, 2012 in Charlotte, NC.
www.southeastlinuxfest.org