[ale] what exactly does a long smart hdd test do?

[Scott Castaline]

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On 05/14/2012 08:31 AM, Jim Kinney wrote:
> 
> 
> On Sun, May 13, 2012 at 11:28 PM, Scott Castaline
> <skotchman at gmail.com <mailto:skotchman at gmail.com>> wrote:
> 
> On 05/13/2012 07:42 PM, Jim Kinney wrote:
> 
>> I have thoroughly enjoyed this thread. Lot's of stuff going
>> around that in my desire for brevity sums up as:
> 
>> If any tool start reporting a drive failure, make backups now
>> while the new drive is being delivered or picked up. Once failed,
>> a drive is not data safe to use as a drive and should be
>> considered as nothing more than metal for recycling. There is no
>> tool that can bring a drive back into reliable service. Any
>> software maker that claims to be able to "repair a bad drive" is
>> blowing smoke up a kilt. At most they can relocate bits from a
>> failing sector to another location. The failing sector(s) is(are)
>> not fixable.
> 
>> I had 4 drives in my main home desktop. SMART data said two of
>> them were failing. I did not see this data as I did not look.
>> There were date stamps on the data that indicated those drives
>> reached their state of impending failure about 2 years before I
>> read the SMART data. During those 2 years, I noticed no problems
>> nor lost any data. Once I notice the state of the drives, I
>> migrated the contents (with tar, not dd) to a new drive and
>> pulled those drives from service. About 6 months later I needed a
>> drive to be an intermediary storage point for a temp processes
>> and I pulled one of those from the junk pile. I ran badblocks on
>> it and it reported a pile of repairs. I then formatted it. At the
>> end of the format the drive utility in Fedora popped up and began
>> spewing SMART data failure messages. The relocated blocks count
>> had exceeded what the SMART process could hold. I reworked the
>> drive with badblocks and partitioned it to avoid the failed
>> areas. The SMART subsystem was still unimpressed with my attempt
>> at dodging failures and STILL puked errors out. In short, I was
>> able to partition around the multiple failed areas and my drive
>> went from 250GB to about 80GB usable.
> 
>> At this point I went to MicroCenter and bought a new drive. The 
>> old drive is now in pieces having surrendered it's positioning 
>> magnets to my son and the platter will become a nice wind chime.
>> --
> 
> Platters make good clock faces too ;-)
> 
> 
> 
>> AND!!! If you heat them in spots with a torch, they will hold the
>> colors well while remaining rather shiny and not bit free!
> 
Also fun to roll them on the clean room floor to see how far up the
wall they would go. I one time got one go all the way to the ceiling,
could never do it again, even with the same platters. The best ones
were the ones from the ST251.
> 
> 
>> -- James P. Kinney III
> 
>> As long as the general population is passive, apathetic,
>> diverted to consumerism or hatred of the vulnerable, then the
>> powerful can do as they please, and those who survive will be
>> left to contemplate the outcome. - ////2011 Noam Chomsky
> 
>> http://heretothereideas.blogspot.com/ ////
> 
> 
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> 
> _______________________________________________ Ale mailing list 
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> 
> 
> 
> -- -- James P. Kinney III
> 
> As long as the general population is passive, apathetic, diverted
> to consumerism or hatred of the vulnerable, then the powerful can
> do as they please, and those who survive will be left to
> contemplate the outcome. - ////2011 Noam Chomsky
> 
> http://heretothereideas.blogspot.com/ ////
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________ Ale mailing list 
> Ale at ale.org http://mail.ale.org/mailman/listinfo/ale See JOBS,
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