Groups | Search | Server Info | Keyboard shortcuts | Login | Register [http] [https] [nntp] [nntps]

Groups > linux.debian.user > #226538

Re: how to test disk for bad sector

Show all headers | View raw

On 29.08.20 10:18, Alexander V. Makartsev wrote:
> On 29.08.2020 07:59, Long Wind wrote:
>> installation of linux to sdb1 fails
>> i believe hard disk has bad sector
> If hard drive has bad sectors or recently encountered them, information 
> about this should be noted to hard drive's SMART table.
> Alternatively, you can use "badblocks" program from "e2fsprogs" package 
> to scan hard drive for bad blocks.
> I'd perform tests on wiped clean hard drive with non-destructive read 
> test first, followed by write test.
> Testing media for bad blocks could be time consuming if hard drive is 
> multiple terabytes in size.
> 
>> i use e2fsck with -c, i.e. read-only test
>> it doesn't  report any error
>>
> 

I support this recommendation to use badblocks.
If you first would need to rescue data from the disk, although your 
question sounds like there is no data worth to rescue from the disk 
anymore, then use ddrescue from package gddrescue first.
Then, using badblocks, I recommend to run it in write mode with option 
"-n" for the following reason: if I am correctly informed, then disks 
with S.M.A.R.T have usually a reservoir of memory blocks to which the 
firmware of the disk itself, without the operating system seeing this, 
redirects by the disk itself already detected bad blocks. The statistics 
about these permanent redirection events is found in the S.M.A.R.T. log 
of the disk, which you can access by the smartctl program. But the 
internal mechanism of the disk's S.M.A.R.T. will only detect bad blocks 
upon the intent to write to blocks. Simply intending to read from bad 
blocks will not trigger S.M.A.R.T. to recognize blocks as bad blocks and 
they would thus not become visible in the S.M.A.R.T. report. If you 
later would write to the disk (i.e. during your OS installation you are 
mentioning as the cause to have encountered a problem with your 
hardware) then either S.M.A.R.T. will invisibly protect you by applying 
its internal redirection mechanism to reservoir blocks, or, if no more 
reservoir blocks are available, leave the operating system with the 
problem. This is what might happen in your situation right now. So, the 
operating system now needs to maintain its own list of bad blocks, which 
is thus the list of bad blocks no more cared for by S.M.A.R.T. . Again, 
simply reading from the disk might not be enough to properly detect 
these still present bad blocks. Therefore I recommend to let the 
operating system search for them by running badblocks with option "-n" 
(or "-w", please consult the man pages what better fits your needs) in 
write mode! Actually, I would recommend to repeat such run several 
times, in order to monitor if the amount of bad blocks is at least 
constant or if it is increasing. In the latter case you should replace 
the disk by a new one for sure. In the former case, if badblocks command 
finds already bad blocks which couldn't be cared for by S.M.A.R.T., I 
would also seriously consider to replace the disk for a new one now, if 
the financial situation allows for it. But if a replacement is wished to 
be avoided now for financial reasons, then at least continue to monitor 
the situation very frequently and of course at any time have a proper 
backup of your data on a still good medium. Given the requirement to 
frequently monitor a disk which can not buffer problems for you 
automatically by its S.M.A.R.T., and considering the time effort this 
repeatedly involves, you will have to balance this costs of time and 
missing trust in the present medium against the costs for a new disk.

If the disk comes out to not be the cause for your trouble encountered 
with your system, then you could check if all components on the 
motherboard involved in moving data around are still fine:
- write a heavy amount of data to the disk: with command dd copy a huge 
amount of data from an externally to USB connected drive to the drive 
which you at the moment suspect to trouble; maybe the motherboard fails 
from time to time to still handle such job free of errors; so, the disk 
might be still be fine and could be reused elsewhere, but the data 
highway on your motherboard started to fail; for this check I would not 
simply use if=/dev/zero, but really reading data from another drive, in 
order to ensure that on the motherboard the respective data highway has 
to be used as during your OS installation or during future data copy 
procedures;
- check your RAM with memtest86+, you will have to search for a Life 
pen-drive offering this command in its grub boot menu; I am not 
perfectly sure right now, but would expect the Knoppix Linux 
distribution to offer this;
- check your CPU with stress-ng

Good luck!
Marco

Back to linux.debian.user | Previous | Next — Previous in thread | Find similar | Unroll thread

Thread

how to test disk for bad sector Long Wind <longwind2@yahoo.com> - 2020-08-29 05:10 +0200
  Re: how to test disk for bad sector Patrick Bartek <nemommxiv@gmail.com> - 2020-08-29 05:40 +0200
    Re: how to test disk for bad sector Long Wind <longwind2@yahoo.com> - 2020-08-29 07:50 +0200
      Re: how to test disk for bad sector David <bouncingcats@gmail.com> - 2020-08-29 10:20 +0200
        Re: how to test disk for bad sector Long Wind <longwind2@yahoo.com> - 2020-08-29 12:00 +0200
          Re: how to test disk for bad sector David <bouncingcats@gmail.com> - 2020-08-30 00:10 +0200
            Re: how to test disk for bad sector David Wright <deblis@lionunicorn.co.uk> - 2020-09-08 06:30 +0200
              Re: how to test disk for bad sector David <bouncingcats@gmail.com> - 2020-09-09 16:40 +0200
      Re: how to test disk for bad sector Patrick Bartek <nemommxiv@gmail.com> - 2020-08-29 19:10 +0200
        Re: how to test disk for bad sector Long Wind <longwind2@yahoo.com> - 2020-08-29 22:20 +0200
      Re: how to test disk for bad sector David <bouncingcats@gmail.com> - 2020-08-30 00:00 +0200
        Re: how to test disk for bad sector Long Wind <longwind2@yahoo.com> - 2020-08-30 01:10 +0200
          Re: how to test disk for bad sector David <bouncingcats@gmail.com> - 2020-08-30 01:40 +0200
            Re: how to test disk for bad sector Long Wind <longwind2@yahoo.com> - 2020-08-30 02:10 +0200
              Re: how to test disk for bad sector David <bouncingcats@gmail.com> - 2020-08-30 02:40 +0200
              Re: how to test disk for bad sector Andy Smith <andy@strugglers.net> - 2020-08-30 16:10 +0200
                Re: how to test disk for bad sector Charles Curley <charlescurley@charlescurley.com> - 2020-08-30 16:30 +0200
                Re: how to test disk for bad sector Long Wind <longwind2@yahoo.com> - 2020-08-31 00:10 +0200
                Re: how to test disk for bad sector Charles Curley <charlescurley@charlescurley.com> - 2020-08-31 04:10 +0200
                Re: how to test disk for bad sector Long Wind <longwind2@yahoo.com> - 2020-08-31 05:00 +0200
                Re: how to test disk for bad sector Patrick Bartek <nemommxiv@gmail.com> - 2020-08-31 18:30 +0200
                Re: how to test disk for bad sector Long Wind <longwind2@yahoo.com> - 2020-08-31 23:50 +0200
                Re: how to test disk for bad sector Patrick Bartek <nemommxiv@gmail.com> - 2020-09-01 04:20 +0200
                Re: how to test disk for bad sector David <bouncingcats@gmail.com> - 2020-09-01 05:40 +0200
                passwords + bad memory - Was (Re: how to test disk for bad sector) Mike McClain <mike.junk.46@att.net> - 2020-09-02 01:10 +0200
                Re: passwords + bad memory - Was (Re: how to test disk for bad  sector) Ben Caradoc-Davies <ben@transient.nz> - 2020-09-02 01:40 +0200
                Re: passwords + bad memory - Was (Re: how to test disk for bad  sector) <tomas@tuxteam.de> - 2020-09-02 09:40 +0200
                Re: passwords + bad memory - Was (Re: how to test disk for bad sector) rhkramer@gmail.com - 2020-09-02 15:30 +0200
                Re: passwords + bad memory - Was (Re: how to test disk for bad  sector) <tomas@tuxteam.de> - 2020-09-02 15:40 +0200
                Re: passwords + bad memory - Was (Re: how to test disk for bad sector) John Hasler <jhasler@newsguy.com> - 2020-09-02 18:40 +0200
                Re: passwords + bad memory - Was (Re: how to test disk for bad  sector) Brian <ad44@cityscape.co.uk> - 2020-09-02 22:00 +0200
                Re: passwords + bad memory - Was (Re: how to test disk for bad  sector) <tomas@tuxteam.de> - 2020-09-02 22:10 +0200
                Re: passwords + bad memory - Was (Re: how to test disk for bad sector) John Hasler <jhasler@newsguy.com> - 2020-09-03 01:40 +0200
                Re: passwords + bad memory - Was (Re: how to test disk for bad  sector) Brian <ad44@cityscape.co.uk> - 2020-09-03 12:40 +0200
                Re: passwords + bad memory - Was (Re: how to test disk for bad sector) rhkramer@gmail.com - 2020-09-02 01:50 +0200
                Re: passwords + bad memory - Was (Re: how to test disk for bad  sector) Tom Dial <tddial@comcast.net> - 2020-09-02 09:00 +0200
                Re: passwords + bad memory - Was (Re: how to test disk for bad  sector) Andrei POPESCU <andreimpopescu@gmail.com> - 2020-09-02 11:20 +0200
                Re: passwords + bad memory - Was (Re: how to test disk for bad sector) rhkramer@gmail.com - 2020-09-02 15:30 +0200
      Re: how to test disk for bad sector Michael Stone <mstone@debian.org> - 2020-08-31 20:40 +0200
  Re: how to test disk for bad sector David <bouncingcats@gmail.com> - 2020-08-29 05:50 +0200
    Re: how to test disk for bad sector Long Wind <longwind2@yahoo.com> - 2020-08-29 06:50 +0200
  Re: how to test disk for bad sector "Alexander V. Makartsev" <avbetev@gmail.com> - 2020-08-29 10:20 +0200
    Re: how to test disk for bad sector Long Wind <longwind2@yahoo.com> - 2020-08-29 13:20 +0200
      Re: how to test disk for bad sector Kenneth Parker <sea7kenp@gmail.com> - 2020-08-29 13:50 +0200
      Re: how to test disk for bad sector Long Wind <longwind2@yahoo.com> - 2020-08-29 14:30 +0200
        Re: how to test disk for bad sector Marco Möller <talby@debianlists.mobilxpress.net> - 2020-08-29 18:50 +0200
          Re: how to test disk for bad sector Long Wind <longwind2@yahoo.com> - 2020-08-30 00:20 +0200
            Re: how to test disk for bad sector Marco Möller <talby@debianlists.mobilxpress.net> - 2020-08-30 02:40 +0200
              Re: how to test disk for bad sector Gene Heskett <gheskett@shentel.net> - 2020-08-30 03:10 +0200
                Re: how to test disk for bad sector Long Wind <longwind2@yahoo.com> - 2020-08-30 04:10 +0200
                Re: how to test disk for bad sector Gene Heskett <gheskett@shentel.net> - 2020-08-30 05:10 +0200
                Re: how to test disk for bad sector <tomas@tuxteam.de> - 2020-08-30 09:30 +0200
                Re: how to test disk for bad sector Marco Möller <talby@debianlists.mobilxpress.net> - 2020-08-30 21:00 +0200
                Re: how to test disk for bad sector Long Wind <longwind2@yahoo.com> - 2020-08-31 00:00 +0200
                Re: how to test disk for bad sector Andrei POPESCU <andreimpopescu@gmail.com> - 2020-09-02 11:30 +0200
              Re: how to test disk for bad sector Keith Bainbridge <keithrbaugroups@gmail.com> - 2020-08-30 06:00 +0200
    Re: how to test disk for bad sector Marco Möller <talby@debianlists.mobilxpress.net> - 2020-08-29 15:00 +0200

csiph-web