From owner-freebsd-stable@FreeBSD.ORG Fri Aug 18 14:29:39 2006 Return-Path: X-Original-To: freebsd-stable@freebsd.org Delivered-To: freebsd-stable@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 7B1E416A4DF for ; Fri, 18 Aug 2006 14:29:39 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from brooks@lor.one-eyed-alien.net) Received: from sccmmhc91.asp.att.net (sccmmhc91.asp.att.net [204.127.203.211]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id F31F843D45 for ; Fri, 18 Aug 2006 14:29:38 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from brooks@lor.one-eyed-alien.net) Received: from lor.one-eyed-alien.net ([12.207.12.9]) by sccmmhc91.asp.att.net (sccmmhc91) with ESMTP id <20060818142936m910085g1ae>; Fri, 18 Aug 2006 14:29:37 +0000 Received: from lor.one-eyed-alien.net (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by lor.one-eyed-alien.net (8.13.6/8.13.6) with ESMTP id k7IETRCv002500; Fri, 18 Aug 2006 09:29:28 -0500 (CDT) (envelope-from brooks@lor.one-eyed-alien.net) Received: (from brooks@localhost) by lor.one-eyed-alien.net (8.13.6/8.13.6/Submit) id k7IETRsu002499; Fri, 18 Aug 2006 09:29:27 -0500 (CDT) (envelope-from brooks) Date: Fri, 18 Aug 2006 09:29:26 -0500 From: Brooks Davis To: Kirk Strauser Message-ID: <20060818142925.GA2463@lor.one-eyed-alien.net> References: <44E47092.7050104@mawer.org> <200608180919.04651.kirk@daycos.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart/signed; micalg=pgp-sha1; protocol="application/pgp-signature"; boundary="KsGdsel6WgEHnImy" Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <200608180919.04651.kirk@daycos.com> User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.11 Cc: freebsd-stable@freebsd.org Subject: Re: The need for initialising disks before use? X-BeenThere: freebsd-stable@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Production branch of FreeBSD source code List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Fri, 18 Aug 2006 14:29:39 -0000 --KsGdsel6WgEHnImy Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable On Fri, Aug 18, 2006 at 09:19:04AM -0500, Kirk Strauser wrote: > On Thursday 17 August 2006 8:35 am, Antony Mawer wrote: >=20 > > A quick question - is it recommended to initialise disks before using > > them to allow the disks to map out any "bad spots" early on? >=20 > Note: if you once you actually start seeing bad sectors, the drive is alm= ost=20 > dead. A drive can remap a pretty large number internally, but once that= =20 > pool is exhausted (and the number of errors is still growing=20 > exponentially), there's not a lot of life left. There are some exceptions to this. The drive can not remap a sector which failes to read. You must perform a write to cause the remap to occur. If you get a hard write failure it's gameover, but read failures aren't necessicary a sign the disk is hopeless. For example, the drive I've had in my laptop for most of the last year developed a three sector[0] error within a week or so of arrival. After dd'ing zeros over the problem sectors the problem sectors I've had no problems. -- Brooks [0] The error occured in one of the worst possible locations and fsck could not complete until I zeroed those locations. That really sucked. --KsGdsel6WgEHnImy Content-Type: application/pgp-signature Content-Disposition: inline -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.5 (FreeBSD) iD8DBQFE5c7FXY6L6fI4GtQRAhQiAJ9425rk9W3X9PfZDBjeog3SeTatPQCgq0NY n2CNOiF7lUzx2JIl+zRXP4I= =oQNz -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- --KsGdsel6WgEHnImy--