From owner-freebsd-current@FreeBSD.ORG  Mon Nov  1 19:28:29 2004
Return-Path: <owner-freebsd-current@FreeBSD.ORG>
Delivered-To: freebsd-current@freebsd.org
Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125])
	by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 5739E16A4CE
	for <freebsd-current@freebsd.org>;
	Mon,  1 Nov 2004 19:28:29 +0000 (GMT)
Received: from ox.eicat.ca (ox.eicat.ca [66.96.30.35])
	by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id ED43243D54
	for <freebsd-current@freebsd.org>;
	Mon,  1 Nov 2004 19:28:28 +0000 (GMT)	(envelope-from dave@daveg.ca)
Received: from [66.96.20.43] (H43.C20.B96.tor.eicat.ca [66.96.20.43])
	by ox.eicat.ca (Postfix) with ESMTP id 9A391C83B
	for <freebsd-current@freebsd.org>;
	Mon,  1 Nov 2004 14:28:26 -0500 (EST)
Message-ID: <41868E49.8070809@daveg.ca>
Date: Mon, 01 Nov 2004 14:28:09 -0500
From: David Gilbert <dave@daveg.ca>
User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US;
	rv:1.7.1) Gecko/20040707
X-Accept-Language: en-us, en
MIME-Version: 1.0
To: freebsd-current@freebsd.org
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
X-Mailman-Approved-At: Tue, 02 Nov 2004 13:20:04 +0000
Subject: fsck --run-with-scissors
X-BeenThere: freebsd-current@freebsd.org
X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1
Precedence: list
List-Id: Discussions about the use of FreeBSD-current
	<freebsd-current.freebsd.org>
List-Unsubscribe: <http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-current>,
	<mailto:freebsd-current-request@freebsd.org?subject=unsubscribe>
List-Archive: <http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-current>
List-Post: <mailto:freebsd-current@freebsd.org>
List-Help: <mailto:freebsd-current-request@freebsd.org?subject=help>
List-Subscribe: <http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-current>,
	<mailto:freebsd-current-request@freebsd.org?subject=subscribe>
X-List-Received-Date: Mon, 01 Nov 2004 19:28:29 -0000

You know... I've had a number of unrelated disk failures in the last 7 
days.  In general, we have backups.  Some of the failures are such that 
I can still mount the fs readonly and avoid the dead area and get the 
last iota of data off, but some are not.

It would be really useful if fsck_ffs had a --run-with-scissors mode.  
Meaning a mode of last resort that may or may not make the disk work and 
may or may not totally screw with the disk.

As an example, my laptop drive died.  I don't really care about the data 
on disk because it's backed up.  However, it will be another day before 
Dell shows up with a new drive... meaning that now I'm suffering in XP.  
In many cases, if the block-in-question was written to (even though it 
can't be read), it would be reallocated by the drive logic.  Run with 
scissors should write all zeros to a block it can't read.

Are there any equivalents to --run-with-scissors?

Dave.