Late follow-up to this old thread:
Tim:
> [root@box ~]# dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/hdc
> dd: writing to `/dev/hdc': Input/output error
> 23953097+0 records in
> 23953096+0 records out
James Wilkinson:
Whatever else smart says, *that* means either that the drive
isn't
capable of remapping bad sectors on write (bad), or that the drive has
run out of spare sectors to remap in (worse).
The usual advice here is that the drive *is* failing. I suspect you've
sent more time on it than the drive justifies.
Yes, and no. I count it as valuable information about dealing with a
failing system. Thankfully nothing on that system was really valuable,
but it's useful knowledge for something else in the future. And I'm not
about to spend somewhere around a whole day's potential wages on a new
hard drive.
That system was reformatted, FC4 re-installed (no problems noticed), a
webserver set up and left running. And at an uptime of 22:02:12 up 23
days, 1:00, right now, is still going strong with no errors being
logged. It'll stay the experimental test box, though. It's not one I'd
use for anything valueable - it's too much of a dog in numerous
respects.
Thus far, I think this box has probably had about a maximum of $20 spent
on it to build it (it was made from all the left-over parts, with the
addition of a few cables, and a bit of RAM swapsies). The time spent on
it is another matter, but then that time could have been spent learning
on that box, or any other, just the same. ;-)
--
(Currently testing FC5, but still running FC4, if that's important.)
Don't send private replies to my address, the mailbox is ignored.
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