bad blocks

[jludwig]

On Tue, 2004-08-17 at 12:52, Jack Howarth wrote:
>      I noticed the following error from the promise-sata
> driver when attempting to write from a drive which I believe
> has bad blocks. This is the correct interpretation of this
> error message, correct?
> 
> Current sda: sense key Medium Error
> Additional sense: Unrecovered read error-
>                   auto reallocate failed
> 
> The Western Digital Model: WDC WD1200JD-00F Rev: 02.0
> drive is being tested with their drive utility now
> for a RMA. 
>        What is the conventional wisdom about drive
> recovery in such a situation? If the WD utility 
> claims to have spared out the bad blocks would the
> drive be acceptable to use? My experience in recovering
> ide drives in such a manner hasn't been good. They
> eventually go south again.
>                       Jack
Newer drive automatically replace bad sectors with spares that are
included on the drive.

If you are seeing bad sectors this means one of two issues.

1) A virus (not likely)

2) Drive failure.

If the drive is failing get your data off now (only allow the drive to
run - spin up - while removing data).
-- 
jludwig <wralphie at comcast.net>