patching a crashed hard drive

[Robin Laing]

Mike McCarty wrote:
> Tony Nelson wrote:
> 
>> At 10:55 PM -0700 7/23/05, Craig White wrote:
>>
>>> On Fri, 2005-07-22 at 22:44 -0700, Roy W. Erickson wrote:
>>>
>>>> All:
>>>>
>>>> My computer fell over hitting the floor with a pretty good thud, while
>>>> up and running. The screen froze along with the mouse and keyboard.
> 
> 
> 
> [snip]
> 
>>
>> Yes indeed, you should replace it right away.  After copying all the data
>> to a new drive (and noting which files must be recovered from backup 
>> -- or
>> just admitting that the data is lost if there is no backup), you could 
>> try
>> a full format of the old drive.  That will cause the drive to write to
>> every sector and mark as bad (and not use) the sectors in the damaged 
>> area.
>> If this works, you will have a smaller drive; if it doesn't, the drive 
>> will
>> tell you.
> 
> 
> I strongly advise against using that drive any further. The magnetic
> coating on the drive has been compromised. Possibly the heads are
> damaged. Bits of the magnetic coating may flake off later, or may
> already have done so. If this occurs, there could be a complete
> head crash, resulting in the loss of all data stored on that disc.
> 
> Simply "avoiding" the damaged areas for data storage is not
> adequate protection. The heads still pass over those areas,
> even if not to read or write. A few microns of raised damage
> could eventually cause a lot of trouble later.
> 
> I advise to get what data may be recovered from that drive, and
> then consider it otherwise to be a total loss. Or it could be used
> as a junk disc just for test installs of new versions of Fedora
> or whatever, which one doesn't intend for anything but fooling
> around.
> 
> In any case, it should be prominently marked with DO NOT USE
> THIS DRIVE if you keep it around. I'd use a laundry marker or
> other indelible marker.
> 
> Just my $0.02 worth.
> 
> Mike

I will say that Mike's comments are totally valid.  At the cost of a 
drive, it is not worth the headache of losing all the data on the 
drive.  I made this mistake when drives were much more expensive. >$2k 
for 9gig and lost a whole drives worth of data.  Opened the drive 
later to find that the head had actually made a gouge in a drive platter.

Todays drives are much more sensitive to damage than earlier drives so 
it is even more imperative to get it replaced.

-- 
Robin Laing