hard disc health checks

[Mogens Kjaer]

Ian Malone wrote:
> Has anyone any suggestions for checking the physical
> health of a hard disc?  Something analogous to the
> "surface scan" in Windows Scandisk?
> 
> I've got a disc which has some sectors marked as bad
> by  Windows scandisk, and has had them for quite a
> while (for no obvious reason; I think scandisk messed
> up at some point).  smartctl for the drive is fine.

Have you run any smartctl tests?

smartctl -t long /dev/hda

sleep long time

smartctl -a /dev/hda

and look at the bottom. You would see something like:

Extended Offline Completed without error

if no error occured.

Note: There might be a logentry like this from
the manufacturing of the disk, look at the LiftTime
column.

Mogens

-- 
Mogens Kjaer, Carlsberg A/S, Computer Department
Gamle Carlsberg Vej 10, DK-2500 Valby, Denmark
Phone: +45 33 27 53 25, Fax: +45 33 27 47 08
Email: mk at crc.dk Homepage: http://www.crc.dk