Paul Smith <phhs80 <at> gmail.com> writes:
On Sat, Jun 22, 2013 at 6:48 AM, David G. Miller <dave <at> davenjudy.org>
wrote:
Chiming in with some additional information that only *partially* contradicts certain things that have been said in this thread. First off though, the advice that drives are cheap and data is expensive is absolutely correct. Do NOT let anything I say talk you out of making sure any critical data on this drive is backed up.
<SNIP>.
Thanks, Dave, for your very clarifying answer. Should I conclude from your words that I have already some corrupted files? If so, is there some way to identify them?
Paul
Paul -
Finding the files that may have been corrupted by a block going bad is a fairly long and involved process described here:
http://smartmontools.sourceforge.net/badblockhowto.html
For almost anything other than text files, finding the file that has a corrupted block doesn't do you any good unless you have a backup copy. But, if you don't, at least you know which file is probably not usable anymore.
For any installed application or OS files, you can always just re-install the package.
Cheers, Dave