fixing a box where the hard disc may failed

[Tim]

Late follow-up to this old thread:

Tim:
>> [root at 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.)

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