On Thu, 2006-02-23 at 11:09 +0000, Laurence Orchard wrote: > I am not sure that this IS a hardware problem. > smartd initially started complaining about /dev/hdf, this is a single > filesystem disc of 120Mb that I used only for backup. As I said I > remade the filesystem & checked it, but it found NO errors. > At the moment it is not used and has not been used since it was > remade, but smartd is still complaining of pending sectors. A file system might still work, for now, on a drive with hardware errors. Drives try to hide disk errors from you as much as possible, but there's a limit. If you're not sure about smartd's report, you could try a few things: Make sure that drive's the only one on the cable, so you don't have some other drive confusing things. If you still get errors, it makes that drive, or the interface, suspicious. Try the drive plugged in somewhere else to eliminate the interface. Go to the website for your drive's manufacturer, and download there own diagnostic tool. If that throws up warnings, then be quite concerned that your drive is unreliable. -- Don't send private replies to my address, the mailbox is ignored. I read messages from the public lists.