Late follow-up to this old thread: Tim: >> [root@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.) Don't send private replies to my address, the mailbox is ignored. I read messages from the public lists.
