Re: Linux disk diagnositic tools?

[Andrew Clausen]

Karl Krasnowsky wrote:
> 
> In an attempt to repartition my secondary drive last night, parted 1.2x
> reported disk read errors when I attempted to create a linux-swap
> partition.
> Events leading up to this:
> 1) After removing old partitions, created a 6g extended partition - worked
> fine
> 2) created a 1g logical partition (ext2) - worked fine
> 3) attempted to create the 128m linux-swap partition - failed miserably
> with multiple disk read errors.
> 
> Any advise on what I should do at this point? Obviously I'd rather not
> have to replace the disk if I can help it.

I'll be honest: I don't know much about how hard disks actually work.
However, doing a low-level format can help with bad sectors.  For
some strange reason, Linux can't do a low-level format of hard disks.
Most BIOSes can do it.

Also, you might want to look at LVM (linux.msede.com).  It has a
lot of useful features for dealing with bad disks (automatically
marks blocks bad, and relocates on the fly, etc.)  It has a LOT of
other features as well, so there is a bit of a learning curve...

Andrew Clausen