I want to know if I have badblocks on my sdb5 HDD.

[Derek Broughton]

Steven Vollom wrote:

> I did the following in the Shell:
> 
> steven at Studio25:~$ e2fsck -c
> Usage: e2fsck [-panyrcdfvstDFSV] [-b superblock] [-B blocksize]
>                 [-I inode_buffer_blocks] [-P process_inode_size]
>                 [-l|-L bad_blocks_file] [-C fd] [-j external_journal]
>                 [-E extended-options] device

In my experience it's been practically impossible to tell if you have 
bad blocks on the drive until it's at imminent risk of failure for 
_many_ years now.

This is because drives themselves remap bad blocks, and the OS - be it 
Linux, Windows or OSX never gets to see them.  It's only when the 
drive's internal badblock list is full that the OS will start to see and 
map bad blocks.  By this time, the drive is pretty near to toast.

> If there are badblocks and they are identified on the HDD, can the HDD
> still be used?  If I format the HDD, will the badblocks be wiped and
> usable after format?  TIA.

NO!  Bad blocks are BAD.  You map them out because they can NEVER be trusted.
-- 
derek