Is this PC doa? (was a formatting question)

[Basil Chupin]

On 16/11/2010 18:39, Mark wrote:
> On Mon, Nov 15, 2010 at 11:15 PM, Basil Chupin<blchupin at iinet.net.au>  wrote:
>    
>> On 16/11/2010 17:00, Mark wrote:
>>      
>>> Probably yes, maybe no.
>>>
>>>        
> :
>    
>> When I was running openSUSE there was an app called something line
>> smart-tools or close to this. I had it installed and running.
>>
>> While my HDs did not display the SMART error message as the OP stated,
>> knowing that my HDs were some years old I kept an eye on the smart-tools
>> log file almost on a daily basis. The log file showed me that the HDs
>> were developing bad sectors on a daily basis - and which, of course, the
>> system was taking care of by 'moving ' the affected data to new sectors.
>>
>> And just to add to your comment, I also ran the Seagate 'SeaTools'
>> against the HDs and was informed that there was absolutely nothing wrong
>> with the HDs. But the bad sectors kept increasing....
>>
>>      
> I suspect that this would fall into the "Probably yes" category then.
>
> One should always err on the side of caution when it comes to data protection.
>    

Yea, which is what I was implying.

The HDs I am talking about are actually Maxtors - and Maxtor was 
acquired by Seagate which is why I had to use Seagate SeaTools on them. 
The drives are still working and still do not display any SMART error 
messages and SeaTools still shows that they are OK.

On the other hand, in September 2009 I bought 2 Western Digital 500GB 
HDs, which went against my instinct, and neither showed up any SMART 
errors except that one morning when I switched on the system the whole 
sheebang did not boot. Why? Because one of these you-beaut WD marvels 
simply failed - no SMART messages, no nothing, just didn't spin up. It's 
still under warranty by I cannot have it replaced because it contains 
very sensitive personal data which I can only destroy by doing an HD 
scrub used by the military and which would void the warranty. So, the 
fate which awaits this HD is a 3Kg sledge hammer.

(And I won't mention the 2 Seagates I also bought. both of which failed 
and both which were replaced but one of the replacemants decided in a 
less than a week to go belly-up and would not accept at being the Main 
Drive in an installation but (I think) accepts to be the Secondary Drive 
which does not contain the bootable, main, system.)

BC

-- 
A man kept complaining about not having shoes to wear - until he saw a man with no legs.