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<TITLE>Re: [CentOS] Re: SCSI bad block table display</TITLE>
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<BR>
<P><FONT SIZE=2>Google 'sdparam'<BR>
<BR>
-Ross<BR>
<BR>
<BR>
-----Original Message-----<BR>
From: centos-bounces@centos.org <centos-bounces@centos.org><BR>
To: CentOS mailing list <centos@centos.org><BR>
Sent: Wed Dec 05 18:44:08 2007<BR>
Subject: RE: [CentOS] Re: SCSI bad block table display<BR>
<BR>
From: Scott Silva Sent: December 5, 2007 15:09<BR>
><BR>
> on 12/5/2007 12:13 PM Hugh E Cruickshank spake the following:<BR>
> > Hi All:<BR>
> ><BR>
> > Is there a utility available that will allow for the dump/display of<BR>
> > the bad track table of a SCSI drive. We had this capability on SCO<BR>
> > OSR5 but I have not been able to locate anything similar for Linux.<BR>
> > The closest I have found is the badblocks utility that is part of the<BR>
> > e2fsprogs package but this appears to only test for bad blocks not<BR>
> > display the current bad block table contents.<BR>
> ><BR>
> > I have done quite a bit of searching with Google but either it does<BR>
> > not exist or (more than likely) I am using the wrong search parameters.<BR>
> ><BR>
> > TIA<BR>
> ><BR>
> > Regards, Hugh<BR>
> ><BR>
> Don't most modern drives cover up the bad blocks with controller<BR>
> logic and<BR>
> spare block substitutions?<BR>
><BR>
<BR>
All SCSI drives do this but what I am trying to do is display the<BR>
contents of this "bad block" table. I have some suspect drives that<BR>
had errors report but format fine at the controller level. I would<BR>
like to see how many bad blocks the format encountered and remapped.<BR>
If there are a large number of these then I do not want to use the<BR>
drives in any critical applications. If the number is small then I<BR>
will assume that the drive is basically fine to use and that the<BR>
errors were localized.<BR>
<BR>
Since I posted my original inquiry I have discovered that some of the<BR>
drive manufacturers have T&D utilities that might allow me to get at<BR>
this information. The main problem here is that they tend to be<BR>
Windows based which means that I will need to setup a Windows system<BR>
just to test the drives. I would rather test them in the systems that<BR>
the will be running in (one is CentOS 4.5 and one is RHEL3). Seagate<BR>
does have an older utility that supposedly will run at the Linux<BR>
CLI (their terminology) which I will be trying out.<BR>
<BR>
Regards, Hugh<BR>
<BR>
--<BR>
Hugh E Cruickshank, Forward Software, www.forward-software.com<BR>
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