[CentOS] hard drive errors

[ken]

On 11/23/2009 07:52 PM lostson wrote:
> Hello 
>  
>  I seem to be getting some messages via email and in var/log/messages as
> well, i think its a hard drive gone bad but was wondering if anyone has
> seen something similar to this or would have some ideas if its fixable
> or not, here are the messages 
> 
> ....
> 
> The following warning/error was logged by the smartd daemon:
> 
> Device: /dev/hda, 993 Currently unreadable (pending) sectors
> 
> ....

I get this kind of warning also, though the number of unreadable sectors
I get is in the single digits.  All disks have some unreadable sectors.
 It's just a product of the manufacturing process.  A low-level format
discovers these and marks and maps them so that they aren't used... so
not a big deal.  (You are, after all, getting the message about them,
right?)  So having unusable sectors isn't in itself a problem.  You've
got a lot of them, but then perhaps your drive and the part of it you're
using is much larger than mine.  If this 993 sectors is a considerable
percentage of your disk, then you'd have cause to ask for a refund or
exchange on the purchase, but still no real cause for alarm.  However,
if that number of sectors increases over time, then you have a sign of a
failing drive and obviously would want to replace it ASAP.


hth,
ken