[TriLUG] inconsistent results from badblocks

[Joseph Mack NA3T]

On Tue, 10 Nov 2009, Joseph Mack NA3T wrote:

> If Intrex's windows badblocks tester OK's the disk, I 
> won't know if I have a good disk or not.

Intrex uses the industry standard DFT by IBM (or Hitachi 
actually which seems to have been the one to buy IBM's disk 
business, freely available on the internet. You copy an 
image to a floppy or CD and boot from that. I can't imagine 
that it can find a usb disk, which is what I have. As well 
this being DOS, you've lost your machine for the duration of 
the test.

DFT is a (ro) check taking about 4hrs. The same disk takes 
40hrs for the (rw) 4 pattern badblocks test. I expect just 
about any disk can pass a short (ro) test, but that's the 
test at Intrex and they OK'ed the disk.

I conclude that the disk is good enough for windows users 
but somewhere betwen marginal and not good enough for Linux. 
However Intrex have done what they said they'd do and I 
guess I have the disk to keep now.

> Any other ways of checking the disk?

I looked on google and couldn't find anything as good as 
badblocks much less better. I conclude that badblocks is 
the gold standard.

However I don't know why I get different results for 2 
different runnings of badblocks.

Joe

-- 
Joseph Mack NA3T EME(B,D), FM05lw North Carolina
jmack (at) wm7d (dot) net - azimuthal equidistant map
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