[TriLUG] image of hard drive question

[Bill Farrow]

I agree with Joe on thoroughly testing the drive before putting it
into active use.  My standard course of action is to download the disk
diagnostic tools from the manufacturers website and then run the
extended destructive test at least once to find any bad blocks or DOA
drive issues.

These diagnostic tools are typically a bootable CD, and under the
covers they send SMART commands to the drive.  You can also run the
Linux smartmon tools to do an extended offline test.  The newer
versions of this tool now work on USB mounted drives as well.

Bill