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From: Martin Gregorie on 8 Apr 2010 18:40
Smartd is reporting

Device: /dev/sda, 2 Currently unreadable (pending) sectors

on one of me computers. Can anybody explain what this means and how
harmful it is or point me at a suitable explanation.

The machine has had 1 unreadable (pending) sector for a few months
without and apparent problems being caused. The last Smartd test has just
reported a second one.


--
martin@ | Martin Gregorie
gregorie. | Essex, UK
org |
From: Gordon Henderson on 9 Apr 2010 03:41
In article <hplm01$1h2$2(a)localhost.localdomain>,
Martin Gregorie <martin(a)address-in-sig.invalid> wrote:
>Smartd is reporting
>
>Device: /dev/sda, 2 Currently unreadable (pending) sectors
>
>on one of me computers. Can anybody explain what this means and how
>harmful it is or point me at a suitable explanation.
>
>The machine has had 1 unreadable (pending) sector for a few months
>without and apparent problems being caused. The last Smartd test has just
>reported a second one.

smartd is asking the drive to do a self-test and report the results -
it may not be an actual bad sector, but one that might be marginal.

Check the full results with:

smartctl -a /dev/sda

then force the issue with:

badblocks -s -c 256 /dev/sda

and see what happens. If it passes, then you're probably OK - for a while.

But be prepared to change the disk.

Gordon
From: Martin Gregorie on 9 Apr 2010 12:58
On Fri, 09 Apr 2010 07:41:37 +0000, Gordon Henderson wrote:

> In article <hplm01$1h2$2(a)localhost.localdomain>, Martin Gregorie
> <martin(a)address-in-sig.invalid> wrote:
>>Smartd is reporting
>>
>>Device: /dev/sda, 2 Currently unreadable (pending) sectors
>>
>>on one of me computers. Can anybody explain what this means and how
>>harmful it is or point me at a suitable explanation.
>>
>>The machine has had 1 unreadable (pending) sector for a few months
>>without and apparent problems being caused. The last Smartd test has
>>just reported a second one.
>
> smartd is asking the drive to do a self-test and report the results - it
> may not be an actual bad sector, but one that might be marginal.
>
> Check the full results with:
>
> smartctl -a /dev/sda
>
Oddly, this only reported a single unreadable (pending) error.

> then force the issue with:
>
> badblocks -s -c 256 /dev/sda
>
Didn't find any bad blocks.

> and see what happens. If it passes, then you're probably OK - for a
> while.
>
Yep, looks like this is the case.

Thanks, Gordon. I've filed your advice for future reference.


--
martin@ | Martin Gregorie
gregorie. | Essex, UK
org |
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