Re: low-level formatter for linux

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Bill Davidsen wrote:
Markus Kesaromous wrote:


See below, but the bottom line is that your drive is dying, the only question is if you will leave your data on it.

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From: gene.heskett@xxxxxxxxxxx
To: fedora-list@xxxxxxxxxx
Date: Wed, 5 Aug 2009 00:33:27 -0400
Subject: Re: low-level formatter for linux

On Tuesday 04 August 2009, Markus Kesaromous wrote:
----------------------------------------

Date: Wed, 5 Aug 2009 03:33:25 +0000
From: geleem@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
To: fedora-list@xxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: low-level formatter for linux

Markus Kesaromous wrote:
Is there a low-level HD formatter for linux?
linux-google search "low-level+format", will give 97k hits.

mainly, for a truly oem *low-level format* you need an oem format program.
they are available in dos format.

you will get advice to use 'dd' to zero out sectors.

you will find programs to do all sorts of security erasers.


for all practical purposes of clearing up why you need 'llf',

did you now have live-in girl friend and you want to be sure
she does not find your pron? ;)

your boss caught you with it on *his* computer?


for practical purposes, girl friend included, using
'dd if=/dev/random of=/dev/sdn bs=65536'
will removed any thing you need to worry about.


for legal reasons, fbi, irs, boss, etc, log;
http://www.linux-kurser.dk/secure_harddisk_eraser.html
for a type of 'erase' programs available.

there are many more, so you can look thru rest of 97k,
or modify "low-level+formatter" to lessen.

much fun to you. :)

--

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tc,hago.

g
.

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****
Why I need to do low level formatting?
Disk monitor is reporting 93 uncorrectable sector errors.
If that drive cannot correct them, it is already out of spare sectors and is
using its input power for life support.

But to be sure, please post the output of 'smartctl -a /dev/sdX'
where X is the rest of that devices name, a,b,c,d,e etc.

I'd retire it, before it falls over taking your data with it. Or are you
running amanda? I do. And I don't worry too much, I can do a bare metal
install on a fresh drive, fire up one of amanda's two recovery tools, and have my 99GB restored in about 3 hours, including the final reboot to put in my
latest kernel.

Is that a good enough reason? :)

PS: If I had something on the disk to hide from prying eyes, I would resort to a very simple solution: break open the drive (very easyli done), and place the platters on the fire grill for about 60 minutes. Ask a physics
professor. See what he has to say about it :)


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I don't know enough about amanda. Guess I have to read up on it.
Here is the output:

# smartctl -a /dev/sdb

smartctl version 5.38 [i386-redhat-linux-gnu] Copyright (C) 2002-8 Bruce Allen
Home page is http://smartmontools.sourceforge.net/

=== START OF INFORMATION SECTION ===
Model Family:     Seagate Barracuda 7200.9 family
Device Model:     ST3500641AS
Serial Number:    3PM07SFG
Firmware Version: 3.AAD
User Capacity:    500,107,862,016 bytes
Device is:        In smartctl database [for details use: -P show]
ATA Version is:   7
ATA Standard is:  Exact ATA specification draft version not indicated
Local Time is:    Tue Aug  4 21:42:21 2009 PDT
SMART support is: Available - device has SMART capability.
SMART support is: Enabled


SMART Attributes Data Structure revision number: 10
Vendor Specific SMART Attributes with Thresholds:
ID# ATTRIBUTE_NAME FLAG VALUE WORST THRESH TYPE UPDATED WHEN_FAILED RAW_VALUE 1 Raw_Read_Error_Rate 0x000f 108 078 006 Pre-fail Always - 157925240 3 Spin_Up_Time 0x0003 096 096 000 Pre-fail Always - 0 4 Start_Stop_Count 0x0032 100 100 020 Old_age Always - 670 5 Reallocated_Sector_Ct 0x0033 100 100 036 Pre-fail Always - 1 7 Seek_Error_Rate 0x000f 087 060 030 Pre-fail Always - 627490383 9 Power_On_Hours 0x0032 082 082 000 Old_age Always - 16386 10 Spin_Retry_Count 0x0013 100 100 097 Pre-fail Always - 0 12 Power_Cycle_Count 0x0032 100 100 020 Old_age Always - 767 187 Reported_Uncorrect 0x0032 001 001 000 Old_age Always - 863 189 High_Fly_Writes 0x003a 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 0 190 Airflow_Temperature_Cel 0x0022 061 039 045 Old_age Always In_the_past 39 (0 2 41 29) 194 Temperature_Celsius 0x0022 039 061 000 Old_age Always - 39 (0 14 0 0) 195 Hardware_ECC_Recovered 0x001a 060 045 000 Old_age Always - 185506743


197 Current_Pending_Sector 0x0012 093 093 000 Old_age Always - 157 198 Offline_Uncorrectable 0x0010 093 093 000 Old_age Offline - 157

197-198 mean you have a ton of bad sectors. Either the media is deteriorating or the electronics are going bad.

199 UDMA_CRC_Error_Count 0x003e 200 037 000 Old_age Always - 366

And this (199) suggests problems getting data to the drive, or failing electronics in the drive.

200 Multi_Zone_Error_Rate 0x0000 100 253 000 Old_age Offline - 0 202 TA_Increase_Count 0x0032 100 253 000 Old_age Always - 0

SMART Error Log Version: 1
ATA Error Count: 1188 (device log contains only the most recent five errors)
    CR = Command Register [HEX]
    FR = Features Register [HEX]
    SC = Sector Count Register [HEX]
    SN = Sector Number Register [HEX]
    CL = Cylinder Low Register [HEX]
    CH = Cylinder High Register [HEX]
    DH = Device/Head Register [HEX]
    DC = Device Command Register [HEX]
    ER = Error register [HEX]
    ST = Status register [HEX]
Powered_Up_Time is measured from power on, and printed as
DDd+hh:mm:SS.sss where DD=days, hh=hours, mm=minutes,
SS=sec, and sss=millisec. It "wraps" after 49.710 days.

Error 1188 occurred at disk power-on lifetime: 9674 hours (403 days + 2 hours) When the command that caused the error occurred, the device was active or idle.

Error 1187 occurred at disk power-on lifetime: 9674 hours (403 days + 2 hours) When the command that caused the error occurred, the device was active or idle.

Error 1186 occurred at disk power-on lifetime: 9674 hours (403 days + 2 hours) When the command that caused the error occurred, the device was active or idle.

Error 1185 occurred at disk power-on lifetime: 9674 hours (403 days + 2 hours) When the command that caused the error occurred, the device was active or idle.

Error 1184 occurred at disk power-on lifetime: 9674 hours (403 days + 2 hours) When the command that caused the error occurred, the device was active or idle.

SMART Self-test log structure revision number 1
Num Test_Description Status Remaining LifeTime(hours) LBA_of_first_error # 1 Short offline Completed: read failure 80% 15374 752823153

I would say this drive is toast. Back it up, run DBAN on it, scrap it.

It is interesting that the drive is:
Model Family:     Seagate Barracuda 7200.9 family
Device Model:     ST3500641AS
Serial Number:    3PM07SFG

Some say that this is the "best" drive vendor that there
is available and one that sports a 5 yr warrantee.

I bought the same brand/model only it is a 750GB version,
that it went bad in less than a year for me.  I tried everything
I could throw at it (smart, dd, ...) and found the specific sectors
that it was failing at, and as smart says, it is `Offline_Uncorrectable'

I had 7 uncorrectable sectors that was "bad".  Luckily the damaged
sectors was in my swap partition, near the very "end" of the drive
space.

I obtained a new drive, copied over each of the good partitions to
the new drive, and now I have everything back to normal. I then
proceeded to wipe the bad drive clean of all data sans bad sectors,
proceeded to Seagate website, obtained an RMA, and sent
the bad drive back in to receive a factory refurbished drive as
stated in Seagate's RMA policies.

I don't think that `low-level' drive programs can fix
`Offline_Uncorrectable' sectors because if modern drives
that have "smart" support built in cannot correct these
problems, neither will anything else.

So, don't waste your time thinking you can recover
`Offline_Uncorrectable' sectors or to ignore the
warning, especially if the drive is under warrantee.

I could be wrong, but I doubt it.

FWIW.
Dan

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