spin rite is a nice tool for those who are computer users only. Us power users tend to get a bit more down and dirty with the hardware level codes than most. Badblocks has a couple of nice options that will allow you to mark off bad areas and write that info into a file that can also be used by mkfs when you go to make a new filesystem. These are utilities included by default in any Linux distribution. Also, all these utilities are command line and are quite accessible without the need of a special interface driver on a desktop. These are also available as command line utilities on just about every OS X machine around. Can't say that for windows. -eric On Dec 27, 2013, at 6:08 PM, Janina Sajka wrote: > > Well, I still don't see that it does anything special. For instance, if > you're worried about bad blocks, the command badblocks is perfectly > useful for just that. > > Janina > > Tim Chase writes: >> On December 27, 2013, Janina Sajka wrote: >>> use standard Linux tools, e.g. e2fsck and the >>> smartmontools like smartctl. >>> >>> This approach is fully accessible. >>> >>> So, what does spinWrite give you that you can't do per the above? >> >> Spinrite operates on the drive at the hardware level rather than >> filesystem-level (checked by e2fsck) or partition level. I'm less >> familiar with smartctl, but it appears to offer some overlap in >> functionality with Spinrite. >> >> In a way, the basic first level scan could possibly be replicated with >> "dd", reading the entire drive (/dev/sda) rather than a partition >> (/dev/sda1) and dumping the results to /dev/null which would force >> the drive to read every byte. This triggers the drive to look at >> every byte, check the drive's integrity at that location, and let >> the hardware move the data in the event that spot is getting hard to >> read. Based on the manpage, it sounds like smartctl might offer >> some similar functionality. Beyond that, I believe that Spinrite does >> more aggressive scans that will persist in an attempt to read data, >> even when the drive returns hardware errors, and can actively talk to >> the drive controller to move that data elsewhere in the event it had >> trouble, then mark the blocks as bad at the hardware level. >> >> Again, I'm only taking a stab in the dark based on the tidbits I've >> picked up on the SN podcast (which is well worth a listen, IMHO). >> I've never used the product, but at least the guy who wrote it seems >> to know what he's doing and make difficult technological topics >> accessible. >> >> -tim >> >> >> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> Blinux-list mailing list >> Blinux-list@xxxxxxxxxx >> https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/blinux-list > > -- > > Janina Sajka, Phone: +1.443.300.2200 > sip:janina@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx > Email: janina@xxxxxxxxxxx > > Linux Foundation Fellow > Executive Chair, Accessibility Workgroup: http://a11y.org > > The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) > Chair, Protocols & Formats http://www.w3.org/wai/pf > Indie UI http://www.w3.org/WAI/IndieUI/ > > _______________________________________________ > Blinux-list mailing list > Blinux-list@xxxxxxxxxx > https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/blinux-list _______________________________________________ Blinux-list mailing list Blinux-list@xxxxxxxxxx https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/blinux-list