Bad sectors, what to do with them?
 

Here's what I ran:

sudo badblocks -sv /dev/hda
Checking blocks 0 to 20010815
Checking for bad blocks (read-only test): 193106569310656/ 20010815
193106649310664/ 20010815
193106659310665/ 20010815
193106669310666/ 20010815
193106679310667/ 20010815
done
Pass completed, 5 bad blocks found.


what should I do with this data? Can I blacklist those 5 sectors?

Hi.

Check the man page for mkfs.ext3 and look for the '-l' option.

I'd be wary of entrusting valuable data to that disk though...

Dave

Use a hard disk utility from the manufacture to mark those sectors as bad and it should use its spare sectors as a substitute. If you run the badblock utility, it should not list any bad sectors.

Is there a way to do this from a distance? I'm running the server over ssh, and the box is in a different city.

You can not do anything on your end. Force the person that built the server to fix the problem. One of the fixes is using a hard drive utility from the hard drive manufacture. If the utility badblocks still prints out corrupt sectors, it is best to just replace the hard drive.