Hi,

My harddisk is physically damaged (its visible even from looking at it).
mke2fs -cc \dev\hda4
gives me error messages like:
hda: write_initr error=0x10 {SectorId NotFound}
hda: write_initr status=0x51 { DriveReady SeekComplete Error}
etc.

Nevertheless the most part of the harddisk seems fine, there was windows on hda2, which was a 20GB partition and it was working. With a emergency floppy linux distro I deleted everything though and tried manually leave the damaged part (since it seemed the end of the harddisk) but I was unlucky. There is still a region, for which mk2fs gives me these above messages, and to overcome this I have a question.
Is there an intelligent way to have your hdd partitioned so that the physically bad secotrs are left out ? (>badblocks write everything into a a file, but mke2fs seems not able to handle the problem. Or if I need to do it manually. How do I convert the numbers
LBAsect, sector and that number which is running while >mk2fs -cc is running.
Thanx in advance.

Zoltan

Dude - I'm not sure what you mean when you say the "damage is visible" when you are looking at the disk. If you have removed the cover from your hard drive in order to look at the surface of the disk, then unless you live in a clean room, you're allowing dust and other particulate matter to enter the compartment, which in the long run will ruin your drive. Alternatively, if the cover is still on the hard disk, and "damage is visible", then it seems unlikely that you would even want to continue to use that hard drive, as it has been seriously abused. Either way, it does not sound likely that this hard drive has too much useful life left in it. My personal recommendation would be to either replace it with a new one, or if you want to keep using it, then to use it strictly for non-essential purposes, as it likely will have a fatal failure in the near future. (Another consideration would be how much of the disk capacity is unusable? If it's a signficant amount, then again that would add to the rationale to replace the disk.)

Please understand that I'm not trying to be negative or harsh about this, but realistically, from your description, that hard drive is unlikely to continue to function much longer. If there is any important data still left on the disk, I would suggest copying it to a safe place as quickly as possible. -- J.W.

No much more over what J.W. said, only to remember that in the new HD you should put more
partitions to reduce the lost of data. This includes the use of windows, too.

I meant that one can see that the metal frame of the hdd is deformed at one corner. However, I was brave and finally repartitioned it such that the two damaged regions were left out. Then mkfs -cc ran without any error message, so I put on windoze and RH9 and it's working! 37GB instead of 40, riskier than a brand bew hdd, but it would have hurt my wallet (as well as my heart) to through it away.