What does it take to corrupt an HDD?

vento90 · 10-11-2006, 03:33 AM

I'm dual booted & have uninstalled then installed 4 diferent distros in as many months. I've done so as a complete restore each time. Will this cause corruption of my HDD or something worse?

otchie1 · 10-11-2006, 04:07 AM

Nope. Your hdd was designed and built to be read from and written to over a period of years and will suffer no damage from repeated restore, re-install routines.

Hdd damage comes from excessive improper shutdowns where the arm doesn't get time to return to rest and simple old age.

Of course data corruption is a different issue and is more likely IMHO & experience under a naff OSS like WIndowsXP and earlier than modern unix variants.

IBall · 10-11-2006, 04:07 AM

Welcome to LQ!

No, you won't damage your hard drive by reinstalling Linux many times.

--Ian

vharishankar · 10-11-2006, 04:19 AM

I heard that low-level formatting (that is cleaning your entire hard disk using the BIOS or setup tool provided by the chip-maker) can lower your disk life.

High-level formatting or file-system formatting (the "normal" formatting) is usually safe and won't hurt your device.

vento90 · 10-11-2006, 02:21 PM

Thanks All!! I'm very relieved. Now I'll go back to finding a distro I can stay with!