There is always Spinrite (http://www.grc.com/intro.htm) It has been around since DOS was new. Supposedly it does Linux drives these days. I think I used back in the old days but never since.

As to the SMART warning - I got the same thing on a Seagate Barracuda which I was using to test a Beta of the latest Ubuntu. Said the drive was about to die. I tested the drive with GSmartControl (you can install it from the repositories) and it showed that the "Reallocated Sector Count" was above the threshold. Other than that the drive tested fine. I ran the Seagate utilities from a DOS bootable CD (made from an image on the Seagate site) and it told me the same thing. I contacted Seagate tech support and they told me that the drive was OK. When a bad sector is identified the data is moved to a spare sector and the bad sector is no longer used. This is by design and as to the SMART warning - as long as the number of sectors does not climb - don't worry about the drive.

Toshiba probably has utilities that you can boot from a CD and test your drive. I would give that a try.

Ken

Hi,

The manufactures diagnostics are not specific to any OS. You would generally create a floppy, CD or other removable media which would be bootable. This media would contain the diagnostic set.

There are 'badblock' options for most commands. Read the 'man' page.

Just a few links to help you with understanding;

Linux Documentation Project
Rute Tutorial & Exposition
Linux Command Guide
Bash Reference Manual
Advanced Bash-Scripting Guide
Linux Newbie Admin Guide
LinuxSelfHelp
Getting Started with Linux

These links and others can be found at 'Slackware-Links'. More than just Slackware® links!

1 members found this post helpful.

Thank you for that. I was following the links suggested here. Being a noob I didn't even know what manpages are or where they could be found or that they existed.

I wonder if SMART can be disabled... nothing in my BIOS, but maybe a jumper on the drive itself... ???

Anyway, before I read your helpful reply, I had already ordered and received a 250GB seagate 2.5" drive for the price of the spinrite utility.

Note to all: I have the original Toshiba CDs that came with it, and it is focused on reinstalling the factory software and that is all.

I kept repeating that, because it seem as though my initial post as to what I wanted was being ignored by some (where I mention I was looking for something equivalent to). And what I found was not resolving the problem.

To my great surprise, deleting partitions, re-creating and formatting new partitions, with GParted, did not make the problem go away. And I know that bad sectors multiplying immediately after numerous immediate power-offs probably isn't a physical defect but just due to files not having been closed properly.

I've ordered a USB external HDD enclosure for the hard drive in question, and when it arrives, I will try out the suggestions again, in this thread. For the moment, I have a new 2.5" 250GB hdd in my laptop, and is running fine now. But I definitely intend to follow through and get that drive working again (as soon as I have the enclosure that is).

With the cost of drives these days... It is hardly worth trying to fix them or sending them back for warranty repair. They are disposable. Just make sure you remove your data before you throw one in the trash - an axe works well

The first hard drive I purchased, for $399, was 40 MB - that's right megabytes. The most recent one was a Western Digital 1 TB black caviar (the faster ones) with a Black X docking station (normally $25 - 30) for $84 delivered.

Ken

The first drive I purchased... circa 1985 or so, was a 5MB hard drive for an Apple IIe clone I assembled myself. ;-) It was a bargain, because I almost ordered the 2MB that preceded it but waited.

It is nice to be able to pass a 160GB hdd down to an older slower machine that ran out of space on it's hard drives: you don't want to spend money on the old equipment, and it's nice to breathe new life into it with hand-me-down upgrades and a fast linux distro on it. My 4 year old daughter loves her Celeron 2.4gh computer with 2gb of ram, several hard drives, 20" screen and puppy linux on it! it runs uptoten.com fantastically! ;-)