hello i would like your help
im a newbie on linux suse 10
im looking for a program that allows me to explore sectors on my HDD
like a SCANDISK, but one that can actually fix bad sectors or at least mark them...

i have couple of bad sectors and sometimes my kde3 just freeze

hope you can help me i just neeed a program or command name and small instructions if it isnt that much trouble.

LVM

Download the hard drive diagnostic utility from the hard drive manufacturer's website. All the main hard drive manufacturers have them available(seagate, maxtor, wester digital, hitachi/ibm). The manufacturer's utilities are best for this job.

Welcome to LQ!

You can run badblocks and save the bad sectors to a file; then use mkfs to make sure the filesystem won't use those sectors.

how to do MKFS not to read the bad blocks?

thanx

To be quite honest with you I've never done it,
but was told to by a guy who's been Slacking
longer than me. See if you can figure it out by
reading the man pages; in the meantime, maybe
one of them gurus will show up. I have a drive
in a lappy with a bad block ... just haven't
stopped to do this yet.

You should use the "-c" option with mkfs:

# mkfs -ct <filesystem> <partition device file>

"c" causes mkfs to check for bad blocks before creating the filesystem and not use those blocks.

However, I would still recommend using the manufacturer's hard drive utilities to thoroughly check the drive. The presence of noticable bad blocks such that it's interfering with proper functioning is a sign that the drive may be on it's way out. Back up your data and check the drive out. It may be time to start looking at new hard drives.

If you have problems with hdd bad sectors I found something at fix-hdd-bad-sectors.com Good luck I hope you will resolve your problem.