Re: [smartmontools-support]When is a dead disk really dead? (question about Reallocated Sector Count)

[Sebastian V. <seb...@he...>]

On Wednesday 21 December 2005 16:02, ever westward wrote:

> First of all, I know why my disk failed. I've been
> using it in an extremely dusty environment for the
> last 6 months.  Is it possible that dust has
> accumulated on the disk itself, and if so, can I open
> it up and flush it with a can of freon? Muahaha I have
> nothing to lose.

Harddrives are not completely sealed, afaik. Thus it is possible that dust 
accumulates inside the drive if used in dusty environments. It's possible to 
open a drive and clean it, but that won't bring back the failed sectors. The 
drive would have to be completely remapped and new reserve sectors 
allocated. You'd first have to get the right tools to be able to do this and 
then it's still not worth it considering the work that goes into it and how 
much a new drive costs. At least not for a single drive. 

If you want to take this as a learning experience then go right ahead. I'd 
still get a new drive for any important data.

> How do I access the smart selftests? I only used
> SMARTCTL.  But if there are other utilities, please
> let me know.

smartctl -t long <drive>

The above starts a long selftest. It runs in the background so you can
still use the drive while the test runs. A long test takes anywhere from an 
hour to a couple of hours depending on speed and size of the drive.

Sebastian