How to ckeck a HDD for bad sectors.

Hi, how do I ckeck a HDD for bad sectors? I don't seem to find an option for fsck to do this. Does the filesystem matter?

student975 wrote:
@ewaller
gsmartcontrol (GUI for smartmontools) says all self-tests are safe wrt data and "Extended self-test examines complete disk surface and performs various test routines built into the drive".
I believe all of that. I'm just not sure about the implications of trying it with a mounted file system. At the very least, I would expect the system to become extremely disk bound. Other scenarios are the drive might end or suspend the test to service other requests, or, the drive could become unresponsive to the point that the kernel pitches a fit.
If the tools allow you to start a test, I suppose the worst that can happen is a system crash with un-synced disks.

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How to know the size of bad sector block after zero out erase?

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My question is that how can I know the size of disk space marked as bad sector? Because I can only see how many space is used or available when I check a disk in disk utility. There are about 600MB used for my 1TB hard drive. I guess there is some storage used by spotlight or other hidden files. But I have no idea for how many MB is occupied by bad sector...

Yes you can look at see the original number of spares, the number used, and the number remaining spares.
Disk Warrior for one, writes the SMART data to system.log Other programs can also read and report (not sure which if any write to system.log though) those field values from SMART table entries.
IF the number of spares is declining, time to replace. Trouble is OS X hasn't had a good record of reporting I/O errors, let alone remapping. Some 3rd party utilities will. I've found the vendor (WD, Hitachi etc) have the best utility for their own drives, but those are Windows programs or LinuxCD. Also the best way to zero and map out bad sectors, too.

B570 600GB HDD with bad sectors (Recovery issue)

Hi,
I run into a series issue.
some facts before:
*The 600GB HDD has bad sectors (checked with WD test tool-boot cd)
*The bad sectors are only on the beginning of the physical drive (D partition and LENOVO_PART are intact and fully readable)
*Managed to recover most of the data of C drive (With restorer 2000)
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I can't seems to find a way to use the tiny recovery button, its failing and asking me to boot from cd.
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Thanks!

hi get2guy,
Welcome to the Lenovo Forums.
The OneKey Recovery button will only work if the partition structure of the system is not damage. On the new HDD that was cloned with the D-Drive and the OEM Recovery Partition, try to
1. Create a bootable Gparted USB/CD and boot from it
2. On the User Interface, set the OEM Recovery Partition as Active/Boot/Primary
3. Reboot and remove the Gparted USB/CD and see if it boots the recovery partition as shown in this article.
If the above procedure doesn't work, you will need to reinstall the OS using a retail OS or use a lenovo recovery discs (if you were not able to create one using this method then you will need to contact lenovo on how to obtain a copy of the B570 recovery discs).
Hope this helps
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How to create a documentation for Badi?

Hi All,
how to create a documentation for Badi?
This step is requested in the OSS note, but not explained how to perform it...
Thanks and regards,
Alex.

Hi All,
solved. created in SE18
I noticed, that it is also possible to create such documentation in SE61 *** well,
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Chapter SIMG
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How do I check for bad sectors on the hard drive? (Need help soon!)

I've asked this in a different thread but am not getting exactly the question answered completely. I need to run a check on my drive that will test each sector and if a bad sector is found, it will block that sector from being written to with data in the future.
I used to use Disk First Aid or Apple HD Setup or Norton Utilities to do this. Norton does not appear to be made for Mac OSX 10.4.4 and those other utilities appear to be System 9 and earlier utilities only.
Is there some way of doing this with current Apple tools? My original post is at http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=1592160#1592160
Thank you. I've been down since Saturday and really need to get an answer so I can move forward and get my computer back up and running.

There is only one way to do this. Make a bootable backup of your drive to an external Firewire drive (you can use the Restore option of Disk Utility.) Then do the following:
1 Boot from your Tiger DVD. After the installer loads select Disk Utility from the Utilities.
2. After DU loads select your hard drive (this is the entry with the mfgr.'s ID and size) from the left side list. Click on the Partition tab in the DU main window.
3. Set the number of partitions from the dropdown menu (use 1 partition unless you wish to make more.) Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled, if supported.) Click on the Partition button and wait until the volume(s) mount on the Desktop.
4. Select the volume you just created (this is the sub-entry under the drive entry) from the left side list. Click on the Erase tab in the DU main window.
5. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled, if supported.) Click on the Options button, check the button for Zero Data and click on OK to return to the Erase window.
6. Click on the Erase button. The format process will take 30 minutes to an hour or more depending upon the drive size.
By reformatting using the Zero Data option DU will force checking for bad blocks.
If you wish to forego the above procedure you can purchase TechTool Pro (v. 4.1.1) which has a module for scanning the disk for bad blocks. However, repairing the drive can only be done by reformatting.

Migrating from HDD with bad sectors to SSD

My mid-2010 Macbook pro running OSX 10.6.8 (Snow Leopard) has been extremely slow. It passes Disk Utility's Verify Disk step but when I brought it to the Apple store, it failed the diagnostic tests they ran with their ethernet cable. There were bad sectors detected and they figured this was what was slowing me down.
So I decided to switch to an SSD but I have questions about how to restore my files. I tried cloning my HD to an external drive with both Disk Utility's restore and using asr on the command line. In both cases I get an error at the very end
"Checksum failed. Could not restore - cannot allocate memory"
I'm still able to boot from the external drive that was created though. I was also (recently) able to create a Time Machine backup with no error messages. So my question is
1. What is the best way to restore my files?
a) Using the (possibly corrupt) HD clone
b) reinstalling from the OSX Installation DVD and restoring with Time Machine
c) Something else like Carbon Copy Clone

montburns,
Only by doing file-by-file examination against a known good copy, or relying upon a batch process which generates a “I couldn’t copy these” file list (and in the latter case, presuming that the list is due solely to bad sectors).
It means i) — either to put your internal drive in an external enclosure, or to attach it to a SATA-to-USB or SATA-to-FireWire adapter, then connecting it to the appropriate external port, and then using Startup Manager to select it as the boot drive.
If you have appropriate software, you could, but I’m not familiar with what’s available on OS X — I hope that other people can offer a list of apps from which you could choose.
Between ddrescue and rsync, I’d choose ddrescue for copying from a potentially faulty disk. To my knowledge, rsync will just copy whatever it finds; but if it creates a list of “I couldn’t copy these” files, then that could be a way to find out where bad sectors might be having an effect.

Hard disk failing -- how to safely backup data / remove bad sectors?

I'm sorry if this is posted in the wrong forums, I wasn't sure where to go.
It appears that I have a bad block on my hard drive. During normal boot-up, arch ran its regular scan of my / partition, and failed giving an error that looked something like:
Error reading block 13303898 (something here about a short read) while getting next inode from scan.
It then let me login as root for maintenance and mounted / as read only. By doing some work with du, I was able to narrow the problem to a bunch of files in a single folder. Attempting to access them with du gave the error
Ext3-fs error (device sda4): ext3_get_inode_loc: unable to read inode block - inode=3328795, block=13303898
The block was the same for all of the bad files, although the inode changed.
First question (probably the most important): Is it safe to mount my hard drive in read-write mode to try to backup my data? If I do so, what is the best way to proceed?
Second question (hopeful here, but not optimistic): The folder with the bad block is not critical at all. I've had the harddrive for less than a year, so I'm hoping it just got bumped and isn't completely dying. I'd like to think I can back up my data, use some software to ignore the bad block, and go on my merry way using the rest of my hard drive. Is this feasible or even possible? If so, how would I go about fixing this?
(Sigh) all of this the week before my final exams too, with critical data on the hard drive. Oh well, when it rains it pours I guess...

I would backup all the data I could to another HD, then I would zero de drive with dd and try to read it back with dd and see if it complains.
It may be a transient problem due to a failed write and not a physical problem.
Something similar happened to me before. But either way if dd solves your problem I would still keep a close eye on that disk.

How to lodge a complaint for bad Apple store experience

Hi
I had the worst experience of the lifetime with Apple store in Castle Hill Tower Sydney on 23/4/15. The Manager on duty (Mr Steve who refused to give his last name or employee number) was very arrogant and gave very insulting treatment. When I asked that I want to complain about him, the Manager behaved as if nobody was going to take any action against him (welcome this is Apple - sic)
I want to know how to lodge a complaint against Apple bad customer service.I checked Apple website which to my astonishment did not give any easy option for mailing complaints.
Can anybody tell me where to lodge complaints. Thanks.

[ same as the 'long thread' answer ]
Apple
PO Box A2629
Sydney South NSW 1235
133-622
https://www.apple.com/au/contact/
ÇÇÇ

Hi i have installed infinity blade 3 on my ipad mini today and when i try to launch it it quits how to fix this (sorry for bad english and thanks)

Infinity blade 3 not working

Reset the device:
Press and hold the Sleep/Wake button and the Home button together for at least ten seconds, until the Apple logo appears.
If that doesn't help, tap Settings > General > Reset > Reset All Settings
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Does the "Zero Out Data" feature in Disk Utility map out bad sectors/blocks?

I would like a definite answer on this one. I have heard that is does and that it doesn't.

Yes it does.
The way it works is this, your drive normally tries to write to sectors and if it can't write to one or more, then it writes someplace else and maps the bad sectors off in the driver software.
That's how it's supposed to work.
What I believe what happens is drives are made, but not checked for bad sectors at the factory as this is a considerable time consuming process.
So when a computer comes down the line, it's hard drive is just injected factory style the data it needs right on the drive, over bad sectors and everything.
Now it could be that, and or it could be the result of time and the drive sitting and being shipped. Normally the heads are locked.
Whatever, if you move a drive while the heads are over the platters, they can strike the platters and cause data loss from bad sectors. So it's important not to move or jar the computer while the hard drive is spinning, why Mac's have Sudden Motion Sensors built in.
So, if data is laid over bad sectors, or one has possibly damaged their drive slightly and the data on it, could result in glitchy or unexplained behavior.
Large files like video that take much space on the drive are more likely to encounter bad sectors and thus become incomplete when read later.
What the Disk Utility > Erase with Zero option does, is it tries to write 0's to EVERY BIT on the drive. A sector is made up of bits, 1's and 0's so this method ensures every bit is checked if it can be written too or not.
If a sector fails, then it's mapped off, never to be written too again.
When one places their data on the drive after a Zero, it's on 100% reliable bits and sectors. Thus there is less chance of file corruption when it's read later.
A video production guy told me this little trick as they have huge files so thus needed very reliable data retention and recovery.
I've been using this technique with all new drives for decades now and it's worked for me, unless I forget to do it.
Like anything, others may not require perfection. Regular users with small files all the time likely will lose a file here and there and go about living with it.
Big files are a different story obviously. So optional, not mandatory.
If your confident you can reinstall your operating system, then that's one thing, but if your not, then don't bother.

Help, my iPod hard disk has a bad sector!

Hello, I'm new to the forums, firstly to start off this topic, I live in the Middle east and as far as I can tell, it's very difficult to get any kind of customer service with apple in the middle east since it's poor.
I had purchased an 80G iPod classic (the 6th gen one) abroad in another country from where I live in Qatar. Now, my mother actually bought me this iPod as a gift for my birthday. I was delighted with it and protected it with all my heart until three months later, where I discovered that the iPod had no power left, so i connected it to the PC, synced my songs and listened to my music for the day.
While listening I noticed that the songs, paused, skipped and wouldn't play occasionally. So when I got home I synced again and I got an error.
"The iPod could not be synced because of an unknown error -60"
Now, this had happened to me a long time ago with my first iPod classic, so I changed the USB ports and tried again but it failed. I have tried everything since then, even restoring it on a Mac at the customer service department in Qatar, but I have not had a single inch of luck. I am really bummed with this problem.
I have only had this iPod for about 3 months, and I am so grateful for having it but, I can't do anything with it now, my songs don't sync and if I try to sync it on iTunes I can't access it from the My computer folder because it says the disk wasn't found.
I took it to customer service for the last time, he checked the warranty on the database of apple products and it said that the country of purchase was in the united states, now I don't live there and I didn't buy it from there so it must have been imported to the middle east. Anyways, he implied that if I wanted a new iPod I could go to the apple department in California and get it exchanged there, but it would be impossible to get it exchanged in the middle east.
I just want some help and I need to know one thing, have I been caught at a dead end? Is there nothing I can do for my iPod, except buy a new one?
If I used a mac and used Disk utility, would that fix the hard drive or bad sector?
Help would be appreciated, thanks.
- David.

Did you have any luck checking for bad sectors? Restoring the iPod may not deal with certain disk errors which should be addressed via regular disk utilities.
Hold Menu+Select for about 6 seconds until it resets, then hold Menu+Play as soon as the Apple logo appears, again for about 6 seconds to put the machine in disk mode. Connect to your computer, closing iTunes if it opens. Browse *My Computer* and right-click on the drive for the iPod, click Properties, then click Tools. Under Error-checking, click *Check Now*. Under Check disk options, select *Scan for and attempt recovery of bad sectors*. Click Start. Mac users should run *Disk Utility / Repair Disk* for the equivalent process. This should find and correct any errors in the logical & physical structures of your iPod's hard drive. Once these have been fixed you can reset the iPod (hold Menu+Select ) and should stand a better chance of a successful restore.
tt2

Bad Sector Hunter

Is there a program that can search the entire Macintosh HD for bad sectors and tell me which ones they are so I can go in and delete them?
Here's the problem I'm having: http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=653827
I ran DiskWarrior on my drive, and it fixed alot of things (I couldnt even get into my computer properly, but now i can) but I still have an error when I do an extended test on Apple Hardware Test w/ and w/o the peripherals connected.
I know theres got to be some bad sector(s) somewhere on the drive, so i want to know if theres a program that can search all the sectors on the HD, find the bad ones, and delete those so I wont have to trash a perfectly good hard drive cause of one flaky sector.
Thanks
-Mark

Tech Tool Pro can confirm that you have bad sectors on your harddrive, but you can't 'delete' bad sectors because having bad sectors is not a data problem, its a physical problem with the device.
You usually don't need any programs to tell whether you have bad sectors either. Signs are a clicking/grinding sound (also grinds just before you have a HD failure) or the the failure to read some of your data (really slow transfer rates and the spinning beach ball etc.).
There are pc programs that can confirm the bad sectors and then make them so the computer doesn't use them, but I'm unaware of anything like this for os x. The best thing to do is to back-up your whole harddrive and then erase by zeroing out all data (twice is good) and then re-installing. This doesn't solve the problem, but delays you having to get a new harddrive. After you get bad sectors, it usually means that more will crop up as the harddrive continues to go bad, somethimes resulting in a complete failure...
hope it helps,
JS

Activating Program Management for Public Sector

Hello everyone,
We are currently implementing an E-Governance solution for a municipal corporation, in SAP. Our licenses include ECC 6.0 and SAP CRM 2007. Additionally, we have purchased a single component of SAP for Public Sector, namely Program Management for Public Sector, which is enabled by SAP CRM.
We have tried extensively to find out detailed information about this solution (Program Management for Public Sector), however besides a few lines of general information, not much else is available publicly.
We request to provide us information on how to activate Program Management for Public Sector, and if possible to guide us on where to obtain valid documentation.
Any asistance in this regard wil be much appreciated.
Regards,
Shiv Sahgal

Hi, you can get information under CRM component, have a look at SAP help portal, CRM for industries -> Public Sector
http://help.sap.com/saphelp_crmscen70/helpdata/en/4a/9eb12521864ff0a82cdc2a373d5d89/frameset.htm
Or in the help portal under SAP Business Suite -> SAP Customer Relationship Management, you will find relevant documentation regarding your CRM release.
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César

When the Apple Store tests a zeroed out hard drive, is their test as intensive as wd lifesaver etc. software's in napping out bad sectors etc.

When the Apple Store tests a zeroed out hard drive, is their test as intensive as wd lifesaver etc. software's in napping out bad sectors etc.
I do know one test at the Apple store is a three or four hour test that is very thorough for the whole Mac Pro computer, system by system test, I'm curious what kind of test they perform if you're testing the hard drive for bad sectors or whatever I'm a novice
I mean is it as effective or more effective than the software called wd lifesaver?
Does anyone have any idea what software they use or is their test only testing the systems of the computer and not just the hard drive?
I am moving from PC to Mac right now I have not even use my 2009 Mac Pro yet I was told to have the hard drives zeroed out and tested to start with a clean slate this is what I'm trying to do.
Thank you

The chip on the hard drive itself basically takes care of bad sectors. If an operation tries to write to such a sector, the drive will mark it bad and move onto the next one. That's why zeroing the drive effectively does the operation of mapping bad sectors - the whole drive is checked.
Their general hardware test does not do a full drive check, as far as I remember - the memory check can take a long time, though, since they're looking for random errors.
So for your Mac Pro, you should feel confident that doing a one-pass zero (don't do more than one pass, it's a waste of it me), will be enough initialization for the drive. And many drive experts don't even bother with that, relying on modern drive chips/firmware to do the job of checking for bad sectors on the fly.
Matt

StorE Alu2 HDD with many bad sectors, How to claim warranty

My external StorE ALU2 hdd contains of many bad sectors.
This is my backup disc which is always in a safe.
How can I determine if I still have warranty and what is the procedure to claim warranty?
Thanks for your prompt reply

There are to many to be repaired.
The drive comes to a complete stop when certain files are accessed.
I'm lucky that I always have 2 backup drives, just for this purposes.
I will contact Toshiba in the Netherlands
No online procedure. Western Digital had a perfect service, where they ship a new disk, and in the same box you can return the broken disk.
In case you do not return the disk, they charge your creditcard for a certain amount.
Thanks

How to ckeck a HDD for bad sectors.

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