Dealing with bad blocks on a hard disc

[Lowell Gilbert]

Marc van Woerkom <marc.vanwoerkom at FernUni-Hagen.de> writes:

> Hi,
>
> my notebook's hard drive seems to be damaged:
>
> Dec 18 15:49:13 hokage kernel: ad0: FAILURE - READ_DMA
> status=51<READY,DSC,ERROR> error=40<UNCORRECTABLE> LBA=9919567
> Dec 18 15:49:13 hokage kernel:
> g_vfs_done():ad0s1f[READ(offset=1360723968, length=32768)]error = 5
> Dec 18 15:49:13 hokage kernel: vnode_pager_getpages: I/O read error
> Dec 18 15:49:13 hokage kernel: vm_fault: pager read error, pid 1048 (cvsup)
> Dec 18 15:49:17 hokage kernel: ad0: FAILURE - READ_DMA
> status=51<READY,DSC,ERROR> error=40<UNCORRECTABLE> LBA=9919567
> Dec 18 15:49:17 hokage kernel:
> g_vfs_done():ad0s1f[READ(offset=1360723968, length=32768)]error = 5
> Dec 18 15:49:17 hokage kernel: vnode_pager_getpages: I/O read error
> Dec 18 15:49:17 hokage kernel: vm_fault: pager read error, pid 1048 (cvsup)
> Dec 18 15:49:17 hokage kernel: pid 1048 (cvsup), uid 0: exited on signal 6
>
> Is it possible to check the disc for bad blocks and to mark them as
> unusable, thus allowing me continue using the hard drive?

That happens automatically on a disk like this one.

> Or what would you recommend?

Try a manufacturer's utility, if you can find one, but generally when
you reach the point where the OS is aware of disk block errors, it is
continuing to lose them at a high (and accelerating) rate.

Also consider the "SMART" utilities, but be prepared to buy a new
disk.   

> Funny, I use FreeBSD about 10 years, this is the first time I have
> that problem and it seems not to be addressed in the handbook.

http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/faq/install.html#INSTALL-BAD-BLOCKS