RAID 1 / disk error / Offline uncorrectable sectors

[Zbigniew Szalbot]

Dear all,

Bill Moran:

>> My understanding is that RAID 1 no longer works because of this
>> error. There is a bad sector on HD (Offline uncorrectable sectors)
>> and the best we can do is replace the drive? Does it make sense to
>> try to turn RAID 1 on ignoring this error (however, this is done in
>> BIOS so the machine would have to be taken down in order to do
>> that)? It seems serious enough for me not to ignore it but then I
>> know close to nothing about HDs.
> 
> Replace the hard drive.  Every modern hard drive keeps extra space
> available to "remap" bad sectors.  This happens magically behind the
> scenes without you ever knowing about it.  Once you've hit
> "uncorrectable" errors, it means your re-mappable sectors are used
> up, and that means the drive is on its last legs.


Thank you Bill. One last question. RAID 1 is off now (degraded) and the 
hosting company is asking if I can try to bring it up (to check if it 
will work). They have given me this link 
http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en/books/handbook/raid.html. The problem is 
that as far as I understand we are not using gmirror but RAID 1 turned 
on in BIOS (although it is also software-based).

Thank you very much in advance!

Zbigniew Szalbot
www.lc-words.com