low-level format before install?

[John Almberg]

Thanks for all the tips. At least I have something to start with.

The guys in the data center reinstalled FreeBSD (the filesystem was  
totally corrupted again), and then ran what they called "SMART test",  
which might be smartctl, and said the hard drives look good.

I am now able to get back in.

So the system ran fine until I put a load on it with the database  
(many transactions a second). This corrupted the file system again.

So I guess I need to load it enough to produce error messages  
(hopefully) but not enough to destroy the file system again.

Sounds like fun :-(

This is an Intel server, not a crummy white box, so hopefully it is  
smart enough to monitor its own hardware at least a bit. We'll see.

-- John