[continued from previous message]   
      
   >> the drive, proportional to a surface degradation, but the filter   
   >> pack was still lilly white and the platter surface was impeccable   
   >> to the eye, yet it had spared out enough blocks to be end-of-life.   
   >> This means I'd need a microscope to find the damage that was   
   >> present on the drive platter.   
   >>   
   >> *******   
   >>   
   >> When the first hard drives came out for consumers, I tested them   
   >> in the lab. I took the factory bad block list, and the grown   
   >> defect list, reset them, and had the drive scan for bad blocks.   
   >> What was interesting, is the drive exactly reproduced the same   
   >> defect list as was present in the lists. This is just in case   
   >> you were thinking "oh, those blocks aren't really bad and   
   >> a re-scan would uncover lots of good blocks, if only I could   
   >> reset the automatic sparing system". In my tests, what I discovered   
   >> at the time, is no, resetting any automatic sparing would   
   >> achieve nothing. Still, this is a natural hypothesis for users   
   >> to reach, that if only they could give the automatic sparing   
   >> a whack upside the head, their drive would be "rendered new again".   
   >> It's not true. The drive does make good, high quality determinations   
   >> of its bad blocks. When it tells you a block is bad, it's bad.   
   >> And reproducibly so. These were the first full height 5MB and   
   >> 10MB Seagate consumer drives (complete with floppy-like head movement   
   >> and stepper motors for driving the head in and out instead of a   
   >> voice coil).   
   >   
   > I  remember when a 25mb drive was huge :)   
   >   
   >>   
   >>     Paul   
   >>   
   >>   
   >>   
   >   
   >   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)