From: stryder@telenet.be.invalid   
      
   On Thursday 22 November 2012 15:49, Daniel47@teranews.com conveyed the   
   following to alt.os.linux.mandriva...   
      
   > Aragorn wrote:   
   >   
   >    
   >> So far, I have found that with Mandrake (prior to the namechange),   
   >> PCLinuxOS and Mageia, the installer allows you to check for bad   
   >> blocks but only does this - or so it is my understanding - for the   
   >> partition designated as swap.  This is not to say that it cannot be   
   >> done - or perhaps better worded "that one cannot ordain a bad blocks   
   >> check" - on any partition, but the fact that the installer only   
   >> offers the option of checking for bad blocks on swap partitions -   
   >> again, if my understanding is correct - suggests that it's a pretty   
   >> futile time waster.   
   >   
   >    
   >   
   > Aragorn, I've got no idea really, but could it be that whilst   
   > installing a system to a particular partition, that partition is   
   > subjected to a "bad blocks check" automatically, but, as nothing is   
   > normally installed to the swap partition, it would not, otherwise,   
   > have a "bad blocks check" done on it, except at this system   
   > installation time??   
      
   Short of witchcraft, the only thing that could be checking for bad   
   blocks more on parts of the hard disk which are being written to is the   
   hard disk itself. ;-)   
      
   All modern hard disks have a built-in bad block remapping algorithm, and   
   this is executed on the fly whenever a bad block is encountered.   
      
   > So, if the "bad blocks check" of the swap partition was not done, the   
   > bad blocks may never by located/marked, and data might be lost??   
   >   
   > Just asking/suggesting.   
      
   I rather suspect that, while bad blocks on a data partition may cause   
   all sorts of mayhem, bad blocks on a swap partition may actually cause   
   memory corruption and as a result, a crash of a significant userspace   
   component of the operating system.   
      
   I'm just wagering an educated guess, mind you.  Either way, checking for   
   bad blocks via software is futile on any first generation IDE hard disk   
   and later - and this includes SCSI as well, because IDE stands for   
   "integrated drive electronics", and SCSI disks are thus IDE disks, even   
   though they are not ATA disks - unless you're only doing it as a way to   
   see whether your hard drive is on its way south, and even then still,   
   you wouldn't get this kind of information via a GUI partitioning tool.   
      
   Just skip the bad blocks tests and learn to rely on the hardware's   
   built-in monitoring.  It's smart enough [*].  That's what it was   
   designed for. ;-)   
      
      
   [*] And it may actually even be S.M.A.R.T. too. :p   
      
   --   
   = Aragorn =   
   (registered GNU/Linux user #223157)   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
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