Question

2

Fixing bad sectors of a hard drive

rated 0 times [ 2] [ 0] / answers: 1 / hits: 6361 / 3 Years ago, mon, july 5, 2021, 8:25:43

My hard drive is partly visible (only 4.1 GB of 2TB) in "Disks" and has a bad sector. I have tried using the smartmontools to check for bad sectors and then used badblocks -svn /dev/sda for which I get the response

badblocks: Permission denied while trying to determine device size

Then I tried to use installation utility but the 18.04 LTS stops responding at selecting language.

Edit 3: New development in the issue - the live usb has started to become unresponsive/ freezing.

Edit 4: using the method provided by 1st answer I am getting the error shown:

Answers

Only authorized users can answer the question. Please sign in first, or register a free account.

icielight

Add To Favorites

Follow

Total Points: 158

Total Questions: 92

Total Answers: 93

Location: San Marino

Member since Thu, Jun 30, 2022

2 Years ago

icielight questions

1 How to use special characters as user input

Thu, Feb 24, 22, 00:24, 2 Years ago

1 Ubuntu 20.10 freezes when downloading torrent / watching youtube / using VLC

Sat, Oct 15, 22, 10:59, 2 Years ago

1 Disabling AMD's equivalent (on a Zen-1 Epyc) of Intel's "turbo boost" at runtime?

Thu, Mar 24, 22, 06:45, 2 Years ago

1 How to solve the error "Unable to locate package libuhd003" for ubuntu 20.04?

Wed, Jun 15, 22, 20:33, 2 Years ago

1 Since 19.10 update, mouse movement wakes computer from sleep

Thu, May 6, 21, 22:18, 3 Years ago

View All

answered 3 Years ago fishutt · Accepted Answer

The Disks, fdisk, and gparted screenshots don't look very promising...

fsck

First check your file system.

boot to a Ubuntu Live DVD/USB in “Try Ubuntu” mode

open a terminal window by pressing Ctrl+Alt+T

type sudo fdisk -l

identify the /dev/sdXX device name for your "Linux Filesystem"

type sudo fsck -f /dev/sdXX, replacing sdXX with the number you found earlier

repeat the fsck command if there were errors

type reboot

bad block

Note: do NOT abort a bad block scan!

Note: do NOT bad block a SSD

Note: backup your important files FIRST!

Note: this will take many hours

Note: you may have a pending HDD failure

Boot to a Ubuntu Live DVD/USB in “Try Ubuntu” mode.

In terminal...

sudo fdisk -l # identify all "Linux Filesystem" partitions

~~sudo e2fsck -fcky /dev/sdXX # read-only test~~

or

sudo e2fsck -fccky /dev/sdXX # non-destructive read/write test (recommended)

The -k is important, because it saves the previous bad block table, and adds any new bad blocks to that table. Without -k, you loose all of the prior bad block information.

The -fccky parameter...

   -f    Force checking even if the file system seems clean.



   -c    This option causes e2fsck to use badblocks(8) program to do

         a read-only scan of the device in order to find any bad blocks.

         If any bad blocks are found, they are added to the bad block

         inode to prevent them from being allocated to a file or direc‐

         tory.  If this option is specified twice, then the bad block scan

         will be done using a non-destructive read-write test.



   -k    When combined with the -c option, any existing bad blocks in the

         bad blocks list are preserved, and any new bad blocks found by

         running badblocks(8) will be added to the existing bad blocks

         list.



   -y    Assume an answer of `yes' to all questions; allows e2fsck to be

         used non-interactively. This option may not be specified at the

         same time as the -n or -p options.

Update #1:

The HDD is defective. Replace it. It may still be under warranty. Check with Seagate.