On 30/8/20 8:19 pm, Hendrik Boom wrote:
> There's also the badblocks program, which can be set up either to do a
> nondestructive read-only test for bad blocks, or a more throrough
> destructive test, where it writes every block and later checks tht it
> can read it correctly again, using a variety of bit patterns.
>
> That might make the hard drive reassign the bad blocks on its own.
>
> If the hard drive doesn't do that,

.... then it's ready for the bin.

If the drive can't reallocate sectors it's due to a catastrophic failure and means it's out of spare sectors.
Drives come from the factory with "lots" of spare sectors, so if it's out then the drive has both feet, 8 fingers and a thumb in the grave.

Regards,
Brad