Puppy Linux Discussion Forum

musher0 · Last edited by musher0 on Mon 25 Mar 2013, 12:32; edited 1 time in total

Hello,all.

I'm rebuilding a machine and I'd like to evaluate some disks I have. How can I tell if a used disk is worth re-installing?

I see the S.M.A.R.T. entry in the BIOS, but I'm unsure how it works, or if it's appropriate for this use.

Thanks in advance for any help.

musher0

rg66 · Posted: Sat 23 Mar 2013, 02:17 Post subject:

"S.M.A.R.T. (Self-Monitoring, Analysis and Reporting Technology; often written as SMART) is a monitoring system for computer hard disk drives to detect and report on various indicators of reliability, in the hope of anticipating failures."

Just turn it on and if there is problems, you will find out at boot.

I normally dl the manufacturer's diagnostic utility and boot from it to do a thorough test, this can take some time though. The Seagate one is good because it can test drives from a few other manufacturer's.

Bligh · Joined: 08 Jan 2006 Posts: 459 Location: California

In my non commercial experience, actual hdd failures have been very rare in normal usage. I have most disk utilities I could obtain when they were available. I have never found anything that could predict disk life. grc markets a program they claim can do just that but it is fairly pricey. I don't have it. Most failures have been software related I have many hdd's, one 40 gb disk which appeared to have many bad sectors,most were near the center of the disk. I created a 10 gb partition at the beginning of the disk then a small linux swap partition then a 10 data partition at the end of the disk. It appears to work ok. I don't use it for anything I want to keep.
Cheers

pemasu · Joined: 08 Jul 2009 Posts: 5170 Location: Finland

linuxcbon · Joined: 09 Aug 2007 Posts: 693

smartmontools-5.39.1-i486.pet can be found at
http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=51995

Monsie · Joined: 01 Dec 2011 Posts: 465 Location: Kamloops BC Canada

musher0,

I have been using Gsmartcontol in Wary Puppy. ttuuxxx made a Pet a few years ago and it seems to work fine in many different breeds. You can find more info here and/or download the necessary package(s).

Monsie

musher0 · Posted: Mon 25 Mar 2013, 12:32 Post subject:

Thank you all for your insight and information !

musher0