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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).

Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.

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Repairing bad sectors in an external drive (discuss.tchncs.de)

submitted 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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So I have this external 2.5" drive salvaged from an old laptop of mine. I was trying to use it to backup/store data but the transfer to the drive fails repeatedly at the ~290GB mark leading me to believe that maybe there is a bad sector on the drive. I tried to inspect the drive using smartmontools and smartctl but since it is an external drive, i was not allowed to do so. Is there anyway for me to inspect and fix this drive? I am on fedora ublue-main. The HDD is a 1TB seagate drive.

Edit : I am a linux noob so some hand holding will be appreciated. Also i am looking to use this drive only for low priority media files which i dont mind losing so please help even though it is not the greatest idea to use a failing drive

Edit 2 : It seems my post is not clear of what i am doing. I dont want to recover data from the drive. I want to try to use more of the drive for storing data

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago

IF you needed the storage and badly, then I remember Hiren's BootCD used to come with a tool to scan for and quarantine bad sectors. However, this is just a bandaid on top of an infected wound.

The wound will keep spreading, eating up precious backup files. I've only ever used quarantining once on my mother in law's laptop because she had to wait weeks to get a new drive, due to the Philippines flooding back then.

Also, this was an old copy of BootCD that ran through terminal prompt, not a built in Windows PE, and I believe the tool I used has been removed. However, it seems to be replaced with a few alternatives.