I’m kinda worried that my HDD suddenly had 65547 bad sectors after installing openSUSE 12.1 Beta 1. I’ve used a lot of distros until openSUSE 12.1 Beta 1 but I haven’t encountered any bad sectors in those distros. I wonder if this is a bug or my HDD is really failing that it was only detected now. 
I suggest you try 11.4
I am not aware of any issue in this regard with 12.1. But as you didn’t say if you had previously been using 11.4… I suggest it.
But I can tell you, (Where a HD is flaky) openSUSE (in my experience) usually picks it up, where other Distro’s do not.
If 11.4 results the same, you might want to consider a plan of action.
I didn’t harp on here about backups, as I assume you understand that important aspect of things.
Thanks for the quick reply. I’ve used 11.4 a few months back but it didn’t detect any HDD problems except from the airflow temperature. I’m just surprised to see that the bad sectors are too many while it was only the first time that those were detected. By the way, my laptop’s OS was Linux Mint 11 before I switched to openSUSE 12.1 Beta 1. In Linux Mint 11, there were no bad sectors but it detected a problem in airflow temperature which I’m aware of. I’ve already backed-up my files in case my HDD failed completely. I just wish my HDD would last a couple or more years. Thanks again caf4926.
I worked a HP Laptop recently where 11.4 installed and reported Bad Sectors, however Mint 11 did not.
Unfortunately I didn’t run a detailed comparison as this was a bit of free work for a friend of a friend.
And I ended up doing a disk wipe and re-formatting, then just installed Mint 11 for them (Mostly because I didn’t want them worrying about error messages about the HD)
Though I did inform them of the problem.
Tools such as Parted Magic have a basic check tool for partitions in the Partition manager
I wonder what’s the difference between Mint 11 and openSUSE 11.4/12.1’s disk utility. It’s kinda worrying to see an error notification message every time I use my laptop (HP Compaq Presario CQ61). Anyway, I’ll still continue on using 12.1 Beta and do some bug hunting. I will try Parted Magic and will post here what happened. Thanks. 
I’m not sure of the differences.
If you hit Esc during the boot process, you get to see the verbose output of the system as it loads
It can sometimes give you a clue as to what is going on.
Yes. So does Fedora live CD, which comes with palimpsest. It’s working well, I would say. I think Parted Magic uses palimpsest too. I used both (Parted Magic and Fedora Live CD) the other days to check an HD (which had ‘only’ 3 bad sectors). They both came to the same conclusion.
Probably none. openSUSE disk utility is palimpsest. I’m just not sure it’s on the live CD.
$ **lsb_release -d**
Description: openSUSE 11.4 (x86_64)
$ **cat /usr/share/applications/palimpsest.desktop**
[Desktop Entry]
X-SuSE-translate=true
GenericName=Disk Utility
DocPath=palimpsest
Name=Disk Utility
Comment=Manage Drives and Media
Exec=palimpsest
Icon=palimpsest
Terminal=false
Type=Application
StartupNotify=true
X-GNOME-DocPath=palimpsest/palimpsest.xml
Categories=GNOME;GTK;System;HardwareSettings;
Any disk utility querying SMART should report the same results.
If your HD has bad sectors, the most reasonable thing to do is to replace it. 
If your HD has bad sectors, the most reasonable thing to do is to replace it
Yes. That’s what I would do.
But I’ve known people carry on with a bad disc for years.
On 2011-10-08 11:16, caf4926 wrote:
> But I’ve known people carry on with a bad disc for years.
Me, but only after I knew the number of bad sectors was stable, not
increasing. He has a lot.
–
Cheers / Saludos,
Carlos E. R.
(from 11.4 x86_64 “Celadon” at Telcontar)
On 2011-10-08 04:26, noeyx wrote:
>
> I’m kinda worried that my HDD suddenly had 65547 bad sectors after
> installing openSUSE 12.1 Beta 1. I’ve used a lot of distros until
> openSUSE 12.1 Beta 1 but I haven’t encountered any bad sectors in those
> distros. I wonder if this is a bug or my HDD is really failing that it
> was only detected now.
I understand you have a laptop. Hard disks are sensitive, fragile devices,
they react badly to vibration and shocks, things that happen easily with
laptops. I cringe when I see people just drop the laptop on the table while
running. The laptops should be handled like thin expensive glass, not moved
at all.
That number of bad sectors is huge. Normally HD can remap bad sectors so
that the OS do not see them any longer.
I would recommend you to use the HD manufacturer test disk utility. For
example, Seagate distributes a bootable CD image on their web page that
will thoroughly test the disk. Otherwise, you can use smartctl in Linux,
and run the short and long tests.
–
Cheers / Saludos,
Carlos E. R.
(from 11.4 x86_64 “Celadon” at Telcontar)
My HDD’s bad sectors increased from 65547 to 852103. I have a 320 GB SATA HDD. Do you know how many gigabytes are these bad sectors? My openSUSE OS is still working fine in spite of having these bad sectors. Btw, I replaced my openSUSE 12.1 Beta OS to openSUSE 11.4. This might be the cause why the bad sectors increased. I’ll stop distrohopping for now to maybe prolong my HDD’s life.
Your HDD is toast.
It is very unlikely that something specific in the the software caused the problem.
Installing a new OS version (any OS, any version), does work the HDD pretty hard writing all of that new software. A good disk should not be affected, but that might speed up the failure of an already failing device.
On 10/15/2011 06:06 AM, nrickert wrote:
>
> Your HDD is toast.
+1
all data you have created/saved/etc (music, film, photos, email, letters
to/fro Aunt Tilly, tax record, etc etc etc) should be immediately backed
up…if you wish continued access to those…
the question about your disk is not if it will fail, but when, and
how quickly.
–
DD
openSUSE®, the “German Automobiles” of operating systems
On 2011-10-15 05:56, noeyx wrote:
>
> My HDD’s bad sectors increased from 65547 to 852103. I have a 320 GB
> SATA HDD. Do you know how many gigabytes are these bad sectors? My
> openSUSE OS is still working fine in spite of having these bad sectors.
> Btw, I replaced my openSUSE 12.1 Beta OS to openSUSE 11.4. This might be
> the cause why the bad sectors increased. I’ll stop distrohopping for now
> to maybe prolong my HDD’s life.
Make a backup ASAP of everything you may want to keep, and prepare to buy
a replacement disk also ASAP.
Then run the tests I told you.
Sectors should be 512 bytes each.
–
Cheers / Saludos,
Carlos E. R.
(from 11.4 x86_64 “Celadon” at Telcontar)
So if it is 512 bytes per bad sector, then it is only 436,276,736 bytes = 0.406314373 gigabyte worth of bad sectors? Isn’t it small to make me worry for my HDD? Btw, thanks for all who replied to this post. OpenSUSE’s forum community is welcoming and comfortable to speak with.
You can worry or not as you like, but the drive will soon die, and take all your data with it. Guaranteed.
What if the next bad sector is in /boot/vmlinuz (your kernel), or the MBR? Or in an essential library?
Really - your drive is toast. The amount of data amounted to by the bad sectors is irrelevant. The number of bad sectors, and the rate at which new ones are being re-allocated, are clear indications you need to replace the drive. In fact, with that many bad sectors, you are lucky it still works at all.
If you would like to learn more about smartctl and how to interpret the results see: SMART Drive Diagnostics - Lyceum
Lews Therin
On 2011-10-19 09:56, noeyx wrote:
> So if it is 512 bytes per bad sector, then it is only 436,276,736 bytes
> = 0.406314373 gigabyte worth of bad sectors? Isn’t it small to make me
> worry for my HDD? Btw, thanks for all who replied to this post.
> OpenSUSE’s forum community is welcoming and comfortable to speak with.
If the bad sector count were stable, after thorough testing, then you could
keep using the disk. But it is not, it is increasing. It is just chance
that a bad sector doesn’t go in the middle of an important file. If it is
the system, system down. If it is your important presentation for your boss
for a new client, you might get fired for incompetence.
Don’t risk it.
–
Cheers / Saludos,
Carlos E. R.
(from 11.4 x86_64 “Celadon” at Telcontar)
As I stated in a discussion back in August:
When bad sectors begin to be to detected in an HDD for the first time it means the surface of the disk is deteriorating. When that happens it most often happens slowly at first then more and more rapidly as time passes. There is NO WAY to reverse the process. In my considerable experience the rate at which a disk’s surface fails is progressively more and more rapid as time passes. One moment they work, and the next moment they don’t. It’s not a question of “if”, it’s a question of “when”.
The bottom line: Listen to the advice you been given in the previous posts. Don’t screw around analyzing the problem. Get a new hard drive and copy the data off the old one now… not “tomorrow”, or when you “get a spare moment”, or “as soon as the kids go back to school”… NOW.
Sorry if that sounds harsh, but I’ve seen a few hundred of these failures, and I’ve also listened to several dozen customers say “I should have listened to your advice.”
[FONT=arial]The deterioration I mention above usually appears as a section of the coating on the disk begins to detach from the disk, forming a tiny raised bubble on the surface which the head can not read. With time that bubble will grow, and as it does the number of bad sectors will increase more and more rapidly as the diameter of the bubble steadily increases, thereby increasing the area of the “bad sectors”.
BTW, guess what happens if and when the height of the bubble grows enough to close the gap between the platter and the drive head. Once that happens the drive is toast, and any chance to recover data, etc. is instantly gone without any prior warning other than exactly the symptoms described in this post…
[/FONT]
On 10/20/2011 08:06 AM, caprus wrote:
>
> As I stated in a discussion back in August:
>
>
> When bad sectors begin to be to detected in an HDD for the
> first time it means the surface of the disk is deteriorating. When that
> happens it most often happens slowly at first then more and more rapidly
> as time passes. There is NO WAY to reverse the process. In my
> considerable experience the rate at which a disk’s surface fails is
> progressively more and more rapid as time passes. One moment they work,
> and the next moment they don’t. It’s not a question of “if”, it’s a
> question of “when”.
>
> The bottom line: Listen to the advice you been given in the previous
> posts. Don’t screw around analyzing the problem. Get a new hard drive
> and copy the data off the old one now… not “tomorrow”, or when you “get
> a spare moment”, or “as soon as the kids go back to school”… NOW.
>
> Sorry if that sounds harsh, but I’ve seen a few hundred of these
> failures, and I’ve also listened to several dozen customers say “I
> should have listened to your advice.”
Excellent advice, but it is your data on the disk that is about to fail. If you
don’t ever want it again, keep on using the drive. 