# Record of Bad Block / Sector



## jaymax (Oct 22, 2012)

Having to run fsck  after a forced shutdown it generated a list of Bad Block / Sector, etc. These resulted from an "UNEXPECTED SOFT UPDATE INCONSISTENCY" state, is a record of these stored anywhere?


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## zer0sig (Oct 24, 2012)

As far as I can tell, the best way to handle this is to install /usr/ports/sysutils/smartmontools. Helps a lot. There are ways to use /usr/local/sbin/smartctl to do more than simply ask the drive once in awhile about bad sectors (which it tracks by default on any drive manufactured in the past..15 years or so? but FreeBSD simply doesn't use SMART by default (at least my 8.3 install didn't). Basic install and info is here:

https://www.davidandrzejewski.com/2009/03/15/freebsd-monitor-your-disks-health-with-smartmontools/

That said, there is a lot more you can do with smartctl - google it or go to the sourcefourge link at the end of that article for more information.


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## throAU (Oct 25, 2012)

Just to be clear - softupdate did not CAUSE the bad sector - the bad sector caused softupdates to fail.


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## SirDice (Oct 25, 2012)

Also, fsck(8) doesn't fix bad sectors, it can only fix filesystem errors. If you have bad blocks on the drive it's time to replace it.


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