CompuServe Thread

bad blocks

2 messages in this thread
#77756From: Edward HanstNov 15, 1992 11:39 AM
Can anybody help me with my harddisk? I had a bad file and I decided to do a bad block remap with GVP Fastprep The program tells me that there are no more spare blocks. I have a backup of the harddisk. So I wouldn't mind reformatting it. But I don't know if a low level format will do the trick. I have a GVP series II, A200, Quantum 121Mb HD, Syquest 88, fprep 1.98m and dos 2.04.
#77870From: Don Curtis/SYSOPNov 16, 1992 1:39 AM
Edward, I don't know how GVP handles it, so can't give you a definate answer, but normally, yes…on a SCSI drive doing a new low level format will build a new defect table. However, I'd be suspicions of any drive that runs out of bad block remapping capability. Presuming it's the standard SCSI type remapping, not some custom routine that GVP wrote. The reason I say that is there's an awful lot of spare blocks saved for bad block mapping…and if they're all used, you've got an awful lot of bad blocks…as in something wrong is going on. Either the drive is going south, or the GVP software is improperly marking blocks that need a retry as bad. Don