Another Reason I Luv Linux

[WoodPeckr]

Had on old 80GB Maxtor HDD, yeah it's a crappy Maxtor, lying around. It's from a friend's 2003 PC that died and was hoping it was OK. Well I put it in used P4 Dell I have that runs great for extra storage running dual boot Ubuntu/XP Pro. Both OSs pickup the HDD straightaway and it seems to be running OK with Windoz. Then I switch to Linux which posts a yellow flag up top to the right on desktop. I click on the flag and Ubuntu reports the Maxtor drive is failing! It says 'click here' for more info. Clicking on that Linux link a very comprehensive report on the Maxtor drive opens up detailing all it found at fault and recommending it be backed up and replaced ASAP!

I was impressed. This is the first time this happened....

 

[jkbauer99]

In windows it logs the error in event viewer and usually the user gets memory error. Linux is not for average user off the street

 

[enyaw]

Sometimes Woody, kinda get's carried away by linux and all it's features. No harm intended I"m sure LOL

 

[WoodPeckr]

Correct no harm intended.
It's just the this is the first ever warning received of HDD failure in 14 yrs of PC use and wanted to point out XP said nothing about it, while Linux threw up a warning flag automatically of what they found....

 

[The Options Menu]

Pretty much all drives in the last decade have a monitoring system called SMART. If you use Debian, or a Debian derivative, you should install the smartmontools package. (Apparently it exists on windows as well.) smartctl has a lot of features, on of the best it to make sure your new OEM drive isn't actually refurbished because you can check the number of hours the drive has been running. 'sudo smartctl -a /dev/$DEVICE' has the fun stuff.

 

[WoodPeckr]

If you use Debian you should install the smartmontools package. smartctl has a lot of features, on of the best it to make sure your new OEM drive isn't actually refurbished because you can check the number of hours the drive has been running. 'sudo smartctl -a /dev/$DEVICE' has the fun stuff.

Thanks for the great tip....