Bad Block on Disk Error

[Jim Adamson]

We have a B1000 workstation running hpux10.20. When the machine boots we get the error 'BAD BLOCK FOUND ON DISK , CANNOT READ : BLK 492832'. This is on /dev/vg00/lvol1 which is the /var partition.

I have tried using fsck to fix this but with no luck. I have booted into single user mode and can manually mount all other logical volumes. I tried mount -f on /dev/vg00/lvol1 but the force mount did not work.

Is there any way to get round this problem? Can the bad block be moved or something?

My general plan is it back up all user files and do a clean install of hpux11.11 so getting the machine back up on the network for a short time would be great.

thanks
Jim Adamson

[Stefan Farrelly]

There is nothing you can do, the bad block is probably a surface defect on the disk. In the old days with old disks you could reformat the disk at a low level using mediainit - then you can reuse it, but nowadays this isnt recommended, just get it replaced.

HP will replace it if you call them. Mount /var -ro and copy it all off to some backup device then you can creating a new /var and move all data to it, and then leave the old /var deleted/unused, or else youre going to have to get the disk replaced so make an ignite backup.

[Fabio Ettore]

Hi Jim,

by now nothing is possible in order to recover the filesystem. It could be an hardware problem.
Anyway you should succeed to recover the situation by mediainit on disk, re-create the filesystem and restore from a backup.
Anyway the best solution would be to substitute the disk.

Best regards,
Ettore

[Elmar P. Kolkman]

pvmove could help you solve the problem, perhaps. I can't test this for you, but it is the only solution I can think of.

[Jim Adamson]

Thanks for your replies. I managed to edit /etc/fstab and recreated /var under /. The machines boots to run level 2 so i can get the user files off via the network. I'll order a new disk and show them how in future to do a backup!
thanks
Jim Adamson