[plug] BadBlocks

[Denis Brown]

Mike (Earnshaw) had a query about bad blocks and how to tell Linux to avoid 
them...

The Debian man page for badblocks describes an option (-o outputfile) which 
writes the bad block list to that file.  Subsequently the e2fsck or mke2fs 
programmes can make use of this file either by appending it to the existing 
bad blocks table or clearing the table and using the file information 
instead.  "man badblocks", "man e2fsck" and "man mke2fs" will provide some 
guidance.

Alternatively, The Linux Administrators Guide (Linux Documentation Project) 
contains a section with an example for just this topic.  Chapter 4 "Using 
Disks and Other Storage Media" is relevant.  Interestingly their example 
avoids the use of the -o option, preferring to use output redirection (> 
filename) instead.  This may be due to the -o option being distribution 
specific or perhaps it was added later.  Gurus' comments please?

HTH,
Denis