> Are there any tools for linux to format disk better
> than mke2fs ?
While it is possible your errors are the result of a buggy
interface, I tend to doubt it. I am using the NCR stuff too, and all the
errors I have seen like that have always been to bona-fide problems on the
disk. (I am using a DELL ppro-200 with the PCI NCR 810 board.) The last
time it happened to me was actually about two weeks ago -- one of my gig
disks kept crashing the machine since an inode got convienently lobbed
over it. (I had yet to discover that you can adjust disk parameters with
e2fs so that it doens't kernel panic when this happens.) In any event, I
could not dig up any useful SCSI utilities for Linux that would fix the
drive.
I ended up taking the disk out and bringing it over to a macintosh
(GASP!) running the latest version of FWB. This utility is simply amazing,
and i rapidly discovered that write and read verification had been
disabled on my drive. (Damn OEM people..) Anyway, after renabling it, I
retested the drive and viola, the bad blocks got remapped as they should..
Things have been fine ever since. But for awhile, like you, I did suspect
the drivers. I'd take a close look at what is going on with the disks
before you blame the drivers though. I could be wrong, but its seems like
a safe bet that they are probably well tested by now. I would only have
cause to be suspicious if you downgraded the kernel and discovered the
same problem...
Just my $0.02.
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Jeremy Gilbert grath@gryphon.ccs.brandeis.edu +
Webmaster & UNIX Systems Support grath@mail.cs.brandeis.edu +
Department of Computer Science +
Brandeis University http://gryphon.ccs.brandeis.edu/~grath +
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