corrupt block makes file system repair impossible?

Thomas Koenig (ig25@mvmap66.ciw.uni-karlsruhe.de)
Wed, 9 Jul 1997 17:53:22 +0200 (MET DST)

I just tried to repair a file system on a disk with some bad sectors,
and e2fsck told me:

# e2fsck -l badlist -b 8193 /dev/sda1
Pass 1: Checking inodes, blocks, and sizes
Block 4 in the primary group descriptors is on the bad block list

If the block is really bad, the filesystem can not be fixed.
You can clear the this block from the bad block list
and hope that block is really OK, but there are no guarantees.

[...]

Is this true? What's the point in having multiple superblocks if
trashing a single sector can still completely wreck your file system?

-- 
Thomas Koenig, Thomas.Koenig@ciw.uni-karlsruhe.de, ig25@dkauni2.bitnet.
The joy of engineering is to find a straight line on a double
logarithmic diagram.