Linux Disk Utilities

[Infiltrator]

Hi All,

Just out of curiosity, what Linux tools do you guys use for checking errors on a HDD. I can't use my Windows 7 one, due a to bug that consumes all the available ram and thank you Microsoft for not addressing this issue.

Anyway, the other day I tried scanning one of my disks for errors and i noticed all the available ram being sucked out by the scan disk process. In a matter of 5 seconds, all my 8 gigs of available ram, went down to 500MB. Likely I was able to kill the process in time before the system went hay wire.

Anyway, what tools do you guys use.

Thank you very much

Edited December 11, 2010 by Infiltrator

[astromech_kuhns]

Hi All,

Just out of curiosity, what Linux tools do you guys use for checking errors on a HDD. I can't use my Windows 7 one, due a to bug that consumes all the available ram and thank you Microsoft for not addressing this issue.

Anyway, the other day I tried scanning one of my disks for errors and i noticed all the available ram being sucked out by the scan disk process. In a matter of 5 seconds, all my 8 gigs of available ram, went down to 500MB. Likely I was able to kill the process in time before the system went hay wire.

Anyway, what tools do you guys use.

Thank you very much

under ubuntu i just go to system->administration->disk utility

its just a disk utility that uses SMART data.

i called tech support for something a couple days ago, and the guy had me run a diagnostics on my bios that took a hour and a half and told me my disk was healthy..... idiots...

[Infiltrator]

under ubuntu i just go to system->administration->disk utility

its just a disk utility that uses SMART data.

i called tech support for something a couple days ago, and the guy had me run a diagnostics on my bios that took a hour and a half and told me my disk was healthy..... idiots...

Thanks for the reply, but i was looking for a Live ScanDisk Utility. You know, like a live distro that I can boot it off a CD or something.

[astromech_kuhns]

Thanks for the reply, but i was looking for a Live ScanDisk Utility. You know, like a live distro that I can boot it off a CD or something.

if you have a ubuntu cd boot it live and the disk utility is in it.

[Infiltrator]

if you have a ubuntu cd boot it live and the disk utility is in it.

You right, will do that thank you again.

[555]

I had a problem like that the other day, someone had a win 7 computer that would not boot right, it would go to the windows logo then reboot everytime. I put in Ubuntu Live CD for tests and did the the disk utility thing and showed there were hd disc errors, googled and another option i think is "Fsck -f" in Bash, did ram checks and everything, ended up just getting all the important data backing it up to external drive and reformatting with win7 again, then everything worked great. If you are lucky you can hit F8 while booting and try booting to command line and do a chkdsk if the original OS is windows.

[digip]

You can 1, set scandisk to run on boot to fix errors, because even if scanned within windows, it wont fix them without a reboot scan. Or 2, load the install disc, boot off it, and run the scan from there under its recovery tools. XP to some extent fixed errors while running, but MS changed this in later versions of windows for better safety reasons when accessing the disk to make changes, instead of having the whole OS up and other potential issues to happen in the process.

Also, while the linux side has disk utilities to check a disk, I don't know of any of them that will actually fix NTFS File System errors as well. Windows check disk does more than just bad sector checks from what I remember, and will also fix the NTFS File System itself if possible. When Windows Check Disk doesn't work, say because the disk became unbootable and check disk fails, thats when I use linux to force mount the NTFS partition and start backing up all the data, because at that point, the disk itself is beginning to fail and its only a matter of time before it becomes unusable all together.

Edited December 11, 2010 by digip

[Infiltrator]

You can 1, set scandisk to run on boot to fix errors, because even if scanned within windows, it wont fix them without a reboot scan. Or 2, load the install disc, boot off it, and run the scan from there under its recovery tools. XP to some extent fixed errors while running, but MS changed this in later versions of windows for better safety reasons when accessing the disk to make changes, instead of having the whole OS up and other potential issues to happen in the process.

Also, while the linux side has disk utilities to check a disk, I don't know of any of them that will actually fix NTFS File System errors as well. Windows check disk does more than just bad sector checks from what I remember, and will also fix the NTFS File System itself if possible. When Windows Check Disk doesn't work, say because the disk became unbootable and check disk fails, thats when I use linux to force mount the NTFS partition and start backing up all the data, because at that point, the disk itself is beginning to fail and its only a matter of time before it becomes unusable all together.

Thanks Digip, I think I did run into that scandisk option before when I was installing Windows 7.

I think that should do it.

[digip]

You could also do the backup of the system BEFORE attempting to fix it. In some cases, the system could become unbootable, so just a heads up. I should have told you that ahead of time, thats my fault. Either way, back that stuff up first.

[Infiltrator]

You could also do the backup of the system BEFORE attempting to fix it. In some cases, the system could become unbootable, so just a heads up. I should have told you that ahead of time, thats my fault. Either way, back that stuff up first.

I always keep a backup of all my files on an external HDD. And when I installed Windows 7 for the first time, I made a restore disk, just in case if something goes horribly wrong.

I think, I should also keep an image of my hard drive, if everything else fails.

Edited December 14, 2010 by Infiltrator