Topic: bad tracks on disks

[axessit]

I have an old disk lying about pulled from a machine giving errors. I recall from SCO unix days when installing the OS you can scan the disk for bad tracks and it will flag the bad tracks so you can use the disk (OK, so I hear all the "why would you risk a bad disk", but I only want to play with the disk in setting up a quick'n'dirty test box and don't want to buy a new disk). Is there a way to implement this in the SME install process, or does it do it autmatically. Dare I say it, I know that's what a full format in WinXP install does (as opposed to the quick format option) ?

[Stefano]

I think it can't be included into SME's setup routines, but you can:
- plug that dick into a pc
- start with a live distro
- read mkfs.ext3 manpage (hint -c flag)

then you can use (at your risk) that disk

HTH