[comp.unix.aix] how do I tell Aix about bad blocks?

jsm@lyman.pppl.gov (John Scott McCauley Jr.) (01/11/91)

Setup: RS/6000, AIX 3.1, and two Wren external scsi drives (ST47467N aka
	Wren Runner II I think)

Problem: bad blocks: 
	system hangs frequently (read errors on paging?)
	errpt gives many 'DISK ERRORS'
	rdump complains of blocks it can't read


Other symptoms:
	certify from concurrent diag: fails 10% though the disk complaining
		of too many unrecoverable errors.
	certify from diskettes: succeeds; no errors at all detected!
	format: fails immediately; complains of hardware error.

I suspect that somehow AIX wasn't told of the defect list. I also
have heard that diag can't format non-ibm hard disks. I could format
the disks on a Sparcstation, but then how does AIX find the defect list?

	Any pointers welcome,

		Scott

kaiser@ananke.stgt.sub.org (Andreas Kaiser) (01/15/91)

In a message of <Jan 11 14:13>, John Scott McCauley Jr. (jsm@lyman.pppl.gov ) writes: 

 JSMJ> Problem: bad blocks: 

 JSMJ> Other symptoms:
 JSMJ>         certify from concurrent diag: fails 10% though the disk complaining
 JSMJ>                 of too many unrecoverable errors.

 JSMJ> I suspect that somehow AIX wasn't told of the defect list.

SCSI device drivers need never NEVER be told of the media defect list, since 
defect handling is the job of the drive. A SCSI drive appears to the driver as 
defect-free (however its capacity gets reduced by this mechanism, so two 
identical drives usually have slightly different capacities). 

        Andreas