Proof that lack of backups causes disk failure

[Ben Pfaff]

Sean <picasso@madflower.com> writes:

> That almost sounds like the heads on the drive got jarred during shipping
> and the problems are are just now creeping up on you because it was only
> specific spots and you just started accessing them or the kernel just
> realized there was a problem. I have had it happen a few times especially
> with older drives and portables going through the airport scanners (or at
> least the jarring of traveling with it.)

I am *careful* with my computers.  It's hard to imagine when it
could have received any kind of real jar.

I probably implied a larger number of bad blocks than it actually
has: there are 13.  But there shouldn't be *any*, dammit, it's
IDE.

Anyway I'm going to keep monitoring the situation and if the
number of bad blocks starts going up then I'll call up Compaq and
get a new drive.  There's still about 2 years warranty left on
this machine after all.

> I just hope you didnt have too many new things on it.

I haven't had any real data loss (yet).  From now on I'm going to
do daily backups by shipping data over the network, I guess.
-- 
"Long noun chains don't automatically imply security."
--Bruce Schneier