How To Check a Disk for Bad Blocks or Disk Errors on Oracle x86 Systems Running Linux

Asset ID:	1-71-1009431.1
Update Date:	2018-03-26
Keywords:

Solution Type Technical Instruction Sure

Solution 1009431.1 : How To Check a Disk for Bad Blocks or Disk Errors on Oracle x86 Systems Running Linux

Applies to:

Sun Fire V20z Server - Version All Versions and later
Sun Fire V40z Server - Version All Versions and later
Sun Fire V60x Server - Version All Versions and later
Sun Fire V65x Server - Version All Versions and later
Sun LX50 Server - Version All Versions and later
All Platforms

Goal

This document describes how to use the command badblocks to check a Linux disk for bad blocks / disk errors.

Solution

In order to check for bad blocks on a disk device in Linux, use the command, "badblocks".

The example below is a verbose non-destructive write test:

# badblocks -v -n /dev/hda 3189988 3189989 3189990 3189991 3194176 3194177 3194178 3194179 3194664 3194665 3194666 3194667 Pass completed, 12 bad blocks found.

The "badblocks" command can be very useful in isolating problems with syncing LVM partitions within Linux. LVM operations will fail due to bad blocks on a disk.

Bad blocks on either the source or destination disk within a LVM mirror will cause a synchronization failure.

Badblocks can also be used in conjunction with the fsck and makefs to mark the blocks as bad.

Warning: The mis-use of these commands can cause data loss. Additional information on the command "badblocks" is available using the "man badblocks" command.

Previously Published As 81294

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