Hard disk going-bad detection

[Matthew Hagerty]

Eric Anderson wrote:
> On 08/28/06 21:10, Matthew Hagerty wrote:
>> Greetings,
>>
>> I have a hard drive that every now and then makes a sound like the 
>> head is moving from one extreme to the other, then parking.  It is 
>> hard to explain, kind of a towk-kok-click with a metallic ring to 
>> it.  If you have heard a drive do this before, you know the sound.  I 
>> heard a drive do this to me a few months ago and it failed shortly 
>> thereafter.
>>
>> I have 3 drives in the system so it is very hard to know which drive 
>> it is, so in an attempt to get a new drive before the one fails out 
>> right, is there any way I can test the drives in place?  One drive is 
>> primarily my system disk (20G), the second (120G) has /usr mounted on 
>> it, and the third (120G) is mounted, rsync'd, umounted every night to 
>> make a backup of the other two.  So, the backup drive I can test no 
>> problem, even destructively if necessary.  However, the two that make 
>> up the active system I would like to be able to test without 
>> disrupting normal operation if possible?  But, I'll take the box 
>> offline for a bit if necessary.  Any insight would be greatly 
>> appreciated.
>
>
>
> You didn't mention what type of drives, so I'll assume ATA.  Take a 
> look at smartd.
>
> Eric
>
>
Sorry, forgot that part.  Yes, they are ATA-100 (IBM deskstar if I 
remember correctly).  I'll look into smartd, thanks for the info!

Matthew