Apparently conflicting smartctl output

[Warren Block]

On Fri, 6 Jan 2012, Bas Smeelen wrote:

> I have had this with a drive and multiple read errors would not remap the
> sector.
> With write errors the sector would be remapped. This was a new Samsung
> laptop drive though, not a Western Digital.

That's standard.  Sectors are only remapped to spares on a write error.

> To get the sector remapped I had to fully write the drive and it was ok
> after that.

Just writing to the sector should be enough.  Of course, when one sector 
goes bad, others often follow.