On Mon, 5 May 2008 09:10:54 +0200, Volker Armin Hemmann wrote:

> > The question is: should I use it at all (for any use, external HD or
> > internal with operating system), or is it sufficient to let the fsck
> > tool mark the bad sectors and just keep using it?
>
> badblocks & mkfs.
>
> Maybe.
>
> And the 'monitoring tool' would be smartmontools.
>
> But I wouldn't trust a harddisk that got damaged in a drop.

On the other hand, if it's only being used as a MythTV front end, it
will only contain the OS and software, no data. So a single backup would
suffice (MythTV stores configuration data on the backend) and the only
harm in the drive failing would be that you wouldn't be able to use it
until you bought a new one and restored the backup. It depends on how
long you can last without TV :)

Then again, you could dispense with the hard drive altogether and PXE
boot the laptop.


--
Neil Bothwick

Politicians are like nappies
Both should be changed regularly, and for the same reason