Hello,

I haven't been able to run NetBSD on one of my systems for a few months
because of an annoying hard drive error. It apparently has some bad sectors.
when i run fsck -f, i see:

# fsck -f
*** /dev/rsd1a
*** File system is already clean
*** Last Mounted on /
*** Phase 1 - Check Blocks and Sizes
sd1(esp0:2:0): medium error, info = 1417503 (decimal), data = 00 00 00 00
aa 00 00 00 00 00

CANNOT READ: BLK 1351872
CONTINUE? [yn] y

sd1(esp0:2:0): medium error, info = 1417503 (decimal), data = 00 00 00 00
aa 00 00 00 00 00
sd1(esp0:2:0): medium error, info = 1417504 (decimal), data = 00 00 00 00
aa 00 00 00 00 00
THE FOLLOWING DISK SECTORS COULD NOT BE READ: 1351875, 1351876,
*** Phase 2 - Check Pathnames
*** Phase 3 - Check Connectivity
*** Phase 4 - Check Reference Counts
*** Phase 5 - Check Cyl groups
25933 files, 492019 used, 168195 free (7459 frags, 20092 blocks, 1.1%
fragmentation)
#

I find it odd that block 1351872 is not listed in "the following disk
sectors can not be read" part. why not?
Is this drive gone for good or should reformatting it do something (like
eliminate this annoying message)? i thought the drive was supposed to
automatically map the sector out somehow...

the drive is a Quantum Lightning 730S 240C according to syslog. it's a
730MB drive.

is there a way to tell the kernel there's a dummy file there, never move
the file or let anything write there, etc? i wouldn't mind losing a MB of
diskspace if it meant the disappearance of these problems.

where on the disk is this bad sector? near the beginning? near the end? or
how do i find out? if it's in my swap, that could be very bad.

any insight would be helpful,

thanks,

  - a