I went ahead several years ago and wound up totally trashing the filesystem.
Granted it was ext2, not ext3, but I would definitely heed that warning.
--
Thomas Cameron, RHCE, CNE, MCSE, MCT
Cameron Technical Services, Inc.
http://www.camerontech.com/
(512) 454-3200

We use anti-spam measures.  The first time you send an e-mail to a user at
our company, our mail server will ask you to verify that you are a real
sender and not a spammer.  Once you reply to the challenge, you will never
be challenged again.
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "DARREN BROWN" <fumandriver@msn.com>
To: <plug-discuss@lists.plug.phoenix.az.us>
Sent: Thursday, May 15, 2003 1:36 PM
Subject: Re: Disk scan utility?


> When I run e3fsck -cf /dev/hda3, I get a message stating; WARNINGS!!!
> Running e2fsck on a mounted filesystem may cause SERVERE filesystem
damage.
> Found out that the -cf does a badblock test for you.  Cool....
>
> Has anyone ran this type of command line, got the message, and went
forward
> w/ the process it runs?  What happened if you did?
>
>
> Regards,
> Darren
>
>
> >From: "DARREN BROWN" <fumandriver@msn.com>
> >Reply-To: plug-discuss@lists.plug.phoenix.az.us
> >To: plug-discuss@lists.plug.phoenix.az.us
> >Subject: Re: Disk scan utility?
> >Date: Thu, 15 May 2003 15:54:28 +0000
> >
> >I just find out some more info on this.  Check out the following link for
> >detailed info
> >http://tldp.org/LDP/sag/x1298.html
> >
> >You may want to use the badblocks command first, then the e2fsck.
> >
> >
> >Regards,
> >Darren
> >
> >>From: technomage <technomage-hawke@cox.net>
> >>Reply-To: plug-discuss@lists.plug.phoenix.az.us
> >>To: plug-discuss@lists.plug.phoenix.az.us
> >>Subject: Re: Disk scan utility?
> >>Date: Thu, 15 May 2003 02:54:10 -0700
> >>
> >>-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> >>Hash: SHA1
> >>
> >>e2fsck -c /dev/device will do just this. you can even see its progress
> >>with a
> >>- -v (verbose).
> >>
> >>Mage
> >>
> >>On Wednesday 14 May 2003 11:58 pm, AZ Pete wrote:
> >> > Hi all,
> >> >
> >> > Is there a util in Linux that will perform a surface scan of a hard
> >>disk to
> >> > locate bad sectors and mark them as unusable?
> >> > Something similar to Windows Scandisk util.
> >> > I recall during the Redhat installation routine there was a check box
> >>that
> >> > I could select to perform a surface scan.  What utility does this?
> >> > I have a hard drive I'm trying to get data from but there are a few
bad
> >> > sectors and as a result I'm unable to pull an image of the drive.  I
> >>would
> >> > like to mark those sectors as bad, so I can then pull the image and
get
> >> > most of the data off the drive.
> >> >
> >> > I tried using fsck, but it only seems to check if the filesystem is
> >> > contiguous.  It says that the filesystem is clean.
> >> >
> >> > Any help would be appreciated.
> >> > Peter
> >> >
> >> > ---------------------------------------------------
> >> > PLUG-discuss mailing list - PLUG-discuss@lists.plug.phoenix.az.us
> >> > To subscribe, unsubscribe, or to change  you mail settings:
> >> > http://lists.PLUG.phoenix.az.us/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss
> >>
> >>- --
> >>I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed, or
> >>numbered!
> >>My life is my own - No. 6
> >>-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
> >>Version: GnuPG v1.0.7 (GNU/Linux)
> >>
> >>iD8DBQE+w2PDn/usgigAaLcRApn6AJwPXm+3L99oojPsLwlLQ4JfVjZTcwCdEJW5
> >>vOF+Xjj6lZ11FI+RfydvA44=
> >>=tb36
> >>-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
> >>
> >>---------------------------------------------------
> >>PLUG-discuss mailing list - PLUG-discuss@lists.plug.phoenix.az.us
> >>To subscribe, unsubscribe, or to change  you mail settings:
> >>http://lists.PLUG.phoenix.az.us/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss
> >
> >_________________________________________________________________
> >Help STOP SPAM with the new MSN 8 and get 2 months FREE*
> >http://join.msn.com/?page=features/junkmail
> >
> >---------------------------------------------------
> >PLUG-discuss mailing list - PLUG-discuss@lists.plug.phoenix.az.us
> >To subscribe, unsubscribe, or to change  you mail settings:
> >http://lists.PLUG.phoenix.az.us/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss
>
> _________________________________________________________________
> Help STOP SPAM with the new MSN 8 and get 2 months FREE*
> http://join.msn.com/?page=features/junkmail
>
> ---------------------------------------------------
> PLUG-discuss mailing list - PLUG-discuss@lists.plug.phoenix.az.us
> To subscribe, unsubscribe, or to change  you mail settings:
> http://lists.PLUG.phoenix.az.us/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss
>