'dd' command is taking more than 3 days to wipe 320GB HDD

[amjjawad]

Are you running dd or sudo dd or are you running dd as root? Without root or acting as root (sudo) it won't do anything as root is needed to fully access the drive. A plain user can only access what permissions it was given to which isn't block level writing.

Of course I'm using 'sudo', otherwise, it would never be executed on the first place
If you try 'dd' without 'sudo', it will never work.

I didn't mention that because I thought it is very obvious and no need to mention that. Sorry if that caused some confusion.

[slooksterpsv]

Not a problem just wanted to work from the basics up. IIRC last time I tried to wipe a drive I had, executing just dd if of without the bs portion didn't work, or it just sat there. I wonder if dd changed to where its now a requirement to specify some block size for an empty device where as dd'ing an iso may take the ISOs layout and lay it out according to that.

[Highup]

Greetings,

you can try following:
- Open a second terminal and get the Process id of your job.
- Then use the command:

kill -USR1 <process id>

to show you information.

Hope this helps.

[amjjawad]

I think your 3 days have been wasted already - zeroing a 320GB drive should take hours, not days.

If you want to start over and get some feedback from the terminal, I'd suggest using shred. There are ways of getting verbose output from dd I believe, but not straightforwardly, whereas shred has a -v option built in. For a single pass writing zeroes, you could do it this way:

sudo shred -vzn 0 /dev/sdX

Obviously, substitute your actual device for sdX. The Options:

-v - verbose output - you can actually see whether something is happening.
-z - add a final overwrite with zeros.
-n - overwrite N times instead of the default (3). If you make this zero, then you get just the one pass with zeroes.

Hi,

I have stopped 'dd', rebooted and now, I am running the command you suggested.

Let's see if that will make any difference and fix the original issue.

Thank you!

[3rdalbum]

DD will not fix bad sectors, sorry. 1,400 bad sectors is a sign that the drive has failed aand can't be repaired.

That's why DD would not finish. It was trying to write to disk and being slowed down by the failed writes. Want confirmation? Try DD again, but keep an eye on the output of dmesg. It will spit out a stream of errors.

The disk is dead. Bin it.

[amjjawad]

Hi,

I have stopped 'dd', rebooted and now, I am running the command you suggested.

Let's see if that will make any difference and fix the original issue.

Thank you!

Hi again,

It is over now, how can I check the HDD whether it has bad sector still or it is fine now? of course, after using 'shred', new partition table must be created and that is done. But I didn't create any partition yet, just a partition table.

What is the 'best' way to check the HDD now?

If we got a confirmation from the next test that the HDD is still failure, I will tell my neighbour so he will consider to replace the HDD.

[amjjawad]

Okay, I guess I found the answer for my own Q.

I am trying to install Lubuntu 13.10 from the same LiveUSB I was using and it is stuck now on "creating ext4 file system..."

I guess I have no other choice but to tell my neighbour the bad news

Sorry, not trying to insist or anything but is there any any chance at all to fix the bad sectors?

[slooksterpsv]

You should be able to run badblocks to have it search for an mark bad blocks on the disk.

Another recommendation is to download and install gparted, run it and partition the drives manually instead of the installer changing the partition scheme.

[fantab]

DD will not fix bad sectors, sorry. 1,400 bad sectors is a sign that the drive has failed aand can't be repaired.

That's why DD would not finish. It was trying to write to disk and being slowed down by the failed writes. Want confirmation? Try DD again, but keep an eye on the output of dmesg. It will spit out a stream of errors.

The disk is dead. Bin it.

.......... is there any any chance at all to fix the bad sectors?

HDD manufacturer's have their own tools to fix bad sectors, but most of these tools are Windows dependent.
So you can check the HDD manufacturer's webpage for such tools and try them from Windows PC.

But seriously, 1,400 bad sectors is not good.

Good Luck.

[amjjawad]

You should be able to run badblocks to have it search for an mark bad blocks on the disk.

I had to give up so I shall try this one, let's see if that will make any difference
Thanks for positing!

Another recommendation is to download and install gparted, run it and partition the drives manually instead of the installer changing the partition scheme.

I don't think that will fix the bad sectors/blocks. The problem is not to install or not, the current problem is to whether be able to fix the bad sectors or not.

Thank you!