Re: Corruption: --fix-fixable results in all nlink values = 0

[Hans Reiser <reiser@namesys.com>]

Brian Tinsley wrote:

> Although it could take quite some time to do this with large RAID 
> devices like we use, I believe this option definitely has some value. 
> I would make this part of our standard build process if it were 
> available.
>
>
> Hans Reiser wrote:
>
>> A colleague of mine back when I was part of a sysadmin department 
>> used to write to every block on the drive before installing the OS on 
>> it. I think he was right to do so. I have considered having 
>> mkreiserfs ask the user if he wants to do that.
>>
>
(You can use dd for now, or badblocks.)

Ok, Vitaly, look into adding this to mkreiser4. It is not that users 
cannot do it themselves, it is that they deserve a prompting reminder.

Tell users:

"Would you like us to write to every block on the partition before 
installing the filesystem on it? This will take a very long time, and is 
appropriate for persons willing to wait a day before proceeding. It is 
useful because it will cause the disk drive to remap bad sectors it 
finds, and cautious sysadmins not in a particular hurry sometimes like 
to do this."

Then take a look at the badblocks program, and decide whether we should 
use that or dd for this purpose, and whether we should read as well as 
write.

Hans