Skip to main content

hard drive - Is it sufficient to refresh an archival external HDD with chkdsk?

Some background:


I have been helping my uncle, a photographer, maintain a system of storage for all his work (Terrabytes of images!).


We do this by using two external hard drives for his data storage.


One of them we call the "Work Horse" drive, which he uses for working on files in Photoshop etc. thoughout the day. The other, called "Archive", receives any changes (using SyncToy) to the Work Horse on a daily basis.


When the external drives start to get full, the pair of drives are eventually disconnected from the system, replaced by a new pair of drives. The full work horse is then stored on-site , the Archive at a family member's house.


We have used this approach for the past few years - and I am now starting to think about 'refreshing' some of the older drives to prevent the effects of 'bit flux' or 'bit rot'.


The Question:


Is using the bad sector check included in Windows 7's chkdsk sufficient for revitalising every bit of data on these drives? If not, do any of you have a better solution?


Please bear in mind, I am aware using Tape backups would probably be best (as they are purpose built for archiving) but these are not an economically viable option for my uncle at present.

Comments

Popular Posts

Use Google instead of Bing with Windows 10 search

I want to use Google Chrome and Google search instead of Bing when I search in Windows 10. Google Chrome is launched when I click on web, but it's Bing search. (My default search engine on Google and Edge is http://www.google.com ) I haven't found how to configure that. Someone can help me ? Answer There is no way to change the default in Cortana itself but you can redirect it in Chrome. You said that it opens the results in the Chrome browser but it used Bing search right? There's a Chrome extension now that will redirect Bing to Google, DuckDuckGo, or Yahoo , whichever you prefer. More information on that in the second link.

linux - Using an index to make grep faster?

I find myself grepping the same codebase over and over. While it works great, each command takes about 10 seconds, so I am thinking about ways to make it faster. So can grep use some sort of index? I understand an index probably won't help for complicated regexps, but I use mostly very simple patters. Does an indexer exist for this case? EDIT: I know about ctags and the like, but I would like to do full-text search. Answer what about cscope , does this match your shoes? Allows searching code for: all references to a symbol global definitions functions called by a function functions calling a function text string regular expression pattern a file files including a file

How do I transmit a single hexadecimal value serial data in PuTTY using an Alt code?

I am trying to sent a specific hexadecimal value across a serial COM port using PuTTY. Specifically, I want to send the hex codes 9C, B6, FC, and 8B. I have looked up the Alt codes for these and they are 156, 182, 252, and 139 respectively. However, whenever I input the Alt codes, a preceding hex value of C2 is sent before 9C, B6, and 8B so the values that are sent are C2 9C, C2 B6, and C2 8B. The value for FC is changed to C3 FC. Why are these values being placed before the hex value and why is FC being changed altogether? To me, it seems like there is a problem internally converting the Alt code to hex. Is there a way to directly input hex values without using Alt codes in PuTTY? Answer What you're seeing is just ordinary text character set conversion. As far as PuTTY is concerned, you are typing (and reading) text , not raw binary data, therefore it has to convert the text to bytes in whatever configured character set before sending it over the wire. In other words, when y...

linux - Impossible to connect with ldap

IP : 192.168.0.70 (dell) DIT : (seen through ldapphpadmin) And for patricia duchesne: dn cn=patricia duchesne,ou=users,dc=memorandum,dc=pro cn patricia duchesne gidnumber 501 givenname patricia homedirectory /home/users/pduchesne loginshell /bin/bash objectclass inetOrgPerson | posixAccount | top sn duchesne uid pduchesne uidnumber 1000 userpassword {MD5}eFI0F0... IP : 192.168.0.60 (pb) NSSWitch is configured : cat/etc/nsswitch.confpasswd:filesldapgroup:filesldapshadow:filesldapgshadow:fileshosts:filesmdns4minimal[NOTFOUND=return]dnsnetworks:filesprotocols:dbfilesservices:dbfilesethers:dbfilesrpc:dbfilesnetgroup:nissoisldapauth: cat /etc/auth-client-config/profile.d/ldap-auth-config [lac_ldap] nss_passwd=passwd: files ldap nss_group=group: files ldap nss_shadow=shadow: files ldap nss_netgroup=netgroup: nis and libnss : $ cat /etc/libnss-ldap.conf uri ldap://192.168.0.70 base dc=...