bad block

To bad block your disk, follow this procedure. If it fails, your disk is bad...

    Note: do NOT abort a bad block scan!

    Note: do NOT bad block a SSD

    Note: backup your important files FIRST!

    Note: this will take many hours

    Note: you may have a pending HDD failure

Boot to a Ubuntu Live DVD/USB.

In terminal...

sudo fdisk -l # identify all "Linux Filesystem" partitions

sudo e2fsck -fcky /dev/sdXX # read-only test

or

sudo e2fsck -fccky /dev/sdXX # non-destructive read/write test (recommended)

The -k is important, because it saves the previous bad block table, and adds any new bad blocks to that table. Without -k, you loose all of the prior bad block information.

The -fccky parameter...

   -f    Force checking even if the file system seems clean.

   -c    This option causes e2fsck to use badblocks(8) program  to  do  a
         read-only  scan  of  the device in order to find any bad blocks.
         If any bad blocks are found, they are added  to  the  bad  block
         inode  to  prevent them from being allocated to a file or direc‐
         tory.  If this option is specified twice,  then  the  bad  block
         scan will be done using a non-destructive read-write test.

   -k    When combined with the -c option, any existing bad blocks in the
         bad blocks list are preserved, and any new bad blocks  found  by
         running  badblocks(8)  will  be added to the existing bad blocks
         list.

   -y    Assume  an answer of `yes' to all questions; allows e2fsck to be
         used non-interactively.  This option may not be specified at the
         same time as the -n or -p options.