Re: [gentoo-user] "Invalid boot diskette" what do I do?

[Alan McKinnon <alan.mckinnon@gmail.com>]

On Fri, 24 Feb 2012 20:55:21 +0000
James Broadhead <jamesbroadhead@gmail.com> wrote:

> On 23 February 2012 21:29, Grant <emailgrant@gmail.com> wrote:
> > [snip]
> >
> > I'm amazed but disconnecting and reconnecting the IDE and power
> > cable fixed it.  Which is your favorite tool for testing a HD's
> > integrity with and without S.M.A.R.T. support?
> 
> [I] gnome-extra/gsmartcontrol [1]
>      Available versions:  (~)0.8.6 {debug}
>      Installed versions:  0.8.6(16:47:27 13/02/12)(-debug)
>      Homepage:            http://gsmartcontrol.berlios.de/
>      Description:         Graphical user interface for smartctl
> 
> [1] "sunrise" /var/lib/layman/sunrise
> 
> Is a great (and sorely needed) frontend for smartmontools - it even
> colours lines in red when they indicate imminent failure!
> 
> Make sure that you have read the Google paper before trusting SMART
> too far though -- they found (among other things) that it only
> accurately predicts failure in 50% of cases.
> 

That's a fair trade in my book, seeing as without it I could 
manage to accurately predict failure in 0% of cases.

Now to get the managers to understand that it's 50%, not 100% and stop
the endless whinging when SAN drives fail without prior SMART alerts

While on the topic, has anyone heard of research into false positives
wrt S.M.A.R.T?

-- 
Alan McKinnnon
alan.mckinnon@gmail.com