Technorama

root@ubuntu:~# badblocks -b 4096 -c 512 -s -v -w /dev/sda
/dev/sda is apparently in use by the system; it's not safe to run badblocks!

Checking the output of "mount" I see none of the partitions are mounted. However, using the command "swapon -s" I see the swap partition was in use:

root@ubuntu:~# swapon -s
Filename Type Size Used Priority
/dev/sda5 partition 12285948 0 -1

root@ubuntu:~# swapoff /dev/sda5
root@ubuntu:~# badblocks -b 4096 -c 512 -s -v -w /dev/sda
Checking for bad blocks in read-write mode
From block 0 to 122096645
Testing with pattern 0xaa: 0.32% done, 0:20 elapsed
2.97% done, 3:11 elapsed


Previous log
=======

root@ubuntu:/# mount
aufs on / type aufs (rw)
none on /proc type proc (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev)
none on /sys type sysfs (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev)
fusectl on /sys/fs/fuse/connections type fusectl (rw)
none on /dev type devtmpfs (rw,mode=0755)
none on /dev/pts type devpts (rw,noexec,nosuid,gid=5,mode=

Labels: GNU+Linux, Ubuntu