Last Updated on October 1, 2018 by Mathew Diekhake

It’s no secret Ubuntu is coming. Coming for mobile phones to tackle the giants like Apple, Android and Windows Phone. But it has also just become the national operating system of China. Things are really looking up for the world’s favorite open source software, Ubuntu.

If you use Ubuntu, it is a good idea to run this checking the Hard drive for bad sectors from time to time to make sure your system is problem free. There are other ways to do it, but none more simpler than this. If you were to do it another way you would need to run the disk utility or something of that nature.

How to Check Your Hard Drive for Bad Sectors in Terminal for Ubuntu

Step 1. Open up the terminal command and copy the first line, then run it. To run it just press the enter on your keyboard. You may also need to enter your password here.

Step 2. This will now check your system for bad blocks. After a brief period, it will finish running and display how many bad blocks you have in your system. If you do find bad blocks, don’t worry, it’s very common. Continue reading, and we’ll show you how to fix them.

Step 3. If you have found bad blocks, the last command in the terminal window needs to be run. Copy and paste this command just like you with the first command and the run it. Once you do that you will be presented with a whole bunch of options on what to do.

Step 4. The most common solution here is an E2 file system check. Once you press E2, it will remove the bad sector to another place for you.

Bad sectors are not the be all and end all contrary to popular belief. It is possible to use a hard drive for quite some time still even after bad sectors are detected. Will your hard drive life a healthy life from here on out? No, but it doesn’t mean your hard drive is going to give way tomorrow. There have been cases where people have used their Ubuntu Linux computers for several years still after finding a bad sector. That said, it is important to note that there is a problem and it lasting for years will not happen for everybody so start saving for a new hard drive is obviously the best idea.

You might also be interested in:

You can subscribe to our RSS, follow us on Twitter or like our Facebook page to keep on consuming more tech.