I cannot format anymore the hard drive of my laptop. Here is how I proceed: I am starting my computer with a USB live drive (Ubuntu 10.04 LTS - the Lucid Lynx).
Then I start disk utility and try to format the hard drive - I choosed to format the Master boot record but I get the following error:
Error creating partition table: helper exited with exit code 1: Error calling fsync(2) on /dev/sda: Input/output error
If I try to delete partitions I get the following error
Error erasing: helper exited with exit code 1: In part_del_partition: device_file=/dev/sda, offset=32256 Entering MS-DOS parser (offset=0, size=30005821440) MSDOS_MAGIC found looking at part 0 (offset 32256, size 4096157184, type 0x83) new part entry looking at part 1 (offset 10618836480, size 8414461440, type 0x83) new part entry looking at part 2 (offset 19033297920, size 1077511680, type 0x82) new part entry looking at part 3 (offset 20110809600, size 9895011840, type 0x07) new part entry Exiting MS-DOS parser MSDOS partition table detected got it got disk got partition - part->type=0 Error: Input/output error during write on /dev/sda ped_disk_commit_to_dev() failed
If I try to install ubuntu frrom the usb on the hard drive and choose erase and use the entire disk I get the error message
Input/output error during write on /dev/sda
For side infos I have at the moment 4 partitions on my hard drive: /dev/sda1 (ext2) /dev/sda2 (ext2) /dev/sda3 (swap) /dev/sda1 (ntfs) + /dev/sda (unlocated Space)
My ultimate goal is to reinstall ubuntu and have only 2 partitions...
I would really appreciate any help here!
Thanks
JB
@psusi I tried what as written in the other message qnd I got the following:
ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ sudo badblocks -b 512 /dev/sda
52464512
52464520
52464521
52464522
52464523
52464524
52464525
52464526
52464527
ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ sudo dd if=/dev/sda of=/dev/null iflag=direct bs=512 skip=52464512 count=1
1+0 records in 1+0 records out 512 bytes (512 B) copied, 0.0296602 s, 17.3 kB/s
ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ sudo dd if=/dev/sda of=/dev/null iflag=direct bs=512 skip=52464520 count=1
1+0 records in 1+0 records out 512 bytes (512 B) copied, 0.000283555 s, 1.8 MB/s
ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ sudo dd if=/dev/sda of=/dev/null iflag=direct bs=512 skip=52464521 count=1
1+0 records in 1+0 records out 512 bytes (512 B) copied, 0.000283835 s, 1.8 MB/s
ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ sudo dd if=/dev/sda of=/dev/null iflag=direct bs=512 skip=52464522 count=1
dd: reading `/dev/sda': Input/output error 0+0 records in 0+0 records out 0 bytes (0 B) copied, 30.8623 s, 0.0 kB/s
ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ sudo dd if=/dev/sda of=/dev/null iflag=direct bs=512 skip=52464523 count=1
1+0 records in 1+0 records out 512 bytes (512 B) copied, 0.0370136 s, 13.8 kB/s
ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ sudo dd if=/dev/sda of=/dev/null iflag=direct bs=512 skip=52464524 count=1
1+0 records in 1+0 records out 512 bytes (512 B) copied, 0.00264196 s, 194 kB/s
ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ sudo dd if=/dev/sda of=/dev/null iflag=direct bs=512 skip=52464525 count=1
1+0 records in 1+0 records out 512 bytes (512 B) copied, 0.00303921 s, 168 kB/s
ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ sudo dd if=/dev/sda of=/dev/null iflag=direct bs=512 skip=52464526 count=1
1+0 records in 1+0 records out 512 bytes (512 B) copied, 0.0029378 s, 174 kB/s
ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ sudo dd if=/dev/sda of=/dev/null iflag=direct bs=512 skip=52464527 count=1
1+0 records in 1+0 records out 512 bytes (512 B) copied, 0.00647233 s, 79.1 kB/s
ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ sudo dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sda oflag=direct bs=512 seek=52464522 count=1
dd: writing `/dev/sda': Input/output error
1+0 records in
0+0 records out
0 bytes (0 B) copied, 7.88114 s, 0.0 kB/s
ubuntu@ubuntu:~$
I am not sure what to do next...