I wrote up this document because this issue does not appear to be clearly documented anywhere (as far as Google knows).
You are probably reading this page because one of your systems (with IDE disks) complains about "uncorrectable data error" when trying to read certain parts of your harddrive.
Modern disks will auto-detect bad sectors and map them as unusable. The sectors become unavailable to the OS and it simply results in reduced storage capacity. This procedure takes place entirely without user intervention.
If you are seeing messages about uncorrectable data errors, your disk is unable to repair itself. This means it is dying. Sorry. Backup your data as soon as possible and make arrangements to replace the damaged drive.
$Date: 2004/01/30 18:52:14 $