oh oh oh. My time to shine (? shine seems wrong. Cringe? I don't know). Allow me to present https://www.digiater.nl/openvms/doc/alpha-v8.3/ovms_archived..., The VMS Bad Block Utility. In my first real job I had to port this from 32 bit VAX to 64 bit Alpha, which meant recompiling it, then testing it with:
- a SCSI floppy drive (! amazeballs all by itself)
- a box of fresh disks
- an unfolded paperclip
Method:
- take fresh disk.
- pull back spring-loaded protective cover
- make scratch on disk with paperclip
- insert disk in still experimental Alpha hardware
- check for evidence that the bad block utility had run, remapped some (physically damaged) blocks, and gone back to sleep
