Fatal Disk Error urgency [1]

[Dodds@YUKON.SCRC.Symbolics.COM (Douglas Dodds)]

    Date: Wed, 6 Jun 90 00:25 EDT
    From: RWK@FUJI.ILA.Dialnet.Symbolics.COM (Robert W. Kerns)

		    How do I do that?

    Unfortunately, Symbolics doesn't seem to distribute the source for
    SI:FIX-FEP-FILE and SI:FIX-FEP-BLOCK, and I don't seem to have access
    to *ANY* Rel-8 documentation (online or paper), so I can't tell you
    what they are documented as doing, but disassembly suggests that
    SI:FIX-FEP-BLOCK does exactly what you want, including testing and
    analysis, and prompting you for the suitable recovery strategies.

These functions are documented in 8.0.  They were not in 7.0.  I have no
easy way to verify whether they were documented in 7.2, 7.3, etc.

SI:FIX-FEP-BLOCK does do exactly what PAN wants; I generally endorse
your advice.

    But I suggest reading its documentation first.  (I couldn't find any
    documentation in the 7.2 set, although I know SI:FIX-FEP-FILE existed
    then, and I think it was even documented.  I think SI:FIX-FEP-BLOCK
    may be new to 8.0).

Nope.  It's history has been completely parallel to SI:FIX-FEP-FILE, to
my knowledge.

    I don't know if SI:FIX-FEP-BLOCK performs the proper actions to
    minimize damage to the file in which the block appears, but hopefully
    the documentation will enlighten you.  In general, world-load files which
    get a bad block should be replaced, LMFS files should have a block of zeros
    substituted, and paging files can just have the block removed (while the
    file is not in use!)

The documentation states, and I agree, that for safety, you should never
use SI:FIX-FEP-BLOCK or SI:FIX-FEP-FILE on LMFS partitions.  Instead,
use LMFS:FIX-FILE, which gives you the right pathname-based handles on
the file, and limits the options to those that are safe for the
integrity of LMFS partitions.