[starman]

Hi all,
I have this SATA hard drive that all of a sudden started giving me -36 errors on one file, but only one file. I could live without the file, but I just want to know if I can safely wipe the hard drive without worrying about this happening on it again.

[ghporter]

That depends on what you mean by "wipe." If you just mean that you want to remove or replace that file, that probably will fix the issue. If you mean that you want to format the drive, that should also fix the problem, but you'll have to reload all the data on the drive from some backup source. If you REALLY mean "wipe" in terms of completely deleting EVERYTHING from it so that nothing can be recovered, you'll have to repartition and reformat then reload the data.

You may want to find out if the drive's manufacturer has a utility to test the drive and see if what you're seeing is a sign of impending drive failure or just one file being corrupt. You should also check into what the SMART status of the drive is-run System Profiler and select the Serial ATA entry to see what it says. "Verified" is a good status, anything else is not.

[starman]

The SMART system says it's OK, as does Disk Utility. The file's not worth the $100 for some utility to get the file recovered. I can recreate it. Yeah, I'm going to completely obliterate the HD. I backed everything up. Thanks.

[Big Mac]

Sounds a bit extreme for only one file, but that's your choice.