Does the "Zero Out Data" feature in Disk Utility map out bad sectors/blocks?
I would like a definite answer on this one. I have heard that is does and that it doesn't.
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Just to add some actual experiences to this thread, which is replete with misinformation:
I have a disk with bad blocks (internal drive on a Mac Mini), discovered when some files could not be read (the process, e.g., /usr/bin/sum, would hang until interrupted, and the kernel would report a disk error). I used fsck_hfs -S to find the bad block addresses, which verified the suspect filenames that contained those blocks. Then I zeroed the disk using Disk Utility, ran fsck again, and all the bad blocks are still reported, but this time they are not associated with any file as expected but are obviously still in the file system and would presumably be reallocated to files if the drive was in use.
I conclude that zeroing is ineffective in this case. YMMV.
Does the "Zero Out Data" feature in Disk Utility map out bad sectors/blocks?