hdparm(8)–Linux Programmer's Manual – Administration and Privileged Commands from Manned.org. "--make-bad-sector Deliberately create a bad sector (aka. "media error") on the disk. [...] Note also that the --repair-sector option can be used to restore (any) bad sectors when they are no longer needed, including sectors that were genuinely bad (the drive will likely remap those to a fresh area on the media). --write-sector: This can be used to force a drive to repair a bad sector (media error)."
