To journal or not to journal

[Nigel Ridley]

I have always used a journaling file system for my installs but have a collection of used hard 
drives that all seem to have a 'dead' spot in roughly the same place (trying to do a fresh 
install, using different versions and different distros, fails at the same point on all of them).
I know that when a hard drive begins to fail, the built-in hard drive software marks bad spots 
and doesn't use them, and that when the user notices a 'bad spot', then all available 'software' 
options have been used up.

My question is, why is it that my collection of used Linux hard drives all have dead spots in 
roughly the same place? Is it because of the journaling file system writing to the same place all 
the time or is a coincidence?
If the former, what is a recommended file system to use - other than a journaling one?

Blessings,

Nigel

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