Software to analyse my HDD?

runswithascript

My computer has suddenly become a lot more sluggish than it was before the weekend, and remains so despite checking the partitions of the drive for errors and defragmenting using Windows' own utilities.

I will complete a full Microsoft Security Essentials and Ad-Aware scan tonight, but the fact it has gotten slow on both Windows and linux would suggest the problem is not virus or malware related.

Can you recommend such a tool for testing?

Also, I read once that third party software should be used to take an image of every Windows XP partition so it can boot from the exact same one each time as not doing so will allow XP to eventually corrupt the filesystem, is there any truth to this?

Check the drive manafacturer for a diagnostic tool.

Failing that, HDTune has a few tools to run a benchmark on the drive, look at the SMART data for errors, and run a quick/long scan to check for bad sectors.

Also maybe check Event Viewer, often you'll see I/O errors etc correspoding to a bad drive or loose SATA cable.

Crystaldiskinfo is another nice way of looking at SMART data, a bit easier to read than HDTune.

runswithascript

Deleted User wrote: »

Check the drive manafacturer for a diagnostic tool.

Just downloaded SeaTools.

Deleted User wrote: »

Failing that, HDTune has a few tools to run a benchmark on the drive, look at the SMART data for errors, and run a quick/long scan to check for bad sectors.

Already did a quick scan for errors with that but it found nothing and I'll do a long scan later. It did give me some warnings already though, please see the screenshots.

(0A) Spin Retry Count.
Description: Number of spin attempts after a spin up failure: 0. Status: Error!
Threshold reached. Replacing the hard drive is recommended.

(C5) Current Pending Sector.
Description: Number of unstable sectors: 42
Satus: The drive has unstable sectors.

Read benchmark:



Firefox and Skype were running, but apart from that the computer was idle and I did not use it.

Where exactly on benchmarks is the SMART data?

Deleted User wrote: »

Also maybe check Event Viewer, often you'll see I/O errors etc correspoding to a bad drive or loose SATA cable.

Will do.

Deleted User wrote: »

Crystaldiskinfo is another nice way of looking at SMART data, a bit easier to read than HDTune.

Downloading.

I know you said to use SeaTools first, but from what you have seen so far do you think the problems are fixable?

SpinRite has also been recommended to me, have you used that?

It must be said that today after yesterday using Windows XP to check both of the partitions available to the system for errors (NTFS, not the linux-swap or ext3/4 file systems), and then overnight scanning with Microsoft Security Essentials and removing some malware, it is running much faster than yesterday, although it does freeze up still a bit at times, and I have not even tested a game yet.

dusf

dusf wrote: »

Where exactly on benchmarks is the SMART data?

The SMART data is the first image you posted. The drive is a goner because you've got a fail. It also means if you are in warranty a replacement should be easy.

The benchmark is more to see how the drive is running. Clearly its not healthy because you've got those massive dips towards the middle, it means the drive is failing to read properly at certain points. In real life use it would correspond to freezes and stutters while doing stuff.

I know you said to use SeaTools first, but from what you have seen so far do you think the problems are fixable?

No, once you get a SMART failure I would RMA the drive if possible or otherwise use it for something unimportant.

If you are going to continue using the drive then I would do a full wipe (ie something that writes 1s or 0s to the whole disk) to make sure that any bad sectors are discovered and reallocated. You can't do this properly with a read-scan (ie disk-check) it needs to be a destructive write operation.

runswithascript

Deleted User wrote: »

The SMART data is the first image you posted. The drive is a goner because you've got a fail. It also means if you are in warranty a replacement should be easy.

Long out of warranty, but good to know for future drives.

Deleted User wrote: »

The benchmark is more to see how the drive is running. Clearly its not healthy because you've got those massive dips towards the middle, it means the drive is failing to read properly at certain points. In real life use it would correspond to freezes and stutters while doing stuff.

I can testify to that!

Deleted User wrote: »

No, once you get a SMART failure I would RMA the drive if possible or otherwise use it for something unimportant.

Return Merchandise Authorization?

Deleted User wrote: »

If you are going to continue using the drive then I would do a full wipe (ie something that writes 1s or 0s to the whole disk) to make sure that any bad sectors are discovered and reallocated. You can't do this properly with a read-scan (ie disk-check) it needs to be a destructive write operation.

Unfortunately I have nothing to back up on and will have to keep using it until the end of the month when I'm planning on either getting a small (cheap) SSD of maybe 128GB for linux and windows system and program files or a 2TB drive (green or not undecided) for storing media.

As my media is what's most important I may be best off getting the 2TB drive first, backup an image of the drive straight away, erase the drive, and then installing/recovering the system partitions and relocate the media to a defined media partition on the new 2TB. I can always get the SSD then at my leisure.

Will this destructive write operation completely fix the drive, or at least move the bad sectors to where data won't be stored on them or something?

Also, you're certain Software can't fix this without backing up despite SeaTools telling me:

Unfortunately, your Seagate product has failed an important diagnostic test, possibly caused by problem sectors which are difficult to read. Seagate recommends that you run SeaTools for DOS, which has the ability to repair most problem sectors. SeaTools for DOS may be able to save you from the inconvenience and down time of exchanging the drive. For more information on this subject

I had planned on going through all the tests and repair options of all the HDD software I have downloaded, is there any point now?

dusf

dusf wrote: »

Return Merchandise Authorization?

Yeah, only if in warranty though. If you run Seatools you'll probably get a fail with a failure code. If it was in warranty they normally want the failure code to return it.

Unfortunately I have nothing to back up on and will have to keep using it until the end of the month when I'm planning on either getting a small (cheap) SSD of maybe 128GB for linux and windows system and program files or a 2TB drive (green or not undecided) for storing media.

As my media is what's most important I may be best off getting the 2TB drive first, backup an image of the drive straight away, erase the drive, and then installing/recovering the system partitions and relocate the media to a defined media partition on the new 2TB. I can always get the SSD then at my leisure.

Will this destructive write operation completely fix the drive, or at least move the bad sectors to where data won't be stored on them or something?

Also, you're certain Software can't fix this without backing up despite SeaTools telling me:

I had planned on going through all the tests and repair options of all the HDD software I have downloaded, is there any point now?

Well the drive is a goner, once they start giving trouble it usually snowballs. First priority is to back-up anything valuable.

After your stuff is safely backed up then you have the choice to replace it or just run it into the ground. Obviously depends on how badly it is acting up and whether you can afford a new drive.

A destructive write is basically a full format of the drive. But more thorough at finding bad sectors than a windows full format which only reads. What it'll do is hopefully identify bad sectors and mark them as unusable (reallocate). Then you'd do a clean install and nothing would be stored on those sectors so hopefully you don't get as much stuttering or freezing.

The Seatools Dos suggestion is basically the same thing. It would do a full reformat with writes. Actually that's probably what I would use anyway.

But its only temporary, the drive is on the way out. Once they start going bad it usually just gets worse and worse. It looks quite old from the power-on hours count so it is to be expected.

Backup data is the main priority.

runswithascript

Thanks for all the advice.