I think my hard drive is busted

cormie

Hi,
I've been using a desktop (which I bought on boards) for the past few weeks and every so often it would restart by itself. This would happen mostly after I have just booted the thing up and then I connect to the net and start MSN or IE, it would happen maybe once every 5 boot ups. It also happened when AVG would do a scheduled system scan. What happened after, is that it would reboot and then it would say boot failure replace system disk and try again or something along them lines. If I turned the power off and on again it would boot normally.

I'm reinstalling the OS on it now, I tried last night but it gave an error about the disk. I tried again this morning and it was going fine until there were about 3 minutes left on the finalising installation process. It then gave that blue screen and said something about NTFS so it's now reinstalling again. Everything else on the HD was working fine, as far as I could tell and I thought it may just need a reinstall of the OS.

Also, just before it shuts down, you can hear the hard drive making strange noises. The kind of noise you would hear if you had a buckle in a bicycle tyre and spun it slowly and every rotation it would catch something on the frame.

Is this definitely a HD problem?

Maybe I could trade this HD, it's 20GB with possible damage for a good nick 10GB.

cormie

Aghhh. It just happened again in the finalising installation stages with 9 minutes to go. It says on the Blue screen.

Kernel_Date_Inpage_error


***Stop: 0x0000007a (0xC03e62b4, 0xc000000e, 0xf98ad554, 0x0adf7860)

*** Ntfs.sys - address f98ad554 base at f985a000, datestamp 3d6de5c1



new hard drive time??

Oh and the same noise from the hard drive was there too, I heard the noise going and about 10 seconds later the Blue screen appeared.

Voodoo2

Sounds like a damaged cluster or block on you HD, Do a wipe of the machine including all partitions, reformat and reload!

One thing to try is disconnect everything you dont need to go about your daily work on the PC, if it doesnt reboot from that its driver problems!

cormie

Well I formatted it when reinstalling the OS with the XP CD so does that rule out the first option? All that was connected to the PC when reinstalling is the power, mouse, keyboard and monitor cable.

So it's probably a bad cluster?

Does 20GB with bad cluster for 10GB PWO sound like a good deal?

Mac daddy

I had roughly the same problem not so long ago and getting non system disk errors, check the cabling if you have a different cable use that.

What is it a sata drive? ( upgrade the bios ) and check and see if any newer driver for the controller you are using.

Also check your system logs for errors on the drive - Right click my computer / manage/ event viewer / system logs.

cormie

Hi, thanks for the reply. I don't know what kind of drive it is, just a normal 3.5" hard drive I think. IDE I'd say. But there is no way to do the things in my computer as there is no OS on it.

I am using a laptop now, the bad HD is on a different computer. I have an external HD Case that I can hook it up to the laptop with and check it. But what program would I use to determine if there is a bad sector? If there is, should I just swap it? What if it says there isn't? Bios? how would I fix the bios problem?

Stephen

If you have any data you value, back it up and don't rely on that drive. I don't see it lasting much longer.

cormie

No data I value on it, I've formatted it already and the problem occurs now when I am reinstalling the OS on it. So do you reckon it's definitely an error with the HD then?

Mac daddy

replacement time if it just happened again.

Stephen

Anytime a hard disk starts making funny noises, you know its days are numbered. Replace it.

cormie

Ok thanks for the help:)

Do you reckon it's ok for general storage use? If someone offers me a 10GB drive for it and they just want it to store a few files on an external hard drive for example?

Mac daddy

i wouldn't trust it to be honest,

Stephen

No. Its going to pack up altogether - soon.

cormie

Gah well I'll tell that to whoever may trade me. They still might be ok with it!?

cormie

Actually, just before I give up hope on it, is there any way I can check if it IS actually the HD by putting it in my external HD case and connecting to my laptop and doing a check of some sort? What do I need to do, what program etc?

Any help appreciated:)

Stephen

erm

no software, just listen for clicking/clunking noises. Either of those, and the disk is ****ed.

cormie

I remember I bought a HD off some guy on boards and he gave me a sheet of paper with a diagnosis of it which I think he did from some website or program. Is there not something out there which will give a diagnosis of the condition of it

Capt'n Midnight

SMART is the technology used to predict HDD failures.

I don't know if it works some failure modes like head crashes or if it just works on bad sectors. IDE drives (Intelligent Drive Electronics) use their "intelligence" to remap bad sectors to spare ones (there are maybe an extra 1% of spare secotrs on a drive) WITHOUT telling the user !

2 windows freeware SMART programs on this page
http://www.softpedia.com/catList/115,1,1,2.html

info and shareware and code for linux
http://www.techworld.com/storage/features/index.cfm?featureid=591&Page=1&pagePos=4

Someone should have a better linkie to a trusted app

Capt'n Midnight

Review of smart
http://www.serverworldmagazine.com/monthly/2002/06/smart.shtml

SMART technology is only capable of predicting 20 to 50 percent of HDD failures with sufficient time to allow a user or system manager to respond. Thus, one of the best kept secrets is that SMART is only an advisory service at best.”

Another app to try is spinwrite http://www.grc.com/

cormie

Hi thanks for that.

I was on boards IRC and was advised to do dskchk I did it from the XP CD recovery console and this is the report:

Chkdsk found and fixed one or more errors on the volume
19518940 kb total
18497364 available
4096 bytes in each allocation unit
4879735 total allocation units on disk
4624341 allocation units available on disk

but I was told that because it makes a clicking noise (like a leaf caught in a bicycle tyre skimming the frame on every rotation) for about 10 seconds and then it restarts the pc that the HD is kaput.

I was using this HD with the desktop for a few weeks until my laptop was sent back. It was working fine, no lost data or corrupt files, as far as I know. The only trouble it gave me was if I ran AVG drive scan it would restart and some times when I started the PC and opened IE/MSN etc it would restart and the odd time it would restart by itself. The times when I'd open IE/MSN after start up, there were no ticking noises, it would just restart straight away. The other times (with avg, out of the blue and when I was trying to install XP) it clicks.

Does the above dskchk mean it's repaired? Is chkdsk reliable information or should I download one of the above too?

Thanks:)

Capt'n Midnight

cormie wrote:

but I was told that because it makes a clicking noise (like a leaf caught in a bicycle tyre skimming the frame on every rotation) for about 10 seconds and then it restarts the pc that the HD is kaput.

Sounds like a head crash.
Backup ASAP. - I'd advise not using it again until you've ready to back it up in case it dies before you have a chance to save your data.

In a short while it will die. Then when you power on it will go click click click for 10 seconds and then probably a noise like a ball bearing and no more C:

No software can recover from a head crash , you are talking about the best part of a grand from data recovery specialists in a clean room ..

cormie

Ok, I was offered a 10GB HD for €10 off someone on boards so I think I'll just go get it now then. The data is nothing to worry about, sure it's formatted anyway, no data loss:) Thanks for the help!

cormie

Hmmm.. I just tried installing XP again since the dskchk repair thingy and it worked this time, no problem and XP is now booted up on my pc screen. Is it definitely going to die or could it just be a case that the bad sectors were repaired with dskchk?

cormie

Hmmm.. I just set up AVG, did a full system scan and it didn't restart or anything like that.. Think I should wait it out and see if it actually does die? The pc is just going to be used as a back up anyway to work from, it wont be the source of important files or anything.

Stephen

Yes, it definately is going to die. Accept it.

rogue-entity

I do not think that it is going to fail on you, but I could still be wrong.

In my PC I have a Western Digital 30Gig drive that used to make strange noises. It would sound like the drive was reading something then I would here it click click click, and then after a while it would finish initialising and the system would start up. It only happens when it gets cold. The drive also reported "Drive Protection System Failure" when I ran a diagnostic on it but it works fine, I have been using it reliably for two years despite the fact that it has exactly 16k of bad sectors.

My advice would be to use the drive for your windows installation and add a second drive for your files, then if it actualy fails, all you need to do is replace it and reinstall windows, your files will be intact on a second drive. That is what I do at the moment with mine.

cormie

Well I think I'm just going to give it a chance. It reinstalled XP fine once I did chkdsk and chkdsk said it repaired something and since then it hasn't happened again. As I said, it is only going to be used on a pc that is only going to be used as a secondary pc if my dads laptop gets stolen/repaired etc.

osmethod

Seeing as u aren't too bothered if the disk f's up... check the disk manufacturers website and look for their specific "Low Low Level" format tool. Also look too see if their is a "Firmware" upgrade for the disk.

osmethod

cormie

Sorry, I'm a bit unsure, but what would either of the above do? I know firmwares put a new software system on it but what would the format tool do? Format it? why low low low??:o

rogue-entity

If you update the firmware you have to be certain that you have the EXACT firmware for your particular drives make and model or you could end up killing it completly.

As for the "low low low" level formatter, WD and Seagate (and probably other HDD makers) have often released tools designed to recover a drive that has died as long as it is still recognised by the system.