Bad Sectors problem

[Aamir]

I had 40Gb Western Digital harddisk that worked perfect untill few
week ago, the bad sectors appeared with sound some kinda of sound that
is comming out of the harddisk.
So i bought another one 80Gb Seagate, i installed WinXP, it was
working nicely and Now it got BAD sectors??? i checked with Norton
Utilities and the bad sectors are just at the begining of my first
partition (i.e. C.

Now what should i do?? Is it because of my Motherboard (i.e. Intel
D845 GEBV2) which i bought 5 months ago or some other problem??

Is it possible to leave the Bad Sectors Area of H/Disk unallocated ??
If Yes, then how to find the location of Bad Sectors??

Should i sell this M/Board with Processor and get another one or
continue with M/Board and get a new H/Disk??

 

[Bob Willard]

I had 40Gb Western Digital harddisk that worked perfect untill few
week ago, the bad sectors appeared with sound some kinda of sound that
is comming out of the harddisk.
So i bought another one 80Gb Seagate, i installed WinXP, it was
working nicely and Now it got BAD sectors??? i checked with Norton
Utilities and the bad sectors are just at the begining of my first
partition (i.e. C.

Now what should i do?? Is it because of my Motherboard (i.e. Intel
D845 GEBV2) which i bought 5 months ago or some other problem??

Is it possible to leave the Bad Sectors Area of H/Disk unallocated ??
If Yes, then how to find the location of Bad Sectors??

Should i sell this M/Board with Processor and get another one or
continue with M/Board and get a new H/Disk??

It is far more likely that your PC is eating HDs due to a bad or poor
or inadequate PS, or due to inadequate cooling, than to a bad MB.

 

[Dennis the Nerf Herder]

It is far more likely that your PC is eating HDs due to a bad or poor
or inadequate PS, or due to inadequate cooling, than to a bad MB.

Sounds like another possibility might be faulty drive controller
firmware. Aamir, if your hard drive controller is a separate card,
try swapping it out with another one. Also, you could place
either of the drives with bad sectors into another PC (if available)
and try reformatting them again.

Beyond that, I would contact the motherboard vendor OR
manufacturer. With the motherboard being 5 months old they
likely are already aware of the issue and will send a disk to
flash the BIOS with an update, or recommend a FTP download
to accomplish the same thing.

Flashing the BIOS is a somewhat more complicated procedure,
but with adequate instructions in the form of "readme.txt" or
phone technical support, most anyone should be able to handle
it. Also, you should consider the possibility that you will have
to revert the BIOS back to the old version and have a program
for doing that as well (e.g. Flash upgrade, Flash downgrade).

Bob may be correct regarding the power supply, but I would
suspect you might have seen some additional symptoms besides
the hard drive (maybe not). If you have a spare power connection
inside the case you MIGHT try switching the one to the hard
drive with another lead. There could be a loose wire or high
resistence in the leads you have been attaching to the hard drive.

Mark the current power lead with a small piece of masking tape
or an adhesive sticker of some sort so you don't get confused on
which one has already been tried.

Also, make a list of things you try as you try them. By doing this
the process of troubleshooting becomes a process of eliminating
possibilities one by one. It takes time but at least it is at your
own expense rather than additional out-of-pocket money.

Good luck!

 

[Arno Wagner]

I had 40Gb Western Digital harddisk that worked perfect untill few
week ago, the bad sectors appeared with sound some kinda of sound that
is comming out of the harddisk.

THat would be retries and recalibration.

So i bought another one 80Gb Seagate, i installed WinXP, it was
working nicely and Now it got BAD sectors??? i checked with Norton
Utilities and the bad sectors are just at the begining of my first
partition (i.e. C.

Hmm. Bad.

Now what should i do?? Is it because of my Motherboard (i.e. Intel
D845 GEBV2) which i bought 5 months ago or some other problem??

Very unlikely.

Is it possible to leave the Bad Sectors Area of H/Disk unallocated ??
If Yes, then how to find the location of Bad Sectors??

Should i sell this M/Board with Processor and get another one or
continue with M/Board and get a new H/Disk??

What, and give the problem to somebody else? That would be immoral!

Anyways, the problem is more likely with some other component.
Options are: Bad PSU, too hot environment, mechanical
schock/vibration and more exotic reasons. Usually this
would be the PSU.

Arno

 

[Arno Wagner]

Sounds like another possibility might be faulty drive controller
firmware.

No. That cannot cause bad sectors. The only software problem
that can cause bad sectors is in the drive's software. With
a WD and a Seagate, it is extremely unlikely that both
have the same problem.

Arno

Aamir, if your hard drive controller is a separate card,
try swapping it out with another one. Also, you could place
either of the drives with bad sectors into another PC (if available)
and try reformatting them again.

Beyond that, I would contact the motherboard vendor OR
manufacturer. With the motherboard being 5 months old they
likely are already aware of the issue and will send a disk to
flash the BIOS with an update, or recommend a FTP download
to accomplish the same thing.

Flashing the BIOS is a somewhat more complicated procedure,
but with adequate instructions in the form of "readme.txt" or
phone technical support, most anyone should be able to handle
it. Also, you should consider the possibility that you will have
to revert the BIOS back to the old version and have a program
for doing that as well (e.g. Flash upgrade, Flash downgrade).

Bob may be correct regarding the power supply, but I would
suspect you might have seen some additional symptoms besides
the hard drive (maybe not). If you have a spare power connection
inside the case you MIGHT try switching the one to the hard
drive with another lead. There could be a loose wire or high
resistence in the leads you have been attaching to the hard drive.

Mark the current power lead with a small piece of masking tape
or an adhesive sticker of some sort so you don't get confused on
which one has already been tried.

 

[Dennis the Nerf Herder]

No. That cannot cause bad sectors. The only software problem
that can cause bad sectors is in the drive's software. With
a WD and a Seagate, it is extremely unlikely that both
have the same problem.

Arno

Two separate drives is why I was thinking drive controller issue.
Isn't it rather unlikely that both drives have an issue?

What process does each drive share in common with the O.S./
motherboard?

If both drives are making similar noises, yeah I could see that
being the PSU.

Aamir, what is the PSU wattage? (and) How many cards are
installed into the computer case?

Hard drive, CD-R/W, DVD (ROM/R/W), video card, sound card,
etc, etc. - each making demands on the PSU (small but they
certainly add up). If you have one of the new high performance
video cards, I believe they draw more watts than almost any
other device (I could be wrong).

 

[Arno Wagner]

Two separate drives is why I was thinking drive controller issue.
Isn't it rather unlikely that both drives have an issue?

It is. But the controller cannot cause bad sectors, no matter
how broken it is. It is not possible to create bad sectors
over the drive interface.

What process does each drive share in common with the O.S./
motherboard?

What do you mean by "process"?

If both drives are making similar noises, yeah I could see that
being the PSU.

Also both drives having some problems. The noises need not be
similar, and will usually not be for drives by different
manufacturers.

Aamir, what is the PSU wattage? (and) How many cards are
installed into the computer case?

A weak PSU could be the issue, but more likely one that has
too much noise on its output signal. The second would be
an old PSU or potentially a lower quality one.

Arno

 

[Dennis the Nerf Herder]

It is. But the controller cannot cause bad sectors, no matter
how broken it is. It is not possible to create bad sectors
over the drive interface.


What do you mean by "process"?

I was thinking the computer must READ some data of the
drive structure (FAT or NTFS) and use it to prepare the data for
writing before it sends to the drive. Like in the case of a
"pagefile.sys" (virtual memory) file, I understand Microsoft
offers a Sysinternals utility to "defrag" the pagefile. So, this
being the case, it seem to me that the hard drive itself is not
the only device (process participant) responsible for the format
of data being written to the drive.

Arno, you make an EXCELLENT point though in regards to the
bad sectors. Aamir, once the drive is formatted and the sectors
are written, I do not believe they are supposed to change.

All drives must be subject to developing "bad sectors" over their
lifetime, otherwise we would not need utilities to scan for and
recover "Bad Sectors" (unverifiable data? data failing an
integrity check? - compared to what reference? A checksum?)

I do not know enough technical detail about file and directory
structure, so I will not specualte further on this topic. I just
hope my questions and remarks will help Aamir or someone
else reading the thread make heads-or-tails of the issue.

Peace and best wishes!

Also both drives having some problems. The noises need not be
similar, and will usually not be for drives by different
manufacturers.


A weak PSU could be the issue, but more likely one that has
too much noise on its output signal. The second would be
an old PSU or potentially a lower quality one.

Arno, you mean like the drive cable routed next to a HUGE
CPU cooling fan? That sort of electromagnetic noise?

Just asking so both Aamir and I will understand.

 

[Rod Speed]

I was thinking the computer must READ some data
of the drive structure (FAT or NTFS) and use it to
prepare the data for writing before it sends to the drive.

Yes, but that is an entirely separate issue to the drive saying
'I cant read that sector you just asked for, its bad'

And whatever the controller or the OS does cant
see the bad sector end up in the list of reallocated
sectors or pending sectors in the drive SMART report.

A power supply or heat problem can do that tho.

The obvious first check is the drive SMART temperatures
to see if the temperature is acceptible.

Like in the case of a "pagefile.sys" (virtual memory)
file, I understand Microsoft offers a Sysinternals
utility to "defrag" the pagefile. So, this being the
case, it seem to me that the hard drive itself is not
the only device (process participant) responsible
for the format of data being written to the drive.

Yes, but it cant produce bad sectors on the
hard drive that show up in the SMART report.

Arno, you make an EXCELLENT point though in regards to the
bad sectors. Aamir, once the drive is formatted and the sectors
are written, I do not believe they are supposed to change.

Not clear what you mean by that.

All drives must be subject to developing "bad sectors" over their
lifetime, otherwise we would not need utilities to scan for and
recover "Bad Sectors" (unverifiable data? data failing an
integrity check? - compared to what reference? A checksum?)

Thats just plain wrong on the all drives claim. Those are there to make handling
of the drives that do develop bad sectors over time, not all drives do that.

And most of them like spinrite come from the era before drives
transparently mapped away bad sectors as they showed up too.

I do not know enough technical detail about file and directory structure,

Its not relevant to his problem.

so I will not specualte further on this topic. I just hope
my questions and remarks will help Aamir or someone
else reading the thread make heads-or-tails of the issue.

Peace and best wishes!

Arno, you mean like the drive cable routed next to a HUGE
CPU cooling fan? That sort of electromagnetic noise?

Nope. Its just one way that power supplys can fail, with
more noise/ripple on the rails than the ATX spec allows.

And it isnt an 'output signal' its an output rail.

 

[Rod Speed]

I had 40Gb Western Digital harddisk that worked perfect
untill few week ago, the bad sectors appeared with sound
some kinda of sound that is comming out of the harddisk.

That is very likely the drive recalibrating when it cant read the bad sectors.

So i bought another one 80Gb Seagate, i installed WinXP,
it was working nicely and Now it got BAD sectors???

Then your system is killing hard drives most likely.

i checked with Norton Utilities and the bad sectors
are just at the begining of my first partition (i.e. C.

Depending on how its formatted, NTFS or FAT32, thats
likely just because that is where most of the write activity is.

Now what should i do??

Work out what about your system is killing the hard drives and if
it looks like nothing is with careful testing, decide its just bad luck
and you have got two bad drives in a row, very unlikely, but possible.

Is it because of my Motherboard (i.e. Intel D845 GEBV2) which i bought 5 months ago

Very unlikely if those bad sectors show up in the Everest SMART report.
Post the SMART report here, not just what it says.
http://www.majorgeeks.com/download.php?det=4181

or some other problem??

Most likely its either the temperature of the drives, or a bad power supply.
The SMART report will have the temperatures in it, so it should be obvious
from that if the drives are running much too hot.

Is it possible to leave the Bad Sectors Area of H/Disk unallocated ??

Yes, but that wont help when more keep showing up.

If Yes, then how to find the location of Bad Sectors??

Not a good idea to go that route.

Should i sell this M/Board with Processor and get another
one or continue with M/Board and get a new H/Disk??

If the temperature of the drives is fine in the SMART
report, the best thing to try is a new power supply.

 

[Arno Wagner]

I was thinking the computer must READ some data of the
drive structure (FAT or NTFS) and use it to prepare the data for
writing before it sends to the drive. Like in the case of a
"pagefile.sys" (virtual memory) file, I understand Microsoft
offers a Sysinternals utility to "defrag" the pagefile. So, this
being the case, it seem to me that the hard drive itself is not
the only device (process participant) responsible for the format
of data being written to the drive.

Aha, true. But the drive does not care about what data is written
or in what organization. It just gets requests for reads and writes
of secors, identified by number. It has no insight into filesystems
or even partitions. Likewise for the mainboard, respectively the disk
controller.

Arno

[...]

 

[Folkert Rienstra]

It is. But the controller cannot cause bad sectors, no matter
how broken it is.

It is not possible to create bad sectors over the drive interface.

Nope, it *is* actually possible to create bad sectors 'over the drive interface'
but the drive has to actually support that (Write Long command).

 

[Folkert Rienstra]

Yes, it is.

Yes, but that is an entirely separate issue to the drive saying
'I cant read that sector you just asked for, its bad'

But the response from the OS can be quite different where it
simply concerns accessing a file or accessing the partition file
system structures.

And whatever the controller or the OS does, cant
see the bad sector end up in the list of reallocated
sectors or pending sectors in the drive SMART report.

Nope, it's entirely possible if the drive supports 'Write Long'.
Whether it's likely is a completely different matter tho.

A power supply or heat problem can do that tho.

The obvious first check is the drive SMART temperatures
to see if the temperature is acceptible.

Yes, but it cant produce bad sectors on the
hard drive that show up in the SMART report.

Oh. yes it can. But it is extremely unlikely.

What a compliment from someone that hasn't got the first clue himself.

Not clear what you mean by that.

Neither has he. It's just a pose.

Not a clue.

Thats just plain wrong on the all drives claim. Those are there to make handling
of the drives that do develop bad sectors over time, not all drives do that.

And most of them like spinrite come from the era

before drives transparently mapped away bad sectors as they showed up too.

Which only works for slowly developing bad sectors that cross a certain
problem threshold. You still want utes that can identify those that have not
yet reached that state but want taken care of and for those that already
aren't salvageable anymore and also want taken care of.

Its not relevant to his problem.

Bwahahah. Keep hoping.

Which are all more descriptions of "weak".

Nope. Its just one way that power supplys can fail, with
more noise/ripple on the rails than the ATX spec allows.

And it isnt an 'output signal' its an output rail.

And what exactly makes you Aamir's spokesperson?

 

[Folkert Rienstra]

Aha, true. But the drive does not care about what data is written
or in what organization. It just gets requests for reads and writes
of secors, identified by number. It has no insight into filesystems
or even partitions. Likewise for the mainboard, respectively the disk
controller.

Which leaves the Operating System.
The OS can declare a sector bad if it receives an(y) error from the drive.

Arno

[...]