hdtune - site broken?

[Terry Pinnell]

I've sadly recently found evidence that one of my 60 GB Maxtor HDs is
at risk of failing. It's especially worrying as this 3-year old drive
contains my two most important partitions: C:, my Win XP Home OS and
half my program files; and D:, most of my data and the other half of
my program files. The evidence came in the form of chkdsk reporting
bad block and bad sectors, plus HDTach failing during the final of the
4-part 'Quick Test' (the Sequential Read).


Anyway, all that preamble is background for when I return later to
seek help on the optimum strategy for safely replacing this drive, if
indeed it proves necessary.

For the moment, I'm just looking to download one other tool I've seen
recommended, hdtune. But all the links I follow lead to
http://www.hdtune.com/ which fails, with a timeout error.

Is that just a temporary problem, or has the site gone? Is there an
alternative source to download this please?

 

[old jon]

I`ve answered you in alt.comp.freeware..OJ

I've sadly recently found evidence that one of my 60 GB Maxtor HDs is
at risk of failing. It's especially worrying as this 3-year old drive
contains my two most important partitions: C:, my Win XP Home OS and
half my program files; and D:, most of my data and the other half of
my program files. The evidence came in the form of chkdsk reporting
bad block and bad sectors, plus HDTach failing during the final of the
4-part 'Quick Test' (the Sequential Read).


Anyway, all that preamble is background for when I return later to
seek help on the optimum strategy for safely replacing this drive, if
indeed it proves necessary.

For the moment, I'm just looking to download one other tool I've seen
recommended, hdtune. But all the links I follow lead to
http://www.hdtune.com/ which fails, with a timeout error.

Is that just a temporary problem, or has the site gone? Is there an
alternative source to download this please?

 

[Terry Pinnell]

I`ve answered you in alt.comp.freeware..OJ

Thanks - got it.

 

[Terry Pinnell]

I've sadly recently found evidence that one of my 60 GB Maxtor HDs is
at risk of failing. It's especially worrying as this 3-year old drive
contains my two most important partitions: C:, my Win XP Home OS and
half my program files; and D:, most of my data and the other half of
my program files. The evidence came in the form of chkdsk reporting
bad block and bad sectors, plus HDTach failing during the final of the
4-part 'Quick Test' (the Sequential Read).


Anyway, all that preamble is background for when I return later to
seek help on the optimum strategy for safely replacing this drive, if
indeed it proves necessary.

For the moment, I'm just looking to download one other tool I've seen
recommended, hdtune. But all the links I follow lead to
http://www.hdtune.com/ which fails, with a timeout error.

Is that just a temporary problem, or has the site gone? Is there an
alternative source to download this please?

OK, found and ran HDTune. It confirmed I have a problem with that
3-year old Maxtor HD. I'll give details in a moment, but thought it
might first be of interest to report the *contradictory* findings of
another program I saw recommended, HDDLife, which I ran a little
earlier:
http://www.terrypin.dial.pipex.com/Images/HDDLife-HD0CD.jpg
http://www.terrypin.dial.pipex.com/Images/HDDLife-HD1EF.jpg
http://www.terrypin.dial.pipex.com/Images/HDDLife-HD2J.jpg
(I've scrolled the lower window to show the pertinent partitions:
0=C&D; 1=E&F; 2=J)

Clearly HDTach and now HDTune don't share that cheerful view ;-(

HD Tune: MAXTOR 6L060J3 Health
------------------------------
(HD0, partitions C & D. This is the suspect drive.)

ID Current Worst ThresholdData Status
(01) Raw Read Error Rate 100 253 20 0 Ok
(03) Spin Up Time 67 64 20 4174 Ok
(04) Start/Stop Count 100 100 8 321 Ok
(05) Reallocated Sector Count 99 99 20 9 Failed
(07) Seek Error Rate 100 1 23 0 Failed
(09) Power On Hours Count 60 60 1 26756 Ok
(0A) Spin Retry Count 100 100 0 0 Ok
(0B) Calibration Retry Count 100 100 20 0 Ok
(0C) Power Cycle Count 100 100 8 284 Ok
(0D) Soft Read Error Rate 100 77 23 0 Ok
(C2) Temperature 82 75 42 47 Ok
(C3) Hardware ECC Recovered 100 1 0 39294398 Ok
(C4) Reallocated Event Count 100 100 20 0 Ok
(C5) Current Pending Sector 99 99 20 9 Ok
(C6) Offline Uncorrectable 100 253 0 0 Ok
(C7) Ultra DMA CRC Error Count 193 193 0 7 Ok
Power On Time : 26756
Health Status : Failed

For comparison, here's the report on HD1 (partitions E & F) which is
physically identical to above, about 2.5 yrs old.

HD Tune: MAXTOR 6L060J3 Health
-------------------------------

ID Current Worst ThresholdData Status
(01) Raw Read Error Rate 100 253 20 0 Ok
(03) Spin Up Time 67 64 20 4131 Ok
(04) Start/Stop Count 100 100 8 242 Ok
(05) Reallocated Sector Count 100 100 20 0 Ok
(07) Seek Error Rate 100 100 23 0 Ok
(09) Power On Hours Count 67 67 1 22104 Ok
(0A) Spin Retry Count 100 100 0 0 Ok
(0B) Calibration Retry Count 100 100 20 0 Ok
(0C) Power Cycle Count 100 100 8 231 Ok
(0D) Soft Read Error Rate 100 100 23 0 Ok
(C2) Temperature 84 78 42 43 Ok
(C3) Hardware ECC Recovered 100 100 0 3805 Ok
(C4) Reallocated Event Count 100 100 20 0 Ok
(C5) Current Pending Sector 100 100 20 0 Ok
(C6) Offline Uncorrectable 100 253 0 0 Ok
(C7) Ultra DMA CRC Error Count 200 200 0 0 Ok
Power On Time : 22104
Health Status : Ok

I also did an error sacn on HD0 and was pleased to see that I now
appear to have no bad blocks.
http://www.terrypin.dial.pipex.com/Images/HDTune-HD0-QuickScan.gif

Also, here's the 'Info' tab for HD0:
http://www.terrypin.dial.pipex.com/Images/HDTune-HD0-Info.gif

(I'm curious about that Active entry, bottom right, which is the same
for both these drives.)

BTW, it's another subject, but I'm disappointed that HD2 is treated as
a 'SCSI' HD, and therefore outside the scope of this 'SMART' stuff.
That's presumably somehow due to the PCI card I had to install first,
which is a 'HighPoint Rocket 133 2CH'? Hopefully some here will recall
the earlier thread when I sought advice on obtaining and installing
that third HD. I'd assumed it would behave just like my other Maxtors,
but apparently not ;-(

Anyway, the key question now is, what should I do? I'll place an order
for a new HD (yet another within a couple of months - the spectre of
bankruptcy looms!) and hopefully get help here on how to prepare for
that.

But as a preliminary question: are there any steps I can take to
correct/repair the drive, at least partially? Chkdsk? What about
Scandisk, is that still around (can't see it at a quick look here)? Is
it even worth investing in something like Spinrite, or similar?

How desperate should I be anyway? Is there a case for *immediately*
copying the entire contents of D: plus the non-OS part of C: onto J:,
where luckily I have lots of space? And then focus on the issue of my
OS...

Any and all help would be warmly appreciated please.

 

[Rod Speed]

OK, found and ran HDTune. It confirmed I have a problem with that
3-year old Maxtor HD. I'll give details in a moment, but thought it
might first be of interest to report the *contradictory* findings of
another program I saw recommended, HDDLife, which I ran a little
earlier:
http://www.terrypin.dial.pipex.com/Images/HDDLife-HD0CD.jpg
http://www.terrypin.dial.pipex.com/Images/HDDLife-HD1EF.jpg
http://www.terrypin.dial.pipex.com/Images/HDDLife-HD2J.jpg
(I've scrolled the lower window to show the pertinent partitions:
0=C&D; 1=E&F; 2=J)

Clearly HDTach and now HDTune don't share that cheerful view ;-(

Yeah, HDDLife is clearly a useless steaming turd.

HD Tune: MAXTOR 6L060J3 Health
------------------------------
(HD0, partitions C & D. This is the suspect drive.)

ID Current Worst ThresholdData Status
(01) Raw Read Error Rate 100 253 20 0 Ok
(03) Spin Up Time 67 64 20 4174 Ok
(04) Start/Stop Count 100 100 8 321 Ok
(05) Reallocated Sector Count 99 99 20 9 Failed
(07) Seek Error Rate 100 1 23 0 Failed
(09) Power On Hours Count 60 60 1 26756 Ok
(0A) Spin Retry Count 100 100 0 0 Ok
(0B) Calibration Retry Count 100 100 20 0 Ok
(0C) Power Cycle Count 100 100 8 284 Ok
(0D) Soft Read Error Rate 100 77 23 0 Ok
(C2) Temperature 82 75 42 47 Ok
(C3) Hardware ECC Recovered 100 1 0 39294398 Ok
(C4) Reallocated Event Count 100 100 20 0 Ok
(C5) Current Pending Sector 99 99 20 9 Ok
(C6) Offline Uncorrectable 100 253 0 0 Ok
(C7) Ultra DMA CRC Error Count 193 193 0 7 Ok
Power On Time : 26756
Health Status : Failed

For comparison, here's the report on HD1 (partitions E & F)
which is physically identical to above, about 2.5 yrs old.

HD Tune: MAXTOR 6L060J3 Health
-------------------------------

ID Current Worst ThresholdData Status
(01) Raw Read Error Rate 100 253 20 0 Ok
(03) Spin Up Time 67 64 20 4131 Ok
(04) Start/Stop Count 100 100 8 242 Ok
(05) Reallocated Sector Count 100 100 20 0 Ok
(07) Seek Error Rate 100 100 23 0 Ok
(09) Power On Hours Count 67 67 1 22104 Ok
(0A) Spin Retry Count 100 100 0 0 Ok
(0B) Calibration Retry Count 100 100 20 0 Ok
(0C) Power Cycle Count 100 100 8 231 Ok
(0D) Soft Read Error Rate 100 100 23 0 Ok
(C2) Temperature 84 78 42 43 Ok
(C3) Hardware ECC Recovered 100 100 0 3805 Ok
(C4) Reallocated Event Count 100 100 20 0 Ok
(C5) Current Pending Sector 100 100 20 0 Ok
(C6) Offline Uncorrectable 100 253 0 0 Ok
(C7) Ultra DMA CRC Error Count 200 200 0 0 Ok
Power On Time : 22104
Health Status : Ok

I also did an error sacn on HD0 and was pleased
to see that I now appear to have no bad blocks.
http://www.terrypin.dial.pipex.com/Images/HDTune-HD0-QuickScan.gif

Also, here's the 'Info' tab for HD0:
http://www.terrypin.dial.pipex.com/Images/HDTune-HD0-Info.gif

(I'm curious about that Active entry, bottom right,
which is the same for both these drives.)

Thats basically saying that the drive can do
ATA/133 but ATA/100 is currently being used.

BTW, it's another subject, but I'm disappointed that HD2 is treated
as a 'SCSI' HD, and therefore outside the scope of this 'SMART'
stuff. That's presumably somehow due to the PCI card I had to
install first, which is a 'HighPoint Rocket 133 2CH'?

Presumably. Most likely the driver doesnt support SMART status
or HDTune is getting confused and has decided that its a SCSI
drive and is looking for the SCSI equivalent and not finding it.

See what Everest has to say about that drive's SMART status.

Hopefully some here will recall the earlier thread when I sought
advice on obtaining and installing that third HD. I'd assumed it
would behave just like my other Maxtors, but apparently not ;-(

Not clear if that's HDTune or the drivers yet.

Anyway, the key question now is, what should I do?

I'd replace HD0 myself, essentially because drives are
so cheap and I wouldnt use a Maxtor for the replacement.

I'll place an order for a new HD (yet another within a
couple of months - the spectre of bankruptcy looms!)

You one of those povs ?

and hopefully get help here on how to prepare for that.

But as a preliminary question: are there any steps I
can take to correct/repair the drive, at least partially?

Nope, the drive has already done what can
be done, its reallocated the bad sectors.

It remains to be seen why those sectors went bad, its too many
to just have been a mains failure when writing to those sectors.
Some drives can bugger up sectors when that happens.

Its much more likely to be the drive dying
and nothing you can do will change that if it is.

If there were still bads visible at the error scan level,
it would be worth telling PowerMax to do its worst,
but since the drive has already reallocated the
bad sectors, there is no point in running it now.

Chkdsk? What about Scandisk, is that still
around (can't see it at a quick look here)?

There still a surface scan in XP, use the propertys of that drive.

Is it even worth investing in something like Spinrite, or similar?

Nope, they are useless with modern drives. Pure snake oil.

How desperate should I be anyway?

Depends on how good your backups are and how volatile the data is.
The OS and program files arent that volatile and if you have proper
backups you dont even have the hassle of a reinstall if the drive dies.

Tho what most think of as the OS may well include
some volatile stuff like their OE email files etc.

Is there a case for *immediately* copying the entire contents of D:
plus the non-OS part of C: onto J:, where luckily I have lots of space?

I'd just image both to there. Mainly because that is easier to do.

Corse that assumes you do have a decent imager available.

 

[cordial_camaraderie]

Lost your data ?
Not to worry, try the data recovery software of Stellar Information
Systems Ltd ( www.stellarinfo.com). This will really solve ur problem,
I think so...

 

[Terry Pinnell]

Yeah, HDDLife is clearly a useless steaming turd.

First, thanks a bunch for the fast reply - solid stuff.
HDDLife duly removed from Start Menu > System Tools.

To be more specific on this, it was in Event Viewer > Systems that I
first saw mention of 'bad block'. Checking again just now, I see
another couple, 6 mins apart, time-stamped yesterday evening, under a
'Disk' entry, which says: "The device, \Device\Harddisk0\D, has a bad
block." Pretty sure that time was *before* I used HDTune, but not 100%
sure. If so, odd that HDTune had no red bad blocks in its display?

Thats basically saying that the drive can do
ATA/133 but ATA/100 is currently being used.

Yep, that's what I thought, but it's vexing me to know why. If it was
just HD0 I'd put it down to being some sort of side-effect, or maybe a
clever reduction of speed to postpone grief. But the identical
'healthy' drive HD1 shows the same.

Presumably. Most likely the driver doesnt support SMART status
or HDTune is getting confused and has decided that its a SCSI
drive and is looking for the SCSI equivalent and not finding it.

See what Everest has to say about that drive's SMART status.

Will do, as secondary priority.

Not clear if that's HDTune or the drivers yet.


I'd replace HD0 myself, essentially because drives are
so cheap and I wouldnt use a Maxtor for the replacement.

Agreed; I'll start shopping.

You one of those povs ?

Nope, the drive has already done what can
be done, its reallocated the bad sectors.

It remains to be seen why those sectors went bad, its too many
to just have been a mains failure when writing to those sectors.
Some drives can bugger up sectors when that happens.

Its much more likely to be the drive dying
and nothing you can do will change that if it is.

The drive is 4 years old, not 3 as I thought.

If there were still bads visible at the error scan level,
it would be worth telling PowerMax to do its worst,
but since the drive has already reallocated the
bad sectors, there is no point in running it now.

LATE Just ran the error scan again as I write this, and so far
it's found 4 damaged blocks. I suspect maybe I didn't rescan
yesterday, and left selection at HD1, which is identically labeled
'MAXTOR 6L060J3 (60 GB)'.

So does that mean I *should* now run PowerMax, from floppy? Not that
it affects the action plan.

There still a surface scan in XP, use the propertys of that drive.

I reckon that's what I did a couple of days ago. Also, here's a
summary I found from 3 weeks ago:

A disk check has been scheduled.
Windows will now check the disk.
Cleaning up minor inconsistencies on the drive.
Cleaning up 7 unused index entries from index $SII of file 0x9.
Cleaning up 7 unused index entries from index $SDH of file 0x9.
Cleaning up 7 unused security descriptors.

46283233 KB total disk space.
15181140 KB in 111190 files.
40756 KB in 10295 indexes.
4 KB in bad sectors.
233081 KB in use by the system.
65536 KB occupied by the log file.
30828252 KB available on disk.

Nope, they are useless with modern drives. Pure snake oil.
OK.


Depends on how good your backups are and how volatile the data is.
The OS and program files arent that volatile and if you have proper
backups you dont even have the hassle of a reinstall if the drive dies.

Tho what most think of as the OS may well include
some volatile stuff like their OE email files etc.

Data backups are pretty good. But I haven't been backing up C:\Program
Files and D:\Program Files. I don't use OE except when forced to for
some reason. My Agent email/newsreader folders are all backed up
nightly.

I'd just image both to there. Mainly because that is easier to do.

OK, will do.

Corse that assumes you do have a decent imager available.

Yep, PQ PM and PQ DI 2002. You may recall I made a direct copy (not
image) of Win XP Home onto E: a couple of months ago, with PowerQuest
Drive Image 2002. Apart from an initial 'reassurance test', I haven't
used it since. But one of my jobs now will be to update that copy on
E:. That's assuming these bad sectors/blocks don't screw that up?

 

[Rod Speed]

First, thanks a bunch for the fast reply - solid stuff.
HDDLife duly removed from Start Menu > System Tools.

To be more specific on this, it was in Event Viewer > Systems that
I first saw mention of 'bad block'. Checking again just now, I see
another couple, 6 mins apart, time-stamped yesterday evening, under
a 'Disk' entry, which says: "The device, \Device\Harddisk0\D, has a bad
block." Pretty sure that time was *before* I used HDTune, but not 100%
sure. If so, odd that HDTune had no red bad blocks in its display?

Not if the hard drive itself has reallocated that bad sector by time you
ran HDTune on the drive. Its then invisible to anything except the drive.

Tho it looks from the below like the scan was done on the wrong drive.

Yep, that's what I thought, but it's vexing me to know why. If it
was just HD0 I'd put it down to being some sort of side-effect,
or maybe a clever reduction of speed to postpone grief. But
the identical 'healthy' drive HD1 shows the same.

Sure, it wont be anything to do with the fault, its likely it would
always have displayed like that for both drives in HDTune.

The first thing to do is to check with other utes to see what they
claim about that, it may just be HDTune getting it wrong. I dont
use it myself, I'll give it a go tho have see what it says about mine.

Will do, as secondary priority.

Agreed; I'll start shopping.

Perhaps I exaggerated a tad <g>.

Just a tad |-)

The drive is 4 years old, not 3 as I thought.

Yeah, its always longer in the past than I
assume when I do check the paperwork.

LATE Just ran the error scan again as I write this,
and so far it's found 4 damaged blocks. I suspect maybe
I didn't rescan yesterday, and left selection at HD1,
which is identically labeled 'MAXTOR 6L060J3 (60 GB)'.

Yeah, could well be, HDTune should include the serial number in the display.

So does that mean I *should* now run PowerMax, from floppy?

Really depends on how soon the replacement will show up.
You will have to image all the data off it, run powermax and
restore the data if you go that route. Not much point if the
new drive will show up today etc.

And I dont bother normally except as a matter of academic
interest, if a drive starts developing bads after its not seen
any bads for years, into the bin it goes as far as I am
concerned, because there is no reason why new bads
should be showing up except in the very early use of the drive.

Not that it affects the action plan.

I reckon that's what I did a couple of days ago.

Yeah, sometimes would be handy to have a full video
of what you did. Might try that sometime, just for fun.

Also, here's a summary I found from 3 weeks ago:

A disk check has been scheduled.
Windows will now check the disk.
Cleaning up minor inconsistencies on the drive.
Cleaning up 7 unused index entries from index $SII of file 0x9.
Cleaning up 7 unused index entries from index $SDH of file 0x9.
Cleaning up 7 unused security descriptors.

That stuff looks normal.

46283233 KB total disk space.
15181140 KB in 111190 files.
40756 KB in 10295 indexes.
4 KB in bad sectors.

Its clearly seeing the bads.

233081 KB in use by the system.
65536 KB occupied by the log file.
30828252 KB available on disk.

OK.

It did make sense in the past with stepper motor head actuators
that did get sector jitter but they have been gone for decades now.

Data backups are pretty good. But I haven't been backing
up C:\Program Files and D:\Program Files. I don't use OE
except when forced to for some reason. My Agent email/
newsreader folders are all backed up nightly.

Looks fine until the new drive shows up.

OK, will do.

Yep, PQ PM and PQ DI 2002. You may recall I made a direct copy (not
image) of Win XP Home onto E: a couple of months ago, with PowerQuest
Drive Image 2002. Apart from an initial 'reassurance test', I haven't
used it since. But one of my jobs now will be to update that copy on
E:. That's assuming these bad sectors/blocks don't screw that up?

Yeah, could be a problem.

 

[Terry Pinnell]

Not if the hard drive itself has reallocated that bad sector by time you
ran HDTune on the drive. Its then invisible to anything except the drive.

Tho it looks from the below like the scan was done on the wrong drive.



Sure, it wont be anything to do with the fault, its likely it would
always have displayed like that for both drives in HDTune.

The first thing to do is to check with other utes to see what they
claim about that, it may just be HDTune getting it wrong. I dont
use it myself, I'll give it a go tho have see what it says about mine.





Just a tad |-)



Yeah, its always longer in the past than I
assume when I do check the paperwork.



Yeah, could well be, HDTune should include the serial number in the display.


Really depends on how soon the replacement will show up.
You will have to image all the data off it, run powermax and
restore the data if you go that route. Not much point if the
new drive will show up today etc.

And I dont bother normally except as a matter of academic
interest, if a drive starts developing bads after its not seen
any bads for years, into the bin it goes as far as I am
concerned, because there is no reason why new bads
should be showing up except in the very early use of the drive.



Yeah, sometimes would be handy to have a full video
of what you did. Might try that sometime, just for fun.



That stuff looks normal.


Its clearly seeing the bads.



It did make sense in the past with stepper motor head actuators
that did get sector jitter but they have been gone for decades now.



Looks fine until the new drive shows up.




Yeah, could be a problem.

Thanks Rod.

DI 2002 took half of today to do it, but I now have copy of OS on E:
and am composing this from there. (I think. Just how do I test that
easily...?)

Rather than confuse this thread, I've posted separately in 'Booting to
copy OS?' Would appreciate your views on that please. I'm calling it
quits for the day now. Maybe this plan will crystallise in my mind
more clearly after a couple of glasses of dry white <g>.

 

[Rod Speed]

Just done that and none of my systems show the supported
as UDMA mode 6, just 5, and the same as the active.

That's with the latest HDTune, 2.51 which truncates
the right of the display on all 3 systems I've tried it on.
Truncates it in about the middle of that mode display.

Thanks Rod.

DI 2002 took half of today to do it, but I now have
copy of OS on E: and am composing this from there.
(I think. Just how do I test that easily...?)

Physically disconnect the C drive and see if it will still boot.

Likely it wont.

Rather than confuse this thread, I've posted separately in 'Booting
to copy OS?' Would appreciate your views on that please.

Answered already. Looks like you didnt do it the right way.

I'm calling it quits for the day now. Maybe this plan will crystallise in
my mind more clearly after a couple of glasses of dry white <g>.

Or you'll decide that its best to just cut to the chase and top yourself |-)