PC and DI 2002 said 13 gig HD had bad sectors, but SEEMS ok after restore

[jetstar88]

Turned on the PC tonight and it refused to boot from the first hard
drive...a 13 gig that is approximately 3 years old...give or take
(yeah... I will check the manufacture date later).

What was odd was that if I turned off the PC for a minute or less even
and did a cold boot, it sometimes got past the message claiming the
disk was bad and sometimes not, but never finished booting Win98. In
the setup screen the first hard drive was undetected. It said "Auto",
but there was no description.

Wanting to rule out a virus or similar software matter, I decided to
restore the C drive from an Image file created with Drive Image 2002.
In safe mode (checking for bad sectors) it failed and said the
operation could not be safely performed. But it DID successfully
restore in normal ("unsafe"?) mode, and the PC booted normally, etc.,
etc..

Could it have been a virus that I eradicated through the restore? Or
is the hard drive dying and I'm just lucky for now that the bad sector
is in a non-critical area?

Wouldn't be so horrible IF the HD is going. I just don't want to act
prematurely ..especially if the "symptoms" point in another direction.
Is there an easy test to determine if its hardware or software
based..if/when I get a similar message again?

Thanks for any input,
Larry

 

[Rod Speed]

Turned on the PC tonight and it refused to boot from the first
hard drive...a 13 gig that is approximately 3 years old...give
or take (yeah... I will check the manufacture date later).

What was odd was that if I turned off the PC for a minute or less even
and did a cold boot, it sometimes got past the message claiming the
disk was bad and sometimes not, but never finished booting Win98. In
the setup screen the first hard drive was undetected. It said "Auto",
but there was no description.

Wanting to rule out a virus or similar software matter, I decided to
restore the C drive from an Image file created with Drive Image 2002.
In safe mode (checking for bad sectors) it failed and said the
operation could not be safely performed. But it DID successfully
restore in normal ("unsafe"?) mode, and the PC booted normally, etc.,
etc..

Could it have been a virus that I eradicated through the restore?

Unlikely given the variable results before that restore.

Or is the hard drive dying and I'm just lucky for
now that the bad sector is in a non-critical area?

Yep, or sometimes it spins up and sometimes it doesnt.

Run the hard drive manufacturer's diagnostic on the drive.
Thats the best way to get a real handle on whats going on.

Wouldn't be so horrible IF the HD is going. I just don't want to act
prematurely ..especially if the "symptoms" point in another direction.
Is there an easy test to determine if its hardware or software
based..if/when I get a similar message again?

Yep, that diagnostic.

 

[jetstar88]

well...

I ran WDDiag (its a Western Digital) and it checked out ok. Also did
scandisk (thorough AND also in DOS) and defragged with no problem.

However....I may be misremembering, but I think in the past when I ran
thorough scandisk the readout was more fluid and steady. In other
words, as the drive is being checked the numbers displayed showing how
many files or clusters have been examined seem to slow down and speed
up. This goes for the behavior in Drive Image too. (So far, this
behavior is not evident while running applications.)

Maybe, even though the surface of the drive is fine, its starting to
fail in terms of spinning? The first (and as of this moment) only
occurence I had so far was after the PC had been idle for 24 hrs.
Then again...it was idle for another 24 and its ok today.

I HAVE experienced drive failure before, but it dies suddenly and
completely. No warning, so no idea how to judge spin performance. Or
would WdDiag have detected a problem with that too (I thought it was
only the surface being checked according to the test description)?

If there is no sure way to determine, I understand. Just figured I'd
ask.

Thanks,
Larry

 

[Folkert Rienstra]

well...

I ran WDDiag (its a Western Digital) and it checked out ok. Also did
scandisk (thorough AND also in DOS) and defragged with no problem.

However....I may be misremembering, but I think in the past when I ran
thorough scandisk the readout was more fluid and steady. In other
words, as the drive is being checked the numbers displayed showing how
many files or clusters have been examined seem to slow down and speed
up. This goes for the behavior in Drive Image too. (So far, this
behavior is not evident while running applications.)

Maybe, even though the surface of the drive is fine, its starting to
fail in terms of spinning? The first (and as of this moment) only
occurence I had so far was after the PC had been idle for 24 hrs.
Then again...it was idle for another 24 and its ok today.

I HAVE experienced drive failure before, but it dies suddenly and
completely. No warning, so no idea how to judge spin performance. Or
would WdDiag have detected a problem with that too (I thought it was
only the surface being checked according to the test description)?

If there is no sure way to determine, I understand. Just figured I'd
ask.

Run HD Tach. If it shows up there it probably has massive problems. If
not, since HD Tach only takes samples, you may have to run c't 's H2Bench
which does the same as HD Tach but reads all sectors on the drive.
ftp://ftp.heise.de/pub/ct/ctsi/h2benchw.zip

Also have a look at Bart Lagerwey's DISKtool www.nu2.nu/utils

 

[Rod Speed]

I ran WDDiag (its a Western Digital) and it checked out ok. Also did
scandisk (thorough AND also in DOS) and defragged with no problem.

However....I may be misremembering, but I think in the past when
I ran thorough scandisk the readout was more fluid and steady. In
other words, as the drive is being checked the numbers displayed
showing how many files or clusters have been examined seem to
slow down and speed up. This goes for the behavior in Drive Image
too. (So far, this behavior is not evident while running applications.)

Maybe, even though the surface of the drive
is fine, its starting to fail in terms of spinning?

Its much more likely that its having trouble reading particular sectors
and is retrying on the worst sectors, but eventually succeeding.
That does produce those pauses in the cluster count etc.

In other words the surface of the drive
is far from fine and the drive is dying.

You can also get the same effect if there is a problem
with the heads or the flexible connection to the heads.
That can produce the same pauses when retrying.

The difference is that in the first case the places where
it pauses will be the same from run to run and in the second
case it will be rather more random where it occurs.

The first (and as of this moment) only occurence
I had so far was after the PC had been idle for 24 hrs.
Then again...it was idle for another 24 and its ok today.

That does make it sound more like the second situation above.

BUT it can also be due to the drive getting stinking
hot. Just how hot it gets varys with use and the
ambient air temperature, so you get a variable effect.

Put your finger on the metal top cover of the drive
when its misbehaving and see how warm it feels.

I HAVE experienced drive failure before, but it dies suddenly and
completely. No warning, so no idea how to judge spin performance.

Sure, but thats just one way that hard drives fail.

Or would WdDiag have detected a problem with that too

It is surprising that it didnt see any problem, but you do say
that sometimes the drive works fine and sometimes it doesnt.
Maybe you used WDDiag when it was working fine.

See what HDD Health says about the SMART status. That
keeps track of problems that the drive has had over time.

(I thought it was only the surface being
checked according to the test description)?

It does check more than that.

If there is no sure way to determine,
I understand. Just figured I'd ask.

Yes, its always possible to determine where the problem
is with careful testing. Check the drive temperature and
see what HDD Health has to say about the SMART status.

And backup what you'll slash your wrist if you lose to more
than one CDR even if you have to buy a burner to do that.