Bad Sectors

in order to be sure you
should boot up with a xp
cd and execute the repair/
recovery console.

once logged in and your
at the disk prompt run
the following command:

chkdsk /r

then "exit" and try booting
into normal mode.

--
db·´¯`·...¸)))º
DatabaseBen, Retired Professional
- Systems Analyst
- Database Developer
- Accountancy
- Veteran of the Armed Forces
- @Hotmail.com
- nntp Postologist
~ "share the nirvana" - dbZen

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~



"Gary" wrote in message
...
What does it usually mean when I run a disk scan for bad sectors on c
drive and the result is "Windows was unable to complete the disk scan"

The symptom is a blue screen saying that there is most likely a bad piece
of hardware.


Gary

Don't really need it, by the time a PC hits my bench the drive is usually to
the point where even the geek squad could tell it's bad.

--


--
"Arno" wrote in message
...
In comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage David B. wrote:
A smart report is useless, more often than not when I find a bad hard
drive.
smart believes there is no problem with the drive, it's unreliable at
best.

Nobody said to look at the "smart status", which is pretty useless.
Hovever the concrete values of the individual SMART attributes are
not. Seems you are not using 99% of what SMART offers.

Arno




--


--
"Yousuf Khan" wrote in message
...
Gary wrote:
What does it usually mean when I run a disk scan for bad sectors on c
drive and the result is "Windows was unable to complete the disk scan"

The symptom is a blue screen saying that there is most likely a bad
piece
of hardware.

Download the free Everest utilities, from the following website:

http://www.lavalys.com/

Run the Storage - SMART report on the appropriate hard drive, and post
the results to your reply.

Yousuf Khan


--
Arno Wagner, Dr. sc. techn., Dipl. Inform., CISSP -- Email:

GnuPG: ID: 1E25338F FP: 0C30 5782 9D93 F785 E79C 0296 797F 6B50 1E25
338F
----
Cuddly UI's are the manifestation of wishful thinking. -- Dylan Evans

David B. wrote:
A smart report is useless, more often than not when I find a bad hard
drive. smart believes there is no problem with the drive, it's
unreliable at best.


Trust me, you're wrong on this. I used to feel the same way as you, when
I used to just take a cursory look at the overall SMART status and
everything would always be "just fine". But the SMART raw data fields
require human intelligence to interpret. And often you can spot a
failing drive months before it actually fails. Lots of data points get
recorded in the SMART logs that you wouldn't even be aware of during the
normal operation of the drive, as the drive will handle them internally.

Such things as stiction which is a failure of the drive to startup from
standstill after power has been turned on. If the drive doesn't start
right away, then the BIOS will just try a few more times, and usually
it'll work on a subsequent attempt. However, this reattempt will get
recorded in a running count on the SMART logs. If the running count
keeps going up, then you may have a problem. In the old days, the only
time you found out about stiction is if you started hearing a grinding
noise from the drive when you started your computer.

Yousuf Khan

Yousuf Khan wrote:
David B. wrote:
A smart report is useless, more often than not when I find a bad hard
drive. smart believes there is no problem with the drive, it's
unreliable at best.


Trust me, you're wrong on this. I used to feel the same way as you, when
I used to just take a cursory look at the overall SMART status and
everything would always be "just fine". But the SMART raw data fields
require human intelligence to interpret. And often you can spot a
failing drive months before it actually fails. Lots of data points get
recorded in the SMART logs that you wouldn't even be aware of during the
normal operation of the drive, as the drive will handle them internally.

Such things as stiction which is a failure of the drive to startup from
standstill after power has been turned on. If the drive doesn't start
right away, then the BIOS will just try a few more times, and usually
it'll work on a subsequent attempt. However, this reattempt will get
recorded in a running count on the SMART logs. If the running count
keeps going up, then you may have a problem. In the old days, the only
time you found out about stiction is if you started hearing a grinding
noise from the drive when you started your computer.

Yousuf Khan


I'd have to "second" this assessment.

Having seen the same error, I can only tell the OP: "Back up your
data daily until you replace that drive."

On those machines I on which I've seen those S.M.A.R.T. warnings,
catastrophic hard drive failures invariably followed. Some hard
drives lasted for a few days after the warnings first appeared, one
lasted months, but some lasted only minutes. I suppose the one that
lasted months could be considered a false alarm, as "months" hardly
translate to "imminent," but, on the whole, I'd suggest you take the
warnings seriously.

For the background on S.M.A.R.T., start he

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-Mo...ing_Technology


--

Bruce Chambers

Help us help you:
http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx/kb/555375

They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary
safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. ~Benjamin Franklin

Many people would rather die than think; in fact, most do. ~Bertrand Russell

The philosopher has never killed any priests, whereas the priest has
killed a great many philosophers.
~ Denis Diderot

Bruce Chambers wrote:
I'd have to "second" this assessment.

Having seen the same error, I can only tell the OP: "Back up your
data daily until you replace that drive."

On those machines I on which I've seen those S.M.A.R.T. warnings,
catastrophic hard drive failures invariably followed. Some hard
drives lasted for a few days after the warnings first appeared, one
lasted months, but some lasted only minutes. I suppose the one that
lasted months could be considered a false alarm, as "months" hardly
translate to "imminent," but, on the whole, I'd suggest you take the
warnings seriously.


Well, to tell you the truth, one of my drives has had a SMART warning on
its stiction for years now. I've had other drives with zero SMART errors
die before this drive. But they usually died due to an electronic
failure, rather than mechanical, and SMART can't do anything about that.
But I have seen other drives with lots of reallocated sectors, pending
sectors, etc. which SMART was warning about, and those actually did die
as predicted.

So I'll say that the one that's lasted for years is a false positive.

Yousuf Khan

In comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage David B. wrote:
Don't really need it, by the time a PC hits my bench the drive is usually to
the point where even the geek squad could tell it's bad.

Well, there is "bad" and "bad". Not all storege failures
are due to a bad drive. It can also be interface errors, bad
mounting, a marginal PSU. And the drive can have bad secotrs,
seek problems, can have died from heat, etc.

Arno

--


--
"Arno" wrote in message
...
In comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage David B. wrote:
A smart report is useless, more often than not when I find a bad hard
drive.
smart believes there is no problem with the drive, it's unreliable at
best.

Nobody said to look at the "smart status", which is pretty useless.
Hovever the concrete values of the individual SMART attributes are
not. Seems you are not using 99% of what SMART offers.

Arno




--


--
"Yousuf Khan" wrote in message
...
Gary wrote:
What does it usually mean when I run a disk scan for bad sectors on c
drive and the result is "Windows was unable to complete the disk scan"

The symptom is a blue screen saying that there is most likely a bad
piece
of hardware.

Download the free Everest utilities, from the following website:

http://www.lavalys.com/

Run the Storage - SMART report on the appropriate hard drive, and post
the results to your reply.

Yousuf Khan


--
Arno Wagner, Dr. sc. techn., Dipl. Inform., CISSP -- Email:

GnuPG: ID: 1E25338F FP: 0C30 5782 9D93 F785 E79C 0296 797F 6B50 1E25
338F
----
Cuddly UI's are the manifestation of wishful thinking. -- Dylan Evans


--
Arno Wagner, Dr. sc. techn., Dipl. Inform., CISSP -- Email:
GnuPG: ID: 1E25338F FP: 0C30 5782 9D93 F785 E79C 0296 797F 6B50 1E25 338F
----
Cuddly UI's are the manifestation of wishful thinking. -- Dylan Evans

you don't say

--


--
"Arno" wrote in message
...
In comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage David B. wrote:
Don't really need it, by the time a PC hits my bench the drive is usually
to
the point where even the geek squad could tell it's bad.

Well, there is "bad" and "bad". Not all storege failures
are due to a bad drive. It can also be interface errors, bad
mounting, a marginal PSU. And the drive can have bad secotrs,
seek problems, can have died from heat, etc.

Arno

--


--
"Arno" wrote in message
...
In comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage David B. wrote:
A smart report is useless, more often than not when I find a bad hard
drive.
smart believes there is no problem with the drive, it's unreliable at
best.

Nobody said to look at the "smart status", which is pretty useless.
Hovever the concrete values of the individual SMART attributes are
not. Seems you are not using 99% of what SMART offers.

Arno




--


--
"Yousuf Khan" wrote in message
...
Gary wrote:
What does it usually mean when I run a disk scan for bad sectors on c
drive and the result is "Windows was unable to complete the disk
scan"

The symptom is a blue screen saying that there is most likely a bad
piece
of hardware.

Download the free Everest utilities, from the following website:

http://www.lavalys.com/

Run the Storage - SMART report on the appropriate hard drive, and
post
the results to your reply.

Yousuf Khan


--
Arno Wagner, Dr. sc. techn., Dipl. Inform., CISSP -- Email:

GnuPG: ID: 1E25338F FP: 0C30 5782 9D93 F785 E79C 0296 797F 6B50 1E25
338F
----
Cuddly UI's are the manifestation of wishful thinking. -- Dylan Evans


--
Arno Wagner, Dr. sc. techn., Dipl. Inform., CISSP -- Email:

GnuPG: ID: 1E25338F FP: 0C30 5782 9D93 F785 E79C 0296 797F 6B50 1E25
338F
----
Cuddly UI's are the manifestation of wishful thinking. -- Dylan Evans

In comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage David B. wrote:
you don't say

What is the point of your postings so far?

Arno


--


--
"Arno" wrote in message
...
In comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage David B. wrote:
Don't really need it, by the time a PC hits my bench the drive is usually
to
the point where even the geek squad could tell it's bad.

Well, there is "bad" and "bad". Not all storege failures
are due to a bad drive. It can also be interface errors, bad
mounting, a marginal PSU. And the drive can have bad secotrs,
seek problems, can have died from heat, etc.

Arno

--


--
"Arno" wrote in message
...
In comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage David B. wrote:
A smart report is useless, more often than not when I find a bad hard
drive.
smart believes there is no problem with the drive, it's unreliable at
best.

Nobody said to look at the "smart status", which is pretty useless.
Hovever the concrete values of the individual SMART attributes are
not. Seems you are not using 99% of what SMART offers.

Arno




--


--
"Yousuf Khan" wrote in message
...
Gary wrote:
What does it usually mean when I run a disk scan for bad sectors on c
drive and the result is "Windows was unable to complete the disk
scan"

The symptom is a blue screen saying that there is most likely a bad
piece
of hardware.

Download the free Everest utilities, from the following website:

http://www.lavalys.com/

Run the Storage - SMART report on the appropriate hard drive, and
post
the results to your reply.

Yousuf Khan


--
Arno Wagner, Dr. sc. techn., Dipl. Inform., CISSP -- Email:

GnuPG: ID: 1E25338F FP: 0C30 5782 9D93 F785 E79C 0296 797F 6B50 1E25
338F
----
Cuddly UI's are the manifestation of wishful thinking. -- Dylan Evans


--
Arno Wagner, Dr. sc. techn., Dipl. Inform., CISSP -- Email:

GnuPG: ID: 1E25338F FP: 0C30 5782 9D93 F785 E79C 0296 797F 6B50 1E25
338F
----
Cuddly UI's are the manifestation of wishful thinking. -- Dylan Evans


--
Arno Wagner, Dr. sc. techn., Dipl. Inform., CISSP -- Email:
GnuPG: ID: 1E25338F FP: 0C30 5782 9D93 F785 E79C 0296 797F 6B50 1E25 338F
----
Cuddly UI's are the manifestation of wishful thinking. -- Dylan Evans

Rod Speed wrote:

Wrong. You do need to be able to interpret the raw data and not
just mindlessly look at the OKs, and when you do that, you can often
see a failing hard drive from the number of reallocated sectors etc.

Yes well, us idiots that can't fight their way out of a wet paper bag
like to be shown the error with pretty pictures, and HDTune does just
that. But I see HDTune is no longer free, has trial version or pay for
version. Good thing I downloaded it when it was free.

Yousuf Khan wrote:
But the SMART raw data fields
require human intelligence to interpret.

Intelligent people don't sit around yapping about HDDs all day. They
spend it reading Kafka, Hesse, Sarte, etc. I think you mean, requires
knowledge and not "intelligence". Anyway, no way am I going to credit
Rod Speed as an intelligent being.

Cronos

You were saying -"HDTune is no longer free"?
http://www.majorgeeks.com/download4130.html


--


Hope this helps.

Gerry
~~~~
FCA
Stourport, England
Enquire, plan and execute
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Cronos" wrote in message
...
Rod Speed wrote:

Wrong. You do need to be able to interpret the raw data and not
just mindlessly look at the OKs, and when you do that, you can often
see a failing hard drive from the number of reallocated sectors etc.

Yes well, us idiots that can't fight their way out of a wet paper bag
like to be shown the error with pretty pictures, and HDTune does just
that. But I see HDTune is no longer free, has trial version or pay for
version. Good thing I downloaded it when it was free.

In comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage Cronos wrote:
Yousuf Khan wrote:
But the SMART raw data fields
require human intelligence to interpret.

Intelligent people don't sit around yapping about HDDs all day. They
spend it reading Kafka, Hesse, Sarte, etc. I think you mean, requires
knowledge and not "intelligence". Anyway, no way am I going to credit
Rod Speed as an intelligent being.

I found both Kafka and Hesse to be exceedingly boring and often
obvious. Quite a waste of time. Did not try Sartre.

What it takes is intelligence to recognize it is actually a
difficult problem (which is rather hard for many people, obviously)
and experience to give intelligence something to work with.
Knowledge does not really come into it besides that. otherwise
you could just read up oh how to do it.

Arno

--
Arno Wagner, Dr. sc. techn., Dipl. Inform., CISSP -- Email:
GnuPG: ID: 1E25338F FP: 0C30 5782 9D93 F785 E79C 0296 797F 6B50 1E25 338F
----
Cuddly UI's are the manifestation of wishful thinking. -- Dylan Evans

Cronos wrote:
Yousuf Khan wrote:
But the SMART raw data fields
require human intelligence to interpret.

Intelligent people don't sit around yapping about HDDs all day. They
spend it reading Kafka, Hesse, Sarte, etc. I think you mean, requires
knowledge and not "intelligence". Anyway, no way am I going to credit
Rod Speed as an intelligent being.

Well I doubt Kafka, Hesse, or Sartre could've recognized a failing hard
drive. But I will say that certain computer programs like HD Sentinel
are much better than average at recognizing a failing hard drive beyond
the idiotic SMART "OK" ratings, they're getting closer to human-level
quality. But of course, HD Sentinel is the culmination of years of human
experience, rolled into rules for a computer program.

Yousuf Khan

In comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage Yousuf Khan wrote:
Cronos wrote:
Yousuf Khan wrote:
But the SMART raw data fields
require human intelligence to interpret.

Intelligent people don't sit around yapping about HDDs all day. They
spend it reading Kafka, Hesse, Sarte, etc. I think you mean, requires
knowledge and not "intelligence". Anyway, no way am I going to credit
Rod Speed as an intelligent being.

Well I doubt Kafka, Hesse, or Sartre could've recognized a failing hard
drive. But I will say that certain computer programs like HD Sentinel
are much better than average at recognizing a failing hard drive beyond
the idiotic SMART "OK" ratings, they're getting closer to human-level
quality. But of course, HD Sentinel is the culmination of years of human
experience, rolled into rules for a computer program.

Indeed. And so far the only pice of software I know that is halfway
competent in this area. The rest just gives you plain data
without interpretation. Truely a sad state for data storage,
but it seems a) people do not care and b) people do not have
made really bad experiences in large enough numbers.

Arno
--
Arno Wagner, Dr. sc. techn., Dipl. Inform., CISSP -- Email:
GnuPG: ID: 1E25338F FP: 0C30 5782 9D93 F785 E79C 0296 797F 6B50 1E25 338F
----
Cuddly UI's are the manifestation of wishful thinking. -- Dylan Evans

Gerry wrote:
Cronos

You were saying -"HDTune is no longer free"?
http://www.majorgeeks.com/download4130.html



I just checked the author's site and it says "free trial" so is still
free but there is a pay for pro version too with advanced features.
Calling it a "trial" threw me off because that implies it is just a time
limited version but in fact it is not and is free forever. He should
change it to read 'Free Version'.

http://www.hdtune.com/download.html