Bad Sectors...

[samwheale]

Hi guys,

I’ve just run chkdsk and much to my surprise it appears I’ve got 12Kb of Bad Sectors? I’m using 2x 4-month-old 160GB Samsung SpinPoints in RAID0 using NTFS.

I’d tried to fix them in Windows with ScanDisk to no avail? What should I do now? Am I worrying unnecessarily? It’s just I’ve never had any experience of Bad Sectors before…

They don't appear to be causing any problems (yet? But I was always lead to understand that ANY bad sectors were a bad thing! And that any amount could lead to a total disk failure... I'm just trying to sort it out early if there’s a problem brewing? There under a 3 yr manufactures warranty.

Does anyone know of any Windows based cure or diagnostics app that could quash my fears

What should I do?

Cheers,

SW.

Edit: Hi guys,

Just run another ScanDisk and it would now appear that I have 1100Kb of bad sectors

Is it now safe to assume that there on their way out

Is there anyway I can find out which one of the two drive is faulty?

Latest: I did a Norton 'Disk Doctor' check earlier today and it reported no bad sectors? I then ran 'chkdsk /f' and restarted my machine, and it again found that there were 1100kbs of bad sectors?

This evening I ran Norton again and it found 1100kb... What’s going on?

I understand that these Samsung drives are under a 3yr warranty? Does anyone know what the returns procedure is? Who do I get in touch with first? The people who I bought the drives from? Or the manufacture?

And can someone tell me if there is a way to determine which of the two drives is faulty, or could they both be faulty?

Cheers,

SW.

 

[sqaguy]

In my experience, bad sectors are like leaves falling in the Autumn: every day you find more and more on the ground to rake up. I would backup any critical data to CD, go to the Samsung website and start an incident report, or at least learn what their return auth process is. I have never used a Samsung drive, as everyone I know in tech tells me they, um.. suck. Ask the techies at Samsung if you can do a cross ship, so they mail out the new drives and you will have 30 days from receipt to return the bad one(s). Also check their site to see if they have their own diagnostic tools. Maxtor and WD have good programs, but of course they work only on their respective drives.
I'm not going to suggest Drive Manager unless you have suicidal tendencies or have used it enough to understand how easily you can destroy the drive and data.
That's my 2Euros worth.

 

[samwheale]

Thanks mate,

I think I'll start proccedings now!

A lot of people I speak to seem to think that bad sectors are nothing to worry about!!!

I know they're not going to go away... They can only get worse right?

SW.

 

[micker377]

Bad sectors can be from a hard hit (drop) of the hard drive. One time problem, chkdsk repair blocks the bad sectors. More likely, it is the media flaking off the platter. Gets worse as time goes by. Replace under warranty!

 

[teknikal]

Occasionally, the head can bump the platter which tends to happen as the drive wears down. Other times if the drive suddenly loses power in the middle of a low-spin, the head may not have enough to make it safely away from the platters.

In other words, you really can't tell what's about to happen. The drive could still be in good shape, or it could be on its way out. Either way, backing up is definitely a good idea!


tek

 

[unborn]

Man.. I just bought me a samsung 80gig for $60 i thought i was getting a deal. Though my WD went out for no apparent reason, still waiting for my replacement drive.. once i get ill just make it my back up so if my current drive does take a dump ill have it backed on a "reliable" drive ( i say this because i had it for about 4 mo and it died on me with ALOT of important files.) but yeah i imagine they are like WD.. on the site they might have a warranty check and then from there you submit a ticket. and wait.. and wait.. and... wait.

but as Sqa said... ones they start coming.. in my experience they keep coming.. and faster and more often.. deffinately back up yr stuff and use the warranty.

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