How much stock would you put into this repair?

[xit]

Best New Year Wishes

Dell Inspiron 1545, Seagate 320 sata hard drive. System was having problems loading and running Vista, after extensive testing I ran Seagate DOS testing tools which showed failure on the short test. Software requested I run the long test which found two (2) errors, bad sectors, next request was to run a repair to correct the errors, which I did. Now the program indicated all was good, so I reran all the tests and they all passed and Windows is stable. My question is, should I be sure enough to tell the customer his system is repaired or replace the hard drive as I usually do?

Thanks for any input.

xit

 

[vacunita]

Bad sectors can continue to develop over time, however how long that time is there's no way to know for sure.

If there's only 2 sectors that had problems and nothing else you could leave the drive in, but just know it could continue to degrade, though there's no guarantee either way.

And new rives can have bad sectors too. So really unless the drive is on its way out, I think leaving it in place is as good a choice as any,

----------------------------------
Phil AKA Vacunita
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Ignorance is not necessarily Bliss, case in point:
Unknown has caused an Unknown Error on Unknown and must be shutdown to prevent damage to Unknown.

Behind the Web, Tips and Tricks for Web Development.

http://behindtheweb.blogspot.com/

 

[tlcscousin]

I would replace it myself i find when a drive starts getting bad sectors it usually continues to get more of them. Mind you i would also leave that up to the customer let them know the drive had bad sectors and could quite possibly get more of them.This way if they do not want to spend the money for a new drive at least they should not be able to come back at you when and if it does die.
I also would get them to sign a paper saying they have been advised if they choose to keep the old drive.

 

[G0AOZ]

Phil is quite correct about the development of bad sectors in drives whether they're new or old. You didn't say how old the drive in question is.

I often run MHDD on a drive - this shows 'ageing' sectors as taking longer to be read (and written). I use this data to offer guidance to a user on whether to replace the drive or not.

Balance the age of the drive against the customer's usage, i.e. business or residential. If it's more than say, three years old and is being used for business purposes, I'd suggest replacing it.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

ROGER - G0AOZ.

 

[xit]

Thanks for the replies.

One thing I failed to mention was the program indicated that "Smart had not been tripped", a good indicator.

This laptop is for individual use, no business & they backup on a regular basis.

Thanks all

xit