What Does This chkdsk Log File Say About My Hard Drive?

[kc27]

I installed a Western Digtal 500 gb IDE hard drive (model WD5000AAKB) in my PC last fall. The PC is six years old, it is a 2.4 ghz Pentium running XP Home, Service Pack 3. The motherboard is a Gigabyte 8SQ800.

Within the past two weeks, the PC would reboot on its own, and when it came back up it would have a message stating that the system had recovered from a serious error. A couple of days ago the computer would not boot at all, instead the screen would display a message stating to insert a CD, which meant to me that the hard drive was not readable.

I pulled the hard drive and attached it to another PC and ran chkdsk /f. The log file from the chkdsk session is attached. Can anyone interpret for me what is going on with this hard drive?

In February I installed an Invidea Geforce 6200 AGP 8X video card made by XFX, but other than that, my hardware on this PC has not changed.

Thanks in advance for any ideas on this.

 

[BadBigBen]

Get the WD Life Diagnostics program from the Western Digital website, run it fully on that drive...

CHKDSK has recovered BAD SECTORS, which could be either physical or filesystem depended... and only the WD Life Diag will tell you if it is physical, in which case you need to replace the drive ASAP, and if the drive checks out, then you should move data off the drive, nuke the drive (DBAN) and then reformat...


Ben

"If it works don't fix it! If it doesn't use a sledgehammer..."

How to ask a question, when posting them to a professional forum.

 

[goombawaho]

Agreed, if it was just some file corruption and CHKDSK fixed it WITHOUT seeing bad sectors, I wouldn't worry too much, but would still use the manufacturer's utility and run the LONG scan.

But, since you see some bad sectors, I'd say getting a backup of your data is important ASAP and then run the LONG test and see what it says.

 

[kc27]

Thanks for the info. Unfortunately, I may have cooked the drive.

Prior to getting your messages, I did run the Western Digital diagnostics software on the hard drive, but I only ran the quick scan which the drive passed. Taking that as a good sign, I ran chkdsk again, this time with the /r switch.

After about 7 hours chkdsk had gotten through 50% of stage 4 when the process stopped, stating that it had run out of room to write a file (sorry, I did not get that log file).

Now the drive no longer mounts. I set it aside and will try again this evening, but from what I understand of chkdsk, if it does not complete successfully, the drive will no longer work.

 

[kc27]

I got the drive to be recognized and recovered my files.

This drive contained a primary partition with Windows XP and programs, as well as two logical partitions.

I'd like to image the primary partition in order to use it on a new hard drive. Is this a bad idea? I'm not sure if all I will do is transfer errors from the defective drive to the new one.

Any advice on this would be appreciated.

 

[BadBigBen]

I wouldn't, as you stated, there is a chance that you will copy corrupted data onto the new drive...

Start out fresh, then make an image of the fresh install and save it out on DVD or another drive, keep it safe...

then do regular backups, e.g. once a week, that way if ever you are hit by a bad drive, or other catastrophe, you at least won't loose too much...

Ben

"If it works don't fix it! If it doesn't use a sledgehammer..."

How to ask a question, when posting them to a professional forum.