What's wrong with my HDD....?????

[TroKnight]

I defragmented my 30GB HDD which contain 3 partition Windows ME, Windows XP and Data with defragment option from Windows XP and leave it until finished. When I restart my pc, XP takes almost 30 minutes to completely load up and became unstable. I try many ways for days to solve the problem but to no avail. Lastly I take bold step to reformat my hdd for partition containing XP.

During XP setup, I choose quick ntfs format but after installation XP still have a problem and after several attempt to fix it, restarting computer only showing the Blue Screen Of Death(BSOD)....!!!

I reformat again and now using Full NTFS format, but it takes 36 hours to finished only 67% formatting from 15GB of the XP partition. I'm still waiting for the formatting process to finish.

Another thing....while formatting the partition for the first time after the problem occur, setup shows that this partition(installed with XP previously) as UNKNOWN and not as C:\Windows XP (NTFS) as usual.

Help me....is it a sign of HDD damage/bad sector etc....???? Why it takes too long to format only 15GB...???

 

[roamer1]

Hi TroKnight,

Something certainly seems to be failing. I would be most concerned about getting your data off ASAP.

The next step would be to use the HDD Manufactuerer's diag utility (available as download from their website) to see if the drive has problems. Read the instructions and be careful as the utilities you will be using can cause irretrievable loss of all data on the drive.

 

[TroKnight]

Thanks for your advice.
Now I'm looking for that utility and will be back again later. Hopefully my HDD still can be used.......

 

[lewat]

Caution-I think you attempted 2 defrag Xp with Me- in that case u need to fdisk entire drive. Then reset up hdd with xp is primary partition-you cannot undo the damage of Me defrag moving xp into bad locations(it scattered it). Then u r asking Xp to read file sources scattered by a dos Me.

 

[TroKnight]

Hi lewat...I'm not quite understand what are you trying to tell me, but one thing is sure...From my 3 partitions on HDD, I installed XP on the second(primary) partition. I did that because BootMagic can't produce boot menu if i put XP on primary partition. Instead the boot menu will be produced in DOS-like menu.

If that is the case, I wonder why this problems only reveal now after almost 1 1/2 years i'm using it that way without problems...!!!

Will my problem solved if I changed the partition for Me with XP(ntfs on primary partition) and vice versa..??

Please advice me.

Thanks

 

[edfair]

Probably best to leave well enough alone as far as layout.
Roamer1 is probably right about the diagnostic utility. It sounds like the hard drive is having problems.
But if you do end up reloading everything you might want to create a very small primary DOS partition at the very front to hold your PM stuff. Very easy then to boot with a floppy and make the DOS active to work on things. Ed Fair
unixstuff@juno.com
Any advice I give is my best judgement based on my interpretation of the facts you supply. Help increase my knowledge by providing some feedback, good or bad, on any advice I have given.

 

[firewolfrl]

get rid of bootmagic... I did....
goto the XOSL web site and read the info and download the program.
it works great with xp and 2k

http://www.xosl.org

 

[TroKnight]

Thanks for your responses....I rechecked my HDD again and this is what I did:

I convert the XP partition to FAT32 with Partition Magic 6(PM) so I can check the partition using Norton Disk Doctor(NDD) through Windows ME. It takes 6 hours to finished 1% of 15GB but from the diagram shown, there were bad sectors which were mark with black squares. Running scandisk shows the XP partition contained bad sector almost 50,000 bytes. No error/bad sectors found in the others partition.

Will the NDD mark the bad sectors so that no data be written onto it if the partition is to be used again???
HDD diag utility's test as recommended by roamer1 tells me that I failed all the test and telling me to backup all my important data.

Is that means my HDD is waiting for total damage and cannot be used again..??

Please advise me.

Thanks

 

[firewolfrl]

make sure in the BIOS the drive detection is set to AUTO

the whole entire drive needs to Zeroed out (low level format)
use the manufacturer's HD Utility to do the format
you are going to lose every partition and all data on the drive.
you corrupted the HD very bad (destroyed the MFT for NTFS)
converting a file system from NTFS to FAT32 is not recommended in any way shape or form.
the MFT can only be repaired by format.
the process is going to be time consuming (3-5 hrs to low level format...maybe alot more for this computer)
if after the drive is low level formated and you experience the same symtoms.
try the drive in another computer....if it is the same make it a door stop.
if a new drive does the same thing on this computer then its a hardware problem (Ram, Motherboard, CPU, etc...)

get a new drive....if you can.

 

[TroKnight]

Thanks, I'll try your suggestion later and will be back here again to tell you the result.

 

[TroKnight]

My HDD failed all the test provided by Maxtor available via PowerMax.exe. But after running low level format and running the test again, it's pass all of it.

Why..???? I thought something was wrong/damaged with my HDD physically, maybe caused by uncertain factors that can't be repaired again.

Anybody can explain this to me??? Still I can use my HDD safely and error-free freely....?????

 

[DonDamm]

TroKnight, you did the right thing and firewolfrl gave you good info. Your disk was corrupted so it is hard to rely on all the info you got re bad sectors. the low level format and subsequent partitioning and formatting can cure many errors.

However, I would add that in general it is a better idea to keep to the motto of "one disk, one operating system". I know you do it (I did, too) as you mentioned, but there are inherent problems with mixing OSs. The boot files all must be on the first partition and if you have a problem with WinME (that's only a matter of when - not if!) then it will affect you other partitions. I now use removable drives (the metal trays - not plastic) and only have one OS per disk. It really does make things easier.

Here's a tip if you really want to have another OS for games or something and you don't want to buy another hard disk etc. Get VMware v3.2 and install it. Then you can install any other OS you want in virtual machine and run it to your heart's content. Make your primary OS either Win2000 or WinXP, or even Linux. Anything you do in the VM will not hurt or affect your primary OS. You don't have to have a boot manager, you can reinstall anytime, and you'll have fewerr problems. Give it a try. I think you'll like it! )

 

[DonDamm]

TroKnight, you did the right thing and firewolfrl gave you good info. Your disk was corrupted so it is hard to rely on all the info you got re bad sectors. the low level format and subsequent partitioning and formatting can cure many errors.

However, I would add that in general it is a better idea to keep to the motto of "one disk, one operating system". I know you do it (I did, too) as you mentioned, but there are inherent problems with mixing OSs. The boot files all must be on the first partition and if you have a problem with WinME (that's only a matter of when - not if!) then it will affect you other partitions. I now use removable drives (the metal trays - not plastic) and only have one OS per disk. It really does make things easier.

Here's a tip if you really want to have another OS for games or something and you don't want to buy another hard disk etc. Get VMware v3.2 and install it. Then you can install any other OS you want in virtual machine and run it to your heart's content. Make your primary OS either Win2000 or WinXP, or even Linux. Anything you do in the VM will not hurt or affect your primary OS. You don't have to have a boot manager, you can reinstall anytime, and you'll have fewerr problems. Give it a try. I think you'll like it! )

Cheers,
DonDamm
=-=-=-=-=-=--=

 

[lindajean7]

I have tried to clean my hard drive up, by clearing files,temp,cache,defragment, deleting programs and it still will not let me down load other programs. I get a message that reads: ( you have ran out of disk space on your hard drive) What else can I do? Is there a way that I can clear my hard drive and start over. I have also tried to make a back up disk and it does not allow it.

 

[roamer1]

Hi again TroKnight,

If your drive is passing all the powermax tests you can consider it marginallly trustworthy. In other words, IMHO, you can trust the drive to reload and operate. I would, however, be very careful to run disk utilities often(weekly) and back up your critical data often in case of a re-occurence. At least for a couple months to be sure the repair "took". If you continue to get bad blocks during surface testing or any corruption of FAT or MFT tables, I would go for an RMA and get another drive.

 

[TroKnight]

Thanks pals....I'll consider your suggestions above later. But in case of the problem happen again that need to be low level formatted again which mean losing all the data, is there any more convenient way other than reinstalling OS and all the applications...? It took me almost 5 hours to installed everything(application & OS etc..)....!!!

I heard about Power Quest Drive Image and Norton Ghost which both can save image and can be retored again without reinstalling everything which is time consuming, but from the review I read, these applications can only restore image back and works well to the HDD which have the same hardwares/models/etc from where the image was created earlier. Meaning that if I save the image file and then restore it to a new HDD which have a different brand/model or even on a different PC, then there will be a conflict.

I heard about making a bootable CD which work almost like the 2 applications above. How to create it...?Any suggestion....???

 

[jward52]

LindaJean - Have you run scandisk on that drive? If so, does it freeze? If so, the drive is dying, keeps losing sectors, which is why it is low on disk space. Try a diagnosis utility like the others are suggesting.
Jim

 

[TroKnight]

Scandisk ran smoothly and shows no data in bad sector but now it failed all the test in the diagnosis test.
...my hdd is dying....?????

 

[lewat]

I APOLOGIZE FOR MY 3am MESSAGE.
I BELIEVE THAT GOT CLOSE TO MY SOLUTION WHEN YOU OPTED TO ZERO OUT THE HDD.
THE PROBLEM IS THAT XP EARLY VERSIONS RESENTS LOOKING AT OTHER WIN OS.
YOU ALSO HAVE PROGRAMS THAT ARE SEEING OK FOR ALL OS EXCEPT FOR XP. SO THE DIAG IS SAYING OK-BUT XP IS SAYING NO.
SOLUTION-GET ANOTHER HDD-RETURN THE CURRENT 1 WITH ALL BAD PROBLEMS SHOWING-