Looking for a Windows based hard drive scan utility. The one that comes
with Windows is useless in that if it has difficulty reading a sector, it
keeps banging away until successful then never reports the problem!
Looking for a program that reports a single error and not keep re-trying.

Currently checking out http://hddguru.com/software/2006.01.22-HDDScan/
But I'm not sure if it will do the same stupid thing Windows scan does...
Don't like the fact that HDDscan doesn't give you a progress bar - what on
Earth were they thinking?

Thanks.

On Tue, 19 Oct 2010 06:54:09 -0400 JW <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in Message id:
<(E-Mail Removed)>:

>Looking for a Windows based hard drive scan utility. The one that comes
>with Windows is useless in that if it has difficulty reading a sector, it
>keeps banging away until successful then never reports the problem!
>Looking for a program that reports a single error and not keep re-trying.
>
>Currently checking out http://hddguru.com/software/2006.01.22-HDDScan/
>But I'm not sure if it will do the same stupid thing Windows scan does...
>Don't like the fact that HDDscan doesn't give you a progress bar - what on
>Earth were they thinking?

Oops, I stand corrected. Clicking on the task *will* bring up a status
window. RTFM moment.

> Currently checking out http://hddguru.com/software/2006.01.22-HDDScan/
> But I'm not sure if it will do the same stupid thing Windows scan does...
> Don't like the fact that HDDscan doesn't give you a progress bar - what on
> Earth were they thinking?

Linux has a command called badblocks, but it doesn't respect file
systems. So you possibly can't use it to mark a bad sector in a NTFS
partition.

In article <(E-Mail Removed)>, JW
<(E-Mail Removed)> writes

>Looking for a program that reports a single error and not keep re-trying.

HDTune has a scan option with a visual display. You can do the full
scan, or a quick one.

--
Mike Tomlinson

Man-wai Chang <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
>> Currently checking out http://hddguru.com/software/2006.01.22-HDDScan/
>> But I'm not sure if it will do the same stupid thing Windows scan does...
>> Don't like the fact that HDDscan doesn't give you a progress bar - what on
>> Earth were they thinking?

> Linux has a command called badblocks, but it doesn't respect file
> systems. So you possibly can't use it to mark a bad sector in a NTFS
> partition.

Today you "mark" bad blocks on HDD level by overwriting them (and
the disk then does reallocation). If you have to makr on filesystem
layer, then the disk has run out of spare sectors and is close
to dath.

As to the original question: Run a long SMART selftest, e.g. with
a tool like HDDsentinel (free edition will work fine). Scanning
defective sectors from the OS is for disks that do not have
automatic defect management, and AFAIK these are not on the market
for something like > 20 years now.

Arno

--
Arno Wagner, Dr. sc. techn., Dipl. Inform., CISSP -- Email: (E-Mail Removed)
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 wrote
> Man-wai Chang <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote

>>> Currently checking out
>>> http://hddguru.com/software/2006.01.22-HDDScan/ But I'm not sure if
>>> it will do the same stupid thing Windows scan does... Don't like
>>> the fact that HDDscan doesn't give you a progress bar - what on
>>> Earth were they thinking?

>> Linux has a command called badblocks, but it doesn't respect file systems.
>> So you possibly can't use it to mark a bad sector in a NTFS partition.

> Today you "mark" bad blocks on HDD level by overwriting them (and
> the disk then does reallocation). If you have to makr on filesystem
> layer, then the disk has run out of spare sectors and is close to dath.

> As to the original question: Run a long SMART selftest,

The main problem with that approach is that it doesnt tell
you what the flakey sector is part of file or directory wise.

> e.g. with a tool like HDDsentinel (free edition will work fine).

> Scanning defective sectors from the OS is for disks that do
> not have automatic defect management, and AFAIK these
> are not on the market for something like > 20 years now.

Correct.

> Today you "mark" bad blocks on HDD level by overwriting them (and
> the disk then does reallocation). If you have to makr on filesystem
> layer, then the disk has run out of spare sectors and is close
> to dath.

Ever since introduction of IDE hard disks, we lost the ability to mark a
bad sector by low-level format. And Micro$oft's format program just
refuse to mark bad sectors at file-system level.

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Man-wai Chang wrote

>> Today you "mark" bad blocks on HDD level by overwriting them (and
>> the disk then does reallocation). If you have to makr on filesystem
>> layer, then the disk has run out of spare sectors and is close to dath.

> Ever since introduction of IDE hard disks, we lost the ability to mark a bad sector by low-level format.

Nope, the earliest IDEs could still do that.

> And Micro$oft's format program just refuse to mark bad sectors at file-system level.

Wrong again, it will mark them as bad if they are bad enough.

Man-wai Chang <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
>> Today you "mark" bad blocks on HDD level by overwriting them (and
>> the disk then does reallocation). If you have to makr on filesystem
>> layer, then the disk has run out of spare sectors and is close
>> to dath.

> Ever since introduction of IDE hard disks, we lost the ability to mark a
> bad sector by low-level format. And Micro$oft's format program just
> refuse to mark bad sectors at file-system level.

This does make sense, as the disk is in the process of dying
anyways if defect reallocation stops working. For Linux, you
can still manually pass a list of bad blocks to mke2fs and
e2fsck. mkdosfs allso supports this, so for FAT12/16/32 created
with Linux (they work without problem with at least XP and W7),
you can also specify bad blocks manually. Linux mkntfs does
not seem to have that option anymore, but it does call badblocks,
which in turn could be manipulated to give the list you want to
mkntfs. Seems this functionality is not irrelevant enough that
nobody biotherd to add the (very simple to add) commanfline
option to read from file instead from badblocks output.

But all that said, with Linux you get bad blocks marking
in filesystem level for ext2/3/4, FAT and NTFS.

Arno
--
Arno Wagner, Dr. sc. techn., Dipl. Inform., CISSP -- Email: (E-Mail Removed)
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

On 20/10/2010 9:55 AM, Arno wrote:
> As to the original question: Run a long SMART selftest, e.g. with
> a tool like HDDsentinel (free edition will work fine). Scanning
> defective sectors from the OS is for disks that do not have
> automatic defect management, and AFAIK these are not on the market
> for something like> 20 years now.

I don't think the free version supports the long self-test, just the
short one.

Yousuf Khan