Dodgy HDD

[Electronics & Photo Fan]

Here's one for you:

For the last 6 months, I've had to re-install XP more times than I can count (and I mean more than 10)

I've had the PC since May 06, It came with 2 Samsung 160GB HDDs, I made one for system, and one for files. The files one is almost full and has no bad sectors. Around Jan 07, the system drive accrued 8MB of bad sectors. The number of reported bad sectors has not increased at all since then, though I reckon it's got more bad sectors than it's telling me about because of the frequent failure of programs for no apparent reason, and the OS crashing, needing re-installing, and saying file XXXXXXX is missing. I wasn't quite sure what made bad sectors get reported, but I knew that obviously the quick format I was always doing during the installation of XP couldn't be catching them. So this time I told it to perform a full format. It failed at 1%.

So instead of making the whole drive one partition, I made a 4GB partition and tried to make it do a full format. It failed at 57%.

So my situation is this: I obviously have a dodgy HDD, but as it's only system I don't really care; I'll run it into the ground. But what I would like to be able to do is scan it for bad sectors and have them all locked.

So does anyone know of a good program that can scan an unpartitioned (or partitioned), unformatted HDD for bad sectors?

 

[floppybootstomp]

Your Hard disk is probably still under warranty, go to Samsung's site and type in the details they ask for and it will let you know if you're eligible for a replacement and give you instructions where to send it.

In the meantime, you could download The Ultimate Boot CD which has more hard disk testing facilities than you can shake a stick at.

Alternatively, this is good software, invaluable when wanting to format disks with different file systems or delete and merge partitions.

I'm still using a version that's on a floppy disk that is nine years old and still works well with all file systems, including NTFS, FAT 32 and ext2. Paragon Hard Disk manager. You can download a trial version and it costs around £25.00.

 

[Electronics & Photo Fan]

I doubt it's covered by their warranty, sorry forgot to say, this HDD is in a shop-bought machine (Fujitsu Siemens), which no longer has a warranty, especially since I opened the case.

Thanks for the links, I'm downloading Ultimate Boot CD now.

 

[floppybootstomp]

If the hard disk is manufactured by Samsung it will have a serial number and as far as I know Samsung's warranty will cover the disk even if it was supplied as part of a ready made machine.

You have nothing to lose by trying have you?

You enter the serial number at their site and Samsung will say yes or no. Simple.

 

[psd99]

If the hard disk is manufactured by Samsung it will have a serial number and as far as I know Samsung's warranty will cover the disk even if it was supplied as part of a ready made machine.

You have nothing to lose by trying have you?

You enter the serial number at their site and Samsung will say yes or no. Simple.

out of interest how long does this warranty last?

Also you ever sent a hard drive out to Samsung? How good or bad were they?

 

[floppybootstomp]

The current warranty offered on Samsung hard disks is three years. I do not know what the warranty was for the drive in question here but I'd hazard a guess it's also three years.

I've never had to rma a Samsung hard disk - yet.

Have rma'ed plenty of Western Digital disks though, they're good, about a week to turn it around door to door.

 

[Abarbarian]

Quote: Hard Drive Diagnostic Tools
Western Digital Lifeguard DiagnosticTool
Seatools (Seagate Diagnostic Tools) FLOPPY / Seatools (Seagate Diagnostic Tools) CDROM ISO
IBM / Hitatchi Drive FitnessTest / IBM / Hitatchi Drive Fitness Test (CDROM ISO)
Maxtor PowerMax (Maxtor Diagnostic)

http://www.sysresccd.org/System-tools

Systemrescue disc has a free alternative Partition magic clone