Does Toshiba have a HDD utility like IBM, Maxtor, etc.?

[ANTant]

I was trying to fix a Toshiba Satellite P15-S470 laptop's Windows XP
Media Center SP1 (OEM; most updates), and IE and other programs were
acting funny. Then, I noticed event viewer said:

11/16/2004 9:25:50 PM Disk Error None 7 N/A SomeGuy The device, \Device\Harddisk0\D, has a bad block.
11/16/2004 9:25:43 PM atapi Error None 9 N/A SomeGuy The device, \Device\Ide\IdePort0, did not respond within the timeout period.
11/16/2004 9:23:35 PM Disk Warning None 51 N/A SomeGuy An error was detected on device \Device\Harddisk0\D during a paging operation.


According to XP's Device Manager, the HDD is Toshiba MK6022GAX (long URL):
http://sdd.toshiba.com/cda/main.asp...00000535/8182000004fc000000010000659c00000d7a

I ran chkdsk during the reboot, but it found no problems. I tried using
Norton Disk Doctor from bootable Symantec Recovery CD from Norton
SystemWorks Professional 2005 package. It found 4 KB of bad sectors.
This included surface scan. The corruption was in a TTF font file
(Arial Bold). I replaced it from my XP SP2 Pro. machine and now things
work so far.

After 1-2 hours, no new errors. I would like to run another free disk
utility to ensure the bad sectors are pretty much found. I hope the HDD
doesn't get worse.

If the worse happens, do I send the whole notebook back to Toshiba or
CompUSA (where it was bought)? Or can I just get a HDD replacement and
copy everything to the new drive? There are some important files on the
HDD that I don't want others to see. I believe the warranty is still
good (not a year yet).

Thank you in advance.
--
"An ant is a wise creature for itself, but it is a shrewd thing in an orchard or garden." --Francis Bacon
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( )

 

[Quaoar]

I was trying to fix a Toshiba Satellite P15-S470 laptop's Windows XP
Media Center SP1 (OEM; most updates), and IE and other programs were
acting funny. Then, I noticed event viewer said:

11/16/2004 9:25:50 PM Disk Error None 7 N/A SomeGuy The device,
\Device\Harddisk0\D, has a bad block. 11/16/2004 9:25:43 PM atapi
Error None 9 N/A SomeGuy The device, \Device\Ide\IdePort0, did not
respond within the timeout period. 11/16/2004 9:23:35 PM Disk Warning
None 51 N/A SomeGuy An error was detected on device
\Device\Harddisk0\D during a paging operation.


According to XP's Device Manager, the HDD is Toshiba MK6022GAX (long
URL):
http://sdd.toshiba.com/cda/main.asp...00000535/8182000004fc000000010000659c00000d7a

I ran chkdsk during the reboot, but it found no problems. I tried
using
Norton Disk Doctor from bootable Symantec Recovery CD from Norton
SystemWorks Professional 2005 package. It found 4 KB of bad sectors.
This included surface scan. The corruption was in a TTF font file
(Arial Bold). I replaced it from my XP SP2 Pro. machine and now things
work so far.

After 1-2 hours, no new errors. I would like to run another free disk
utility to ensure the bad sectors are pretty much found. I hope the
HDD
doesn't get worse.

If the worse happens, do I send the whole notebook back to Toshiba or
CompUSA (where it was bought)? Or can I just get a HDD replacement and
copy everything to the new drive? There are some important files on
the
HDD that I don't want others to see. I believe the warranty is still
good (not a year yet).

Thank you in advance.
\ _ / Please remove ANT if replying by
e-mail. ( )

Toshiba has no drive fitness utility. Check this site for options:
http://www.techspot.com/vb/topic7602.html

Go to www.lavalys.com and download the personal edition of Everest.
This will AIRC have a complete SMART table that will provide drive
performance information relative to imminent failure. Also, start your
backup program immediately.

Q

 

[Eric Gisin]

I was trying to fix a Toshiba Satellite P15-S470 laptop's Windows XP
Media Center SP1 (OEM; most updates), and IE and other programs were
acting funny.

I ran chkdsk during the reboot, but it found no problems. I tried using
Norton Disk Doctor from bootable Symantec Recovery CD from Norton
SystemWorks Professional 2005 package. It found 4 KB of bad sectors.
This included surface scan. The corruption was in a TTF font file
(Arial Bold). I replaced it from my XP SP2 Pro. machine and now things
work so far.

You need to use "chkdsk /r" to scan for bad sectors. You likely have one bad
sector, but the whole cluster needs to be marked bad.

As the other reply said, look at SMART data regularly.

 

[ANTant]

You need to use "chkdsk /r" to scan for bad sectors. You likely have one bad
sector, but the whole cluster needs to be marked bad.

As the other reply said, look at SMART data regularly.

Did, and still shows 4 KB (no new ones). How come chkdsk during reboot
didn't find it?
--
"An ant is a wise creature for itself, but it is a shrewd thing in an orchard or garden." --Francis Bacon
/\___/\
/ /\ /\ \ Ant @ The Ant Farm: http://antfarm.ma.cx
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\ _ / Please remove ANT if replying by e-mail.
( )

 

[Eric Gisin]

Did, and still shows 4 KB (no new ones). How come chkdsk during reboot
didn't find it?

I can take an hour to scan with /r, which is why it isn't the default.

Chkdsk will always show multiples of 4K, the cluster size on NTFS.

 

[Curious George]

On Wed, 17 Nov 2004 03:25:32 -0600, (e-mail address removed) wrote:

If the worse happens, do I send the whole notebook back to Toshiba or
CompUSA (where it was bought)? Or can I just get a HDD replacement and
copy everything to the new drive? There are some important files on the
HDD that I don't want others to see. I believe the warranty is still
good (not a year yet).

I feel for you. I also have known the Toshiba/CompUSA hell.

If you know the model drive used you can use the disk manufacturers
diagnostics (Maxtor, Seagate, etc.). I doubt it will bring much
satisfaction though. You can always buy a new drive and replace it
yourself but with some laptops it is hard to get to the HDD. If the
warranty is still good you should seek a warranty based resolution.
Be prepared as warranty repair service tends to be very poor (IMHO).

One problem I had was that Toshiba (& many other laptop manufacturers)
is very stingy with the activation of the fan. Many components
including the HDD (which is often right above the warm charging
battery) tend to overheat. Using the fan more liberally helps a lot.
http://www.buzzard.org.uk/toshiba/fan.html has one such utility for
linux and windows.

 

[ANTant]

I can take an hour to scan with /r, which is why it isn't the default.

Chkdsk will always show multiples of 4K, the cluster size on NTFS.

Ahhh! So if chkdsk wants to block the bad sectors, does it require a
reboot?
--
"An ant is a wise creature for itself, but it is a shrewd thing in an orchard or garden." --Francis Bacon
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/ /\ /\ \ Ant @ The Ant Farm: http://antfarm.ma.cx
| |o o| | Ant's Quality Foraged Links: http://aqfl.net
\ _ / Please remove ANT if replying by e-mail.
( )

 

[ANTant]

I was trying to fix a Toshiba Satellite P15-S470 laptop's Windows XP

Toshiba has no drive fitness utility. Check this site for options:
http://www.techspot.com/vb/topic7602.html

Go to www.lavalys.com and download the personal edition of Everest.
This will AIRC have a complete SMART table that will provide drive
performance information relative to imminent failure. Also, start your
backup program immediately.

So far, no growing problems after the NDD scan. I ran chkdsk.exe /r and
SpinRite v6.0 about three times overnight and did not find any new
problems (e.g., bad sectors).

However, I did find one event log entry about disk in Widnows XP Media
Center SP1's event log viewer on 11/26/2004. I believe it was "Disk Error
None 7 N/A SomeGuy The device, \Device\Harddisk0\D, has a bad block." I
haven't seen those error types since 11/17/2004 after Norton Disk Doctor
from Symantec's Recovery CD (Norton SystemWorks 2005 Premier) fixed it and
since 11/26/2004.

Everest Home Edition didn't show any problems for the last few days. Even
SpinRite's SMART status didn't show anything wrong. I did notice the HDD
temperature went up to 106 degrees after hours of usage. Is that a
problem? That was in a 65 degrees(F) temperature. It hasn't been hot
lately in Southern CA since it is winter season.

I hope the situation doesn't get worse. I have to say Toshiba's technical
support stinks! Any feedbacks appreciated.
--
"Ever watch ants just crawling around? They walk in that single straight line, a long, a long, long
mile of ants. Sometimes they will walk over and pick up their dead friends and carry those around.
I'm pretty sure it's because they can get in the carpool lane and pass up that line." --Ellen
DeGeneres
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/ /\ /\ \ Ant @ The Ant Farm: http://antfarm.ma.cx
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