Maxtor hard drives - don't surface scan!

[CK]

Just a quick note to describe my (admittedly limited) experience with my
Maxtor hard drives and Windows. It seems that Windows, and DOS for that
matter, don't play nice with my 80Gig Maxtor hard drives. Under normal
circumstances, they are perfectly happy together. But as soon as Windows
wants to get down and dirty and check the hard drives surface the hard drive
wants none of it.

I originally bought an 80gig drive a couple of years ago. I believe that it
arrived with a flaw, which then was made worse by the fact that I was trying
to do MS-based things to it - FDISK's verification process, specifically,
which I believe is more-or-less the same as Scandisk's surface scan. While I
was running FSISK, it started having problems. Then there was a horrible
clicking noise, and then there were bad clusters all over the place. The
hard drive was getting eaten up by the process, so I downloaded Maxtor's own
utilities. It was already too late for that drive by that point (the utility
hadn't come with the hard drive), so I got a replacement and used Maxtor's
utility this time to set the drive up - with no problems.

I was reminded of this whole episode this evening. Windows decided on
booting that the drive might have bad clusters, and proceeded to do a
surface check. It found a bad cluster, and then started hunting deeper. It
found a couple and was going rather slowly, so given my earlier experiences
I stopped it from carrying on and used Maxtor's utility again to check it.
It found problems with the START, but the Advanced test was able to fix it.
On a reboot Windows Scandisk flew through the check with no further
problems.

I am of the opinion that with my particular model of hard drive the Windows
surface scan utilities will only make any problems worse. Like picking at a
scab will stop it from healing. It seems reasonably likely to me that this
is also the case with other Maxtor hard drives, and perhaps those of other
manufacturers. I would strongly advise against letting Windows do a surface
scan under any circumstances in which there might be a problem, and instead
use the utilities supplied by the manufacturer of the hard drive.

Perhaps I am extrapolating unnecessarily, but I thought I should share my
experiences to prevent others from having to go through the frustrating
episode that I did.

CK

 

[Phrederik]

I originally bought an 80gig drive a couple of years ago. I believe
that it

arrived with a flaw, which then was made worse by the fact that I was trying
to do MS-based things to it - FDISK's verification process, specifically,
which I believe is more-or-less the same as Scandisk's surface scan. While I
was running FSISK, it started having problems. Then there was a horrible
clicking noise, and then there were bad clusters all over the place. The
hard drive was getting eaten up by the process, so I downloaded Maxtor's own
utilities. It was already too late for that drive by that point (the utility
hadn't come with the hard drive), so I got a replacement and used Maxtor's
utility this time to set the drive up - with no problems.

FDisk would NOT damage a drive unless the drive was already defective,
or you had your BIOS settings wrong and overstepped the drive. I'm
pretty sure that todays drives won't let you actually do damage by
overstepping, either.

I was reminded of this whole episode this evening. Windows decided on
booting that the drive might have bad clusters, and proceeded to do a
surface check. It found a bad cluster, and then started hunting deeper. It
found a couple and was going rather slowly, so given my earlier experiences
I stopped it from carrying on and used Maxtor's utility again to check it.
It found problems with the START, but the Advanced test was able to fix it.
On a reboot Windows Scandisk flew through the check with no further
problems.

Scandisk can scramble the data on a hard drive, especially if there
are other issues (bad power, bad cable, etc.) but it won't physically
damage a drive.

I am of the opinion that with my particular model of hard drive the Windows
surface scan utilities will only make any problems worse. Like picking at a
scab will stop it from healing. It seems reasonably likely to me that this
is also the case with other Maxtor hard drives, and perhaps those of other
manufacturers. I would strongly advise against letting Windows do a surface
scan under any circumstances in which there might be a problem, and instead
use the utilities supplied by the manufacturer of the hard drive.

Nope. Scandisk may find defects, but it won't create them.

 

[CK]

FDisk would NOT damage a drive unless the drive was already defective,

That's what I said, isn't it? That the drive was already defective. My point
was that fdisk appeared to make it worse in a way that Maxtor's own utility
didn't.

or you had your BIOS settings wrong and overstepped the drive. I'm
pretty sure that todays drives won't let you actually do damage by
overstepping, either.

The BIOS settings were fine.

Scandisk can scramble the data on a hard drive, especially if there
are other issues (bad power, bad cable, etc.) but it won't physically
damage a drive.

Out of interest, does anyone here know how the surface scan actually works?

Nope. Scandisk may find defects, but it won't create them.

See, now that's where I don't agree. There were some horrible noises coming
out of the original drive during the surface scan. Given the mechanical
abuse that appeared to be happening during the process, I don't think it's
likely that no damage came about.

 

[Phrederik]

That's what I said, isn't it? That the drive was already defective. My point
was that fdisk appeared to make it worse in a way that Maxtor's own utility
The BIOS settings were fine.



Out of interest, does anyone here know how the surface scan actually

works?

A surface scan simply reads every sector one at a time, whether it is empty
or has data in it. (Technically, all sectors have data... some of it just
isn't useful). If the scan tries to read a sector that is damaged, you'll
hear the head jumping all over (zipping to track zero and back) trying to
ensure good alignment. A surface scan does nothing different than copying a
file or running a program. If a surface scan does physical damage, the drive
was ready to fail anyhow.

See, now that's where I don't agree. There were some horrible noises coming
out of the original drive during the surface scan. Given the mechanical
abuse that appeared to be happening during the process, I don't think it's
likely that no damage came about.

Imagine having a 10gig file on your hard drive. Copy it to another location.
Everthing that a surface scan does will happen during the copy. The only
difference is that the surface scan is more likely to find a bad sector and
start zipping back and forth from the current track to track zero.