Defrag

[Johnny Schmitt]

I can't get defrag to run completely. Initially when I ran it a warning
screen that looked like something displayed in DOS said there was an error.
The only way to get out of it was to do a hard boot. Since then I ran check
disk and it found to bad sectors and repaired(?) them. I have tried
re-running defrag and after a few minutes it was up to 28%
compacting/defragging files and a windows type error popped up stating that
a status code 128 with C:/windows/system32/services.exe prevented the
defrag,...then the computer re-booted and in DOS it asked for a system disk
to restart.

I have an HP Pavilion 7965 --- Pentium 4 -- 1.7 ghz --- 512 megs ram --- and
52 gigs of free hard drive space.

Whats wrong? Am I not running it right? I have shut down my anti-virus and
the system recovery areas before running it.

Question #2 ---- Does having bad sectors on my HD mean the hard drive is
going bad?

Thanks in advance.

Johnny

 

[R. McCarty]

#2 - No, every hard drive has "Spare" clusters. When a cluster is marked
bad by the system, it re-directs that cluster to one of the spares. However
on such a new system bad clusters is not a good sign. You should determine
the manufacturer of the drive and download their diagnostics for the drive.
In most cases if it determines the drive is defective it will automatically
create an RMA. Then you can call HP and request a replacement.

I doubt you are doing anything wrong. HP Pavilions are hard to diagnose,
as HP loads up a lot of their own support software. I personally think they
are second only to IBM in creating "Poor" images for their systems. You
should go to http://www.raxco.com and download their 30-day trial of
Perfect Disk 2000 Version 6.0. Use it to do a full defrag on your system.

 

[GSV Three Minds in a Can]

I can't get defrag to run completely. Initially when I ran it a warning
screen that looked like something displayed in DOS said there was an error.
The only way to get out of it was to do a hard boot. Since then I ran check
disk and it found to bad sectors and repaired(?) them. I have tried
re-running defrag and after a few minutes it was up to 28%
compacting/defragging files and a windows type error popped up stating that
a status code 128 with C:/windows/system32/services.exe prevented the
defrag,...then the computer re-booted and in DOS it asked for a system disk
to restart.

I have an HP Pavilion 7965 --- Pentium 4 -- 1.7 ghz --- 512 megs ram --- and
52 gigs of free hard drive space.

Whats wrong? Am I not running it right? I have shut down my anti-virus and
the system recovery areas before running it.

Question #2 ---- Does having bad sectors on my HD mean the hard drive is
going bad?

If the OS is seeing them, then yes, it probably does. Modern drives do
error detection, and remap bad sectors before the OS even hears about it
(which is why it's rare to see bad sectors reported these days - they're
still there, but the drive hides them). If the OS is seeing them then
either the drive has used up all its remap ability, or the errors may be
showing up after the data has left the disk (bad cables, bad
motherboard).

Whichever way you shake it, you have a potentially serious hardware
problem, that any-day-now could eat all your data. Back up the critical
stuff, and then get the disk checked/fixed .. if the machine is under HP
warranty, invoke it, if not find out who made the disk, download their
utility for testing same, and run some disk tests. If the disk fails the
tests (watch out for write tests - these can be destructive of your
data!), either RMA it (if under warranty - older drives had a 3 year
warranty in many cases) or just bin it and fit a new one (well, fit a
new one, copy your data across, and then bin the old one).