How bad is this SATA hard drive?

[Jack]

It is important. My Windows do not start!
Jack

In Jack typed on Sat, 8 Aug 2009 18:05:04 -0400:

Sounds like 65MB worth of your files could have been lost to me.
Hopefully nothing very important.

 

[Patrick Keenan]

That will be the problem.
I have Z partition almost full (180 GB of data) and I have no place to
move all that data.
Jack

You'll need to get a place to move it, then. That probably means that you
need to buy a replacement drive, now. Where I am, half-terabyte disks
are under $100.

And when you send the drive for warranty replacement, you give up anything
that's on it. You won't see it again.

The drive probably should not be considered reliable.

And your response raises the question: if you can't move the data, what
were you doing for backup?

-pk

 

[Patrick Keenan]

It is not as you think. I have up-to-date backup of my VERY important data
like for example my own programming,
The other data is just the accumulation over the years of various files,
which I access sometimes but I will not kill myself if all are lost.

Talking more about backup. I read your webpage.
I do have good backup program Acronis but I use it only for the
restoration of my virgin Windows installation including all the main
programs I use.
What do you recommend for the backup storage?
Additional hard drive? External? Always plugged in and use the incremental
backups on it?
Thanks,
Jack

Additionally, a single copy of the backup isn't the best plan, either. I
would suggest that you have more than one extra hard disks to back up to.
There's an external SATA drive carrier that is reminiscent of a toaster,
that's possibly a good idea for this.

Hopefully Blu-Ray burners and disks will come down to a reasonable price
(i.e. cheap) soon. They will be close to being reasonable for the amount
of data you have.

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

Additionally, a single copy of the backup isn't the best plan, either. I
would suggest that you have more than one extra hard disks to back up to.
There's an external SATA drive carrier that is reminiscent of a toaster,
that's possibly a good idea for this.

Yes, I said much in the same thing in my article, referenced above. It
says "Even better than a single external drive is having two or more
such drives, and using them alternately. With a single drive, every
time you do a full backup, you also destroy your only backup by
overwriting it. That leaves you vulnerable to a problem occurring
while the backup is in progress. Alternating between two backup drives
overcomes that problem. And you can go back one or more generations of
data if you need to restore. Not every home user needs that extra
layer of protection (and extra cost), but almost every business does."

 

[BillW50]

In Ken Blake, MVP typed on Sun, 09 Aug 2009 06:52:08 -0700:

Yes, I said much in the same thing in my article, referenced above. It
says "Even better than a single external drive is having two or more
such drives, and using them alternately. With a single drive, every
time you do a full backup, you also destroy your only backup by
overwriting it. That leaves you vulnerable to a problem occurring
while the backup is in progress. Alternating between two backup drives
overcomes that problem. And you can go back one or more generations of
data if you need to restore. Not every home user needs that extra
layer of protection (and extra cost), but almost every business does."

Huh? That is only true if the backup takes up all of the space on the
whole backup drive. But why would you want a backup drive that small
for? I have five netbooks ranging in SSD sizes 4GB, 8GB, and 16GB. And I
use one external 160GB 2.5 inch HDD to backup many backup versions of
them.

Oddly enough, I have not had great luck with incremental backups. When
they work, they take forever and takes too long. I'm talking about
Paragon products here. Full backups actually takes far less time to
complete, but takes up more space. But they are more reliable.

I also learned that Paragon Drive Backup (both Personal and
Professional) won't restore even with a recovery CD (it runs under
Linux) on one of my Windows 2000 netbooks. It appears it doesn't like
the 800x480 display and won't run. And running the script and reboot
method that is supposed to also restore doesn't restore either. As it
isn't kicking in under Windows 2000.

So I banned it for all of my other netbooks running other OS as well. As
ghost32.exe (v11) works from a BartPE flash drive and has proved 100%
reliable over the years.

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

In Ken Blake, MVP typed on Sun, 09 Aug 2009 06:52:08 -0700:

Huh? That is only true if the backup takes up all of the space on the
whole backup drive.

Not correct.

But why would you want a backup drive that small
for? I have five netbooks ranging in SSD sizes 4GB, 8GB, and 16GB. And I
use one external 160GB 2.5 inch HDD to backup many backup versions of
them.

There is a difference between multiple backups on multiple drives and
on a single drive. For example, if you are writing a backup onto a
drive which has any other backups you have on it, and a nearby
lightning strike sends thousands of volts into your home, your
original drive and your backup drive can simultaneously be immediately
fried. That can cause the loss of everything.

Having multiple drives that are never simultaneously connected
protects you against such events. Whether you think such risks are
great depends on you, and whether you want protection against such a
risk depends on the value of the files to you. I'm not trying to tell
you what to do, but others, especially if their business depends on
their data, may have different opinions.

Oddly enough, I have not had great luck with incremental backups. When
they work, they take forever and takes too long. I'm talking about
Paragon products here. Full backups actually takes far less time to
complete, but takes up more space. But they are more reliable.

One of the problems with incremental backup is that they back up new
files and changed files, but don't "un-backup" any deleted files. If
you restore from a series of incremental backups, you will also get
back any files you had deleted. In most instances that may not be a
big problem, but occasionally it might be.

 

[Twayne]

First and foremost, get any data off the drive that you can. Hopefully
you do backups periodically so you won't lose a lot of data. Boot from
a differrent drive, use another computer, whatever it takes, but get you
data.

Your chkdsk results indicate a quickly failing drive, so - get so you
don't need it ASAP. Do not try to write to it as that could damage
existing data. If it'll run as a non boot device, try to do a copy of
all your important data if you can.

About a year ago, WD seems to have had a rash of bad drives that didn't
last long. Mine only made it three months, others seemed to get 6 months
or better at the time and a few failed in the first few hours. Lots of
bad PR at the time and much of it's still floating around hurthing them
although I hear today's drives are OK.

It's still possible a software problem is the cause of all that; I've
had it happen here. If there is a recovery partition on the drive, then
I wouldn't do this, but if not, I might go ahead and boot from the XP CD
to delete existing partitions, recreated them, and format the drive, and
take the hour it takes to let XP install. If it then ran chkdsk OK,
then I'd simply watch it to see that no more bad sectors were occurring.
But if bad sectors showed up, or if under those conditions you
couldn't do the reinstall of windows (even if the drive isn't set to be
bootable), then I'd be going for an RMA.

IMO, from the information you've provided, you could actually skip the
above and go right for the RMA number to send it in. You could always
take the tact that if there is testing to be certain the drive is bad,
they should provide it for you to run. They might just say to send it
in and give you an RMA number right off the bat. This is probably the
faster way to settle things.

Depending on your warranty, you might not want to wait too long.
Sometimes those long warranties have little gotchas in them that can
cost money. In my case though I didn't even have to pay shipping; they
sent me pre-paid address labels to use. IIRC turnaround was about two
weeks and the drive I got back had a different serial so it was a
replacement. .

HTH,

Twayne`

Hello,
I have 500 GB Western Digital SATA drive which is about 1
year old.
Recently, my Windows XP froze seveal times and finally Windows
refused to start at all (no error displayed whatsoever).
I installed the 2nd drive (IDE), installed new WinXP on it and now I
am trying to figure out where the problem is on the SATA drive.
1.
I have 3 partitions on that SATA drive: C (190GB), D(98 GB)& Z (172
GB). Running chkdsk does not show any problems on D and Z partitions.
D partition holds Vista installation and it was used very, very
seldom (only to test some programs).
Z partition is where I keep My Documents, downloaded files and all
the data so it is accessed quite often, as often as drive C or even
more often then that.
2.
Running chkdsk /f reveals the significant number of bad clusters on
C drive. Interestingly, repeating chkdsk /f each time reveals more
bad clusters (not found previously)
3.
Tried to install new Windows on that C partition (the installation
used CD drive)
Installations fails soon after " Cannot read file so and so"
but using the same CD I was able to install Windows on the spare IDE
hard drive.
It looks like the installation could not read its own files after
putting them on the hard drive.
4.
Running chkdsk /r replaces a lot of bad clusters.
Please see below the log.

My questions are:
A.
Is that SATA drive completely unreliable and should I claim warranty?
B.
Why there are so many problems on partition C but none on partition
Z? (both partitions are accessed as often)
C.
What else can I do to check, test & eventually repair that SATA
drive? Thanks,
Jack
========= chkdsk /r log =========

Microsoft Windows XP [Version 5.1.2600]
(C) Copyright 1985-2001 Microsoft Corp.


C:\Documents and Settings\j>chkdsk g: /r
The type of the file system is NTFS.
Volume label is HOST.

CHKDSK is verifying files (stage 1 of 5)...
File verification completed.
CHKDSK is verifying indexes (stage 2 of 5)...
Index verification completed.
CHKDSK is verifying security descriptors (stage 3 of 5)...
Security descriptor verification completed.
CHKDSK is verifying file data (stage 4 of 5)...
Windows replaced bad clusters in file 179
of name \WINDOWS\system32\kdcom.dll.
Windows replaced bad clusters in file 5522
of name \WINDOWS\system32\config\software.
Windows replaced bad clusters in file 6654
of name \WINDOWS\pchealth\helpctr\Database\HCdata.edb.
Windows replaced bad clusters in file 16212
of name \SYSTEM~1\_RESTO~1\RP424\A0048465.dll.
Windows replaced bad clusters in file 20180
of name \WINDOWS\Fonts\Elegance.TTF.
Windows replaced bad clusters in file 26441
of name \WINDOWS\system32\ntoskrnl.exe.
Windows replaced bad clusters in file 33028
of name \WINDOWS\system32\drivers\ntfs.sys.
Windows replaced bad clusters in file 33048
of name \WINDOWS\system32\drivers\mrxsmb.sys.
Windows replaced bad clusters in file 33050
of name \WINDOWS\system32\drivers\mountmgr.sys.
Windows replaced bad clusters in file 33084
of name \WINDOWS\system32\drivers\cdfs.sys.
Windows replaced bad clusters in file 33106
of name \WINDOWS\system32\sysdm.cpl.
Windows replaced bad clusters in file 33756
of name \WINDOWS\system32\msutb.dll.
Windows replaced bad clusters in file 33794
of name \WINDOWS\system32\msimsg.dll.
Windows replaced bad clusters in file 34683
of name \WINDOWS\system32\taskkill.exe.
Windows replaced bad clusters in file 40165
of name \PROGRA~1\ESET\Install\mfc42.dll.
Windows replaced bad clusters in file 50753
of name \PROGRA~1\MOZILL~1\chrome\pippki.jar.
Windows replaced bad clusters in file 50994
of name
\DOCUME~1\JACEK_~1\LOCALS~1\APPLIC~1\Adobe\Updater5\Data\READER~1.AUM.
Windows replaced bad clusters in file 51746
of name \WINDOWS\system32\drivers\snapman.sys.
Windows replaced bad clusters in file 51752
of name \WINDOWS\system32\drivers\timntr.sys.
Windows replaced bad clusters in file 52832
of name \WINDOWS\system32\drivers\HSF_DPV.sys.
Windows replaced bad clusters in file 60495
of name \PROGRA~1\MOZILL~1\COMPON~1\NSCONT~2.JS.
Windows replaced bad clusters in file 61962
of name \WINXP\DRIVER~1\i386\driver.cab.
Windows replaced bad clusters in file 67799
of name \WINDOWS\system32\config\system.
Windows replaced bad clusters in file 100532
of name \PROGRA~1\COMMON~1\Adobe\Updater5\ADOBEU~1.ES_.
Windows replaced bad clusters in file 111489
of name \PROGRA~1\VSO\ConvertX\3\TEMPLA~1\thriller\INTRO2~2.AVI.
Windows replaced bad clusters in file 119633
of name
\DOCUME~1\JACEK_~1\LOCALS~1\TEMPOR~1\Content.IE5\X452VYOO\F976C7~1.
Windows replaced bad clusters in file 134233 of name
\DOCUME~1\JACEK_~1\LOCALS~1\TEMPOR~1\Content.IE5\WPMR27Y7\6537D1~1.
Windows replaced bad clusters in file 136398 of name
\SYSTEM~1\_RESTO~1\RP424\A0048391.exe.
Windows replaced bad clusters in file 136401
of name \SYSTEM~1\_RESTO~1\RP424\A0048390.exe.
Windows replaced bad clusters in file 138112
of name \WINDOWS\system32\LogFiles\PORTRE~1\PR55EA~1.LOG.
Windows replaced bad clusters in file 138821
of name \DOCUME~1\JACEK_~1\APPLIC~1\mjusbsp\Upgrade\install1.exe.
Windows replaced bad clusters in file 139693
of name \PROGRA~1\TIGERJ~1\TjIpSys.dll.
Windows replaced bad clusters in file 141837
of name \PRParser\prpsetup.msi.
Windows replaced bad clusters in file 141880
of name \PROGRA~1\Ahead\Nero\SHORTCUT.DLL.
Windows replaced bad clusters in file 142208
of name \PROGRA~1\COMMON~1\Ahead\AUDIOP~1\VQFENC~1.DLL.
Windows replaced bad clusters in file 147822
of name
\DOCUME~1\JACEK_~1\LOCALS~1\TEMPOR~1\Content.IE5\KGTX41YL\QQETBV~1.JS.
Windows replaced bad clusters in file 149957
of name \WINDOWS\REGIST~2\{A47B3~1\wmvadvd.dll.
Windows replaced bad clusters in file 150237
of name \WINDOWS\system32\wmvdmod.dll.
Windows replaced bad clusters in file 159796
of name
\DOCUME~1\JACEK_~1\LOCALS~1\TEMPOR~1\Content.IE5\XV5QP742\96D702~1.
Windows replaced bad clusters in file 160456 of name
\DOCUME~1\JACEK_~1\LOCALS~1\TEMPOR~1\Content.IE5\TN1Q92E5\D2DDD5~1.
Windows replaced bad clusters in file 160642 of name
\DOCUME~1\JACEK_~1\LOCALS~1\TEMPOR~1\Content.IE5\2V79V8EO\242F43~1.
99 percent completed.

1. Copy your data off the SATA drive
2. Download WD's Data Lifeguard Tools and run the diagnostic tests.

http://support.wdc.com/product/download.asp?level1=6&lang=en
http://wdc.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/wdc...TIuMjA2JnBfY3Y9JnBfcGFnZT0x&p_li=&p_topview=1

If the Data Lifeguard Tools test indicates a failed disk, you should
be covered by warranty. WD has pretty good warranty service, but you
may need to be a bit insistent.

 

[Twayne]

That will be the problem.
I have Z partition almost full (180 GB of data) and I have no place
to move all that data.
Jack

What about that second IDE you said you installed? Can't use that? If
you need room, copy or backup the stuff to DVDs.

 

[BillW50]

In Ken Blake, MVP typed on Sun, 09 Aug 2009 08:23:07 -0700:

Not correct.

Huh what? What do you mean not correct?

There is a difference between multiple backups on multiple drives and
on a single drive. For example, if you are writing a backup onto a
drive which has any other backups you have on it, and a nearby
lightning strike sends thousands of volts into your home, your
original drive and your backup drive can simultaneously be immediately
fried. That can cause the loss of everything.

Having multiple drives that are never simultaneously connected
protects you against such events. Whether you think such risks are
great depends on you, and whether you want protection against such a
risk depends on the value of the files to you. I'm not trying to tell
you what to do, but others, especially if their business depends on
their data, may have different opinions.

Well point well taken. While I do have two other external hard drives, I
don't worry too much having all backups on one drive. As my thoughts are
generally the last backup is all I am generally interested in (rarely do
I need to go back to an earlier version, although it does happen
sometimes). And say tragedy happens and the whole backup drive becomes
useless, I still have a working copy on the original computers without
backups. So at this point I am still okay.

I also do something that most people who makes backups rarely do. I also
backup my hardware as well. So I have two or more of the same models. I
find this is so handy to troubleshoot both hardware and software
problems this way. Plus I don't need all of the expensive equipment to
troubleshoot hardware problems.

So I might be a bit unique in my backup practices. And frankly using my
method, backups are not really important anyway. As the like machines
has basically the same software on them (SP and IE versions are often
different though). And I sync the more important data with the free
SyncBack (far better than MS SyncToy) at any rate.

One of the problems with incremental backup is that they back up new
files and changed files, but don't "un-backup" any deleted files. If
you restore from a series of incremental backups, you will also get
back any files you had deleted. In most instances that may not be a
big problem, but occasionally it might be.

Oh I didn't consider that obstacle, good point. Although on another
point, what do you prefer as a backup method? Sector or file copying? I
usually prefer the latter and I have had great success even using BartPE
and A43 (free file manager) and just copying all of the files and
folders to a backup drive. This simple method works for everything I
tried and restores except for MS Works v9 (which I don't use anyway, but
baffles me at any rate). Otherwise I need sector copying.

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

In Ken Blake, MVP typed on Sun, 09 Aug 2009 08:23:07 -0700:

Huh what? What do you mean not correct?

What I meant is that what I said is true even if the backup does *not*
take up all the space on the backup drive. I explained why in my point
below, to which you replied "point well taken."

Well point well taken. While I do have two other external hard drives, I
don't worry too much having all backups on one drive. As my thoughts are
generally the last backup is all I am generally interested in (rarely do
I need to go back to an earlier version, although it does happen
sometimes). And say tragedy happens and the whole backup drive becomes
useless, I still have a working copy on the original computers without
backups. So at this point I am still okay.

Again, the example of a disaster I gave was a nearby lightning strike
while a backup was in progress. That could simultaneously fry the
original drive and the backup drive. If all your backups are on that
drive, you have nothing left.

I'm certainly not claiming that that's likely nor recommending that
everyone use multiple drives. I was explaining why your statement
"Huh? That is only true if the backup takes up all of the space on the
whole backup drive" was not correct, and why some people, particularly
if the life on their business depends on their data, should probably
not use a single drive for backup.

So I might be a bit unique in my backup practices. And frankly using my
method, backups are not really important anyway.

Backups can have very different degrees of importance to different
people. At one extreme is the person with a business that immediately
fails if he loses his data, and at the other extreme is the kid who
uses his computer for nothing but playing games. So I certainly don't
claim that everyone should do the same thing.

Oh I didn't consider that obstacle, good point. Although on another
point, what do you prefer as a backup method? Sector or file copying?

There are several approaches to backup, and the two principal ones are
cloning or imaging your entire hard drive and just backing up your
data. Whether you even have a choice of sector or file copying depends
on what you are backing up and what software you use for backing up.

To take a single example, I have a good friend who backs up nothing
but the photographs on her drive. She does without any special backup
software, and just does that by copying all those photos since the
last backup to a thumb drive. So necessary she does file copying, not
sector copying.

 

[Bennett Marco]

One of the problems with incremental backup is that they back up new
files and changed files, but don't "un-backup" any deleted files. If
you restore from a series of incremental backups, you will also get
back any files you had deleted. In most instances that may not be a
big problem, but occasionally it might be.

That shouldn't be a problem as long as you use ALL of the incrementals
in the restoration process.

 

[Patrick Keenan]

In Ken Blake, MVP typed on Sun, 09 Aug 2009 06:52:08 -0700:

Huh? That is only true if the backup takes up all of the space on the
whole backup drive. But why would you want a backup drive that small for?
I have five netbooks ranging in SSD sizes 4GB, 8GB, and 16GB. And I use
one external 160GB 2.5 inch HDD to backup many backup versions of them.

And when that one backup disk fails, you have.. what?

 

[Patrick Keenan]

It is important. My Windows do not start!

Then connect the drive to another system and copy the data off.

 

[Günter Prossliner]

Hello!

It is important. My Windows do not start!

Which is not really a great suprise, when you look at the affected files in
the chkdsk log:

Windows replaced bad clusters in file 5522
of name \WINDOWS\system32\config\software.

=> HKEY_LOCAL_MASCHINE\SOFTWARE Registry

Windows replaced bad clusters in file 26441
of name \WINDOWS\system32\ntoskrnl.exe.

=> The Windows Kernel itself

Windows replaced bad clusters in file 33028
of name \WINDOWS\system32\drivers\ntfs.sys.

=> The (main) NTFS File-System Implementation

Windows replaced bad clusters in file 33050
of name \WINDOWS\system32\drivers\mountmgr.sys.

Mount-Manager (needed for mounting disk into the OS)

Windows replaced bad clusters in file 67799
of name \WINDOWS\system32\config\system.

=> HKEY_LOCAL_MASCHINE\SYSTEM Registry Hive


Normally you have no chance to get Windows up and running when *one* of the
files above is damaged (only for the registry files there is a chance that
they can get restored from an internal backup).

If you need your data on the other partition copy it to an external drive
ASAP!


GP

 

[BillW50]

In Patrick Keenan typed on Sun, 9 Aug 2009 22:11:15 -0400:

And when that one backup disk fails, you have.. what?

I still have the running OS on the computer. Of which, I need another
backup drive so I can have another backup. <grin>

 

[BillW50]

In Patrick Keenan typed on Sun, 9 Aug 2009 22:11:15 -0400:

And when that one backup disk fails, you have.. what?

The original. <grin>

 

[Bob I]

In Patrick Keenan typed on Sun, 9 Aug 2009 22:11:15 -0400:



The original. <grin>

Murphy says you will discover the "one backup disk" has failed only when
you need to restore from it. <grin>