How to check for bad sector in WinXP???

[Garu]

Hi,

How can I find out in WinXP if my harddrive developed bad sectors. In DOS,
surface scan shows 'B' mark as bad sector, how can I do that in XP? Thanks
in advance.

-garu

 

[Malke]

Hi,

How can I find out in WinXP if my harddrive developed bad sectors. In
DOS,
surface scan shows 'B' mark as bad sector, how can I do that in XP?
Thanks in advance.

-garu

You can use Chkdsk, but I think the best way to test your hard drive is
with a diagnostic utility from the drive mftr.'s website. Download the
file and make a bootable cd or floppy. Boot with the utility and do a
thorough test of the drive. If the drive has physical errors, replace
it.

http://www.microsoft.com/resources/documentation/windows/xp/all/proddocs/en-us/chkdsk.mspx

Malke

 

[Steve N.]

Garu wrote:




You can use Chkdsk, but I think the best way to test your hard drive is
with a diagnostic utility from the drive mftr.'s website. Download the
file and make a bootable cd or floppy. Boot with the utility and do a
thorough test of the drive. If the drive has physical errors, replace
it.

http://www.microsoft.com/resources/documentation/windows/xp/all/proddocs/en-us/chkdsk.mspx

Malke

I disagree on one point Malke, some drive maker's diags will indeed find
and mark bad sectors but make no attempt to recover data that may be
located there to another sector. At least CHKDSK /R will try to do that,
often with success. For this reason I suggest doing CHKDSK /R first,
then use the manufacturers utility.

Steve

 

[Malke]

I disagree on one point Malke, some drive maker's diags will indeed
find and mark bad sectors but make no attempt to recover data that may
be located there to another sector. At least CHKDSK /R will try to do
that, often with success. For this reason I suggest doing CHKDSK /R
first, then use the manufacturers utility.

Steve

That's a good point Steve. My hesitation about using Chkdsk first is
that sometimes it hoses the system. The drive diagnostic won't write to
the drive at all, so if there are physical errors you know right away
and don't have to bother with further diagnostics. SeaTools for
instance will tell you if there is a file system problem (Chkdsk then)
or hard errors.

Malke

 

[Steve N.]

Steve N. wrote:




That's a good point Steve. My hesitation about using Chkdsk first is
that sometimes it hoses the system.
True.

The drive diagnostic won't write to
the drive at all, so if there are physical errors you know right away
and don't have to bother with further diagnostics. SeaTools for
instance will tell you if there is a file system problem (Chkdsk then)
or hard errors.

Malke

I don't recall which one I used that did this but one doesn't check for
defects by default and when you tell it to then it doesn't really give
you much choice about how they are dealt with, it finds them, marks them
bad then tells you what file (if any) resided on that sector and is now
hosed.

Steve

 

[Malke]

I don't recall which one I used that did this but one doesn't check
for defects by default and when you tell it to then it doesn't really
give you much choice about how they are dealt with, it finds them,
marks them bad then tells you what file (if any) resided on that
sector and is now hosed.

Interesting. I haven't seen that behavior in the ones I use which are
usually SeaTools (it doesn't only work on Seagate's drives), the Maxtor
one, and the one for Western Digital. All of their thorough scans won't
write to the drive, which is what we want. Maybe you had a different
utility and/or it was older. If the drive isn't one of those "big
three", I use the latest SeaTools.

Cheers,

Malke

 

[Donald McDaniel]

I don't recall which one I used that did this but one doesn't check for
defects by default and when you tell it to then it doesn't really give
you much choice about how they are dealt with, it finds them, marks them
bad then tells you what file (if any) resided on that sector and is now
hosed.

Steve

I would use "chkdsk /f". This will fix any errors (if possible).
Also, you must set chkdsk to do a hardware scan in addition to a
filesystem scan.

Donald L McDaniel
Please reply to the original thread
so that conversations may be kept in order
=======================================================

 

[cquirke (MVP Windows shell/user)]

[/QUOTE]

Also, you only get to the surface check after ChkDsk "fixes" logic
errors, which is definitely not what you want. Then again, you cannot
relocated failing clusters if you can't trust the file system logic.

That's ugly - and sounds like ChkDsk's "kill, bury, deny" logic

I would use "chkdsk /f". This will fix any errors (if possible).

No, that's exactly what I would NOT do. Blind, irreversable,
data-destructive, poorly-logged auto-"fixing" sucks.

Also, you must set chkdsk to do a hardware scan in addition to a
filesystem scan.

What I do is as follows:

1) Copy off crucial data from a mOS that doesn't write to HD
2) Image off the OS partition via BING
3) Copy off all contents of all volumes
4) Check S.M.A.R.T. detail
5) Do OS-agnostic look-don't-touch diags of physical HD
6) Do logic-level scans, interactively if possible

IOW, the steps are:
- cherry-pick crucial data, in case HD dies within 5 minutes
- go for image of OS partition to preserve installation
- go for files as files to preserve them too
- only once that's done, test the HD for physical errors...
- ...then file system logical errors

For FATxx, I use DOS mode ScanDisk, as it's interactive (i.e. I can
refuse to let it fix a particular error that I can see it will botch)
treating the results with caution if > 137G. If hairy, I back out of
Scandisk and use Norton Diskedit, which also starts with a logic scan
and lists errors, which you can then look at at the raw sector level.

For NTFS, there's nothing decent, so I start with ChkDsk, and then
shrug and ChkDsk /F. Sure, that could slaughter the HD contents with
no way to undo (another reason to salvage data first) but that's what
passes for file system maintenance with NTFS.

Fot the physical testing, I'm using HD-Tune from...

http://www.hdtune.com

This free tool lets you do three things:
- see the S.M.A.R.T. data in detail (no silly "OK" summary only)
- see the HD temp, including while it is doing the next...
- do a surface scan

The S.M.A.R.T. is "live", i.e. on a sick HD, you can actually SEE the
error counts increasing, even when "nothing's happening". Scary.

------------ ----- ---- --- -- - - - -

The most accurate diagnostic instrument
in medicine is the Retrospectoscope