How to "scrub" for bad blocks/files on a Windows file system?

[Matt]

Hello,

Do utilities exist to "scrub" for bad blocks/files/metadata on a
Windows file system?

More details:

While managing my personal storage (anywhere from 10-20GB storage
rignt now) and my associated backup drives, I'm finding that disk
drives and/or file systems are having problems reading from some file
systems. I suspect different root causes here, anything from damaged
file system(s) to bad blocks on disk drives.

I would like to be able "scrub" all my file systems data (hopefully
from Windows, but I can try other OS if absolutely required) to see if
all the files (and all their associated data and metadata blocks) can
be read, and if not, find out which files or parts of files are
unreadable (this is probably the tricky part--mapping blocks or bad
metadata to files or parts of larger files), and then I can (from a
report such a utility would generate) restore them from backup and/or
make decisions on whether or not reformat and/or replace a disk drive.
Would be nice if this utility also forced the drive into remapping bad
blocks to good ones if the drive hasn't done this already for some
reason (maybe unlikely--it's been a while since I've looked closesly
at this, and I only know/knew how SCSI/FC drives did this in the
past).

Anybody have any recommended utilities for this? Maybe references
where I can read/investigate more?

I doubt that chkdsk and other built-in Windows things are this
powerful/flexible; maybe I'm mistaken? My alternative is to simply
read entire disk drives/filesystems and then go through the process of
replacing files that can't be read and then maybe reformat an entire
drive. A bit tedious, and it's hard to do this for every file system
I have (as well as all the snapshot backups I keep).

I'm mostly using FAT32 (for Mac OS, Linux, and other OS compatibility)
and NTFS filesystems.

Thanks for any help,
Matt

 

[mrtee]

For the FAT32/16 http://grc.com/spinrite.htm Spinrite 5. He is now working on Spinrite 6 for NTFS/FAT32/16.

--
Just my 2¢ worth
Jeff
__________in response to__________
| Hello,
|
| Do utilities exist to "scrub" for bad blocks/files/metadata on a
| Windows file system?
|
| More details:
|
| While managing my personal storage (anywhere from 10-20GB storage
| rignt now) and my associated backup drives, I'm finding that disk
| drives and/or file systems are having problems reading from some file
| systems. I suspect different root causes here, anything from damaged
| file system(s) to bad blocks on disk drives.
|
| I would like to be able "scrub" all my file systems data (hopefully
| from Windows, but I can try other OS if absolutely required) to see if
| all the files (and all their associated data and metadata blocks) can
| be read, and if not, find out which files or parts of files are
| unreadable (this is probably the tricky part--mapping blocks or bad
| metadata to files or parts of larger files), and then I can (from a
| report such a utility would generate) restore them from backup and/or
| make decisions on whether or not reformat and/or replace a disk drive.
| Would be nice if this utility also forced the drive into remapping bad
| blocks to good ones if the drive hasn't done this already for some
| reason (maybe unlikely--it's been a while since I've looked closesly
| at this, and I only know/knew how SCSI/FC drives did this in the
| past).
|
| Anybody have any recommended utilities for this? Maybe references
| where I can read/investigate more?
|
| I doubt that chkdsk and other built-in Windows things are this
| powerful/flexible; maybe I'm mistaken? My alternative is to simply
| read entire disk drives/filesystems and then go through the process of
| replacing files that can't be read and then maybe reformat an entire
| drive. A bit tedious, and it's hard to do this for every file system
| I have (as well as all the snapshot backups I keep).
|
| I'm mostly using FAT32 (for Mac OS, Linux, and other OS compatibility)
| and NTFS filesystems.
|
| Thanks for any help,
| Matt
| --
| Remove the obvious text (including the dash) to email me.

 

[Jason Tsang]

Use chkdsk with the /r switch.
Or choose to do an error check of your hard drives and check for surface
errors
Or goto your hard drive manufacturer's website and download their
diagnostics utility (if there are errors, you'll get an error number that
you'll include when you exchange your hard drive, if it is still under
warranty).

Note that if the disk has physical flaws, any data occupying the space where
there are flaws may be corrupted. Hopefully that isn't the case for you.

NTFS, if it encounters bad sectors while performing disk activity, will
automatically attempt to relocate the file. It might not always be
successful depending on the state of the media itself.

 

[Matt]

Note that if the disk has physical flaws, any data occupying the space where
there are flaws may be corrupted. Hopefully that isn't the case for you.

Well, that's probably the key scenario I'm trying to address: A disk
block goes bad after data is written to it.

The question in my head is: which file is mapped to said block(s)?

Maybe the utility (Spinrite) the other poster (Jeff) references can
address this?

NTFS, if it encounters bad sectors while performing disk activity, will
automatically attempt to relocate the file. It might not always be
successful depending on the state of the media itself.

Interesting. Too bad I keep my bigger backup disks in FAT32 flavor to
be Mac OS X compatible. Is OS X, and Linux for that matter, getting
along better with NTFS nowadays?

Matt

 

[Jason Tsang]

Spinrite is outdated. Don't bother wasting money on it.

You can get what you need from your hard drive manufacturer.
If there are bad blocks on your hard drive and your hard drive is still
under warranty, you can exchange it.

 

[Matt]

You can get what you need from your hard drive manufacturer.

I think I need something that can tell me which bad block addresses
are mapped to which files, parts of files, and metadata on the
filesystem for FAT32. I suspect the hard drive manufacturer can not
do this.

If there are bad blocks on your hard drive and your hard drive is still
under warranty, you can exchange it.

Please understand:

I'm not worried about my hardware or replacing the hardware or
anything. I'm worried about the cost of not recovering *data*.

I'd like to proactively "scrub" my filesystems to find those blocks
that have gone bad after the file system wrote data/metadata to these
blocks, then I'd like to find those files that are affected by these
bad blocks, and then I'd like to replace these files from backup
(hopefully). I'd like to do all this BEFORE I have data loss from one
of my sources (primary or backup), because once this happens, I can't
restore any bad-block data in the aforementioned scenario.

Matt

 

[Maxim S. Shatskih]

Interesting. Too bad I keep my bigger backup disks in FAT32 flavor to

be Mac OS X compatible. Is OS X, and Linux for that matter, getting

Note: FAT32 imposes a file size limit of 4GB, not so with NTFS.

 

[mrtee]

As I wrote Spinrite is being updated to Spinrite 6. Spinrite 5 still works though on FAT32. Did you bother to go to the link I provided and read the information?

--
Just my 2¢ worth
Jeff
__________in response to__________
| On Mon, 12 Jan 2004 21:18:58 -0500, "Jason Tsang"
| >You can get what you need from your hard drive manufacturer.
|
| I think I need something that can tell me which bad block addresses
| are mapped to which files, parts of files, and metadata on the
| filesystem for FAT32. I suspect the hard drive manufacturer can not
| do this.
|
| >If there are bad blocks on your hard drive and your hard drive is still
| >under warranty, you can exchange it.
|
| Please understand:
|
| I'm not worried about my hardware or replacing the hardware or
| anything. I'm worried about the cost of not recovering *data*.
|
| I'd like to proactively "scrub" my filesystems to find those blocks
| that have gone bad after the file system wrote data/metadata to these
| blocks, then I'd like to find those files that are affected by these
| bad blocks, and then I'd like to replace these files from backup
| (hopefully). I'd like to do all this BEFORE I have data loss from one
| of my sources (primary or backup), because once this happens, I can't
| restore any bad-block data in the aforementioned scenario.
|
| Matt
| --
| Remove the obvious text (including the dash) to email me.

 

[Matt]

As I wrote Spinrite is being updated to Spinrite 6. Spinrite 5 still works though on FAT32.
Did you bother to go to the link I provided and read the information?

Nope, not yet. But I plan to check it out. Thanks for the reminder.

(My previous post was making sure I clarified the issue per previous
posts...)

Matt

 

[Matt]

For the FAT32/16 http://grc.com/spinrite.htm Spinrite 5. He is now working on Spinrite 6 for NTFS/FAT32/16.

Software looks quite interesting and useful.

I haven't yet found anything in web pages that says it will spit out a
report of those files/metadata that are irrecoverable from a file
system so that I can go rewrite said files from backups (or from
primary if I'm reading the backup disks/copies). Will it do this?

Will Spinrite 6 run from WinXP without having to reboot to DOS?

Is there a means to trial/evaluate Spinrite 5 free of charge?

Matt

 

[Malke]

Software looks quite interesting and useful.

I haven't yet found anything in web pages that says it will spit out a
report of those files/metadata that are irrecoverable from a file
system so that I can go rewrite said files from backups (or from
primary if I'm reading the backup disks/copies). Will it do this?

Will Spinrite 6 run from WinXP without having to reboot to DOS?

Is there a means to trial/evaluate Spinrite 5 free of charge?

Matt

Hi, Matt. The best place to ask about Spinrite's capabilities is on
Steve Gibson's website for the program.

Good luck,

Malke