Maxtor HDDs - Powermax Surface Test Error Mysteriously Disappears??

[Saidean]

Hi,

Hoping someone with experience using powermax can help me understand
this. My system specs:

Win98SE
P4 1.8ghz CPU 512mb PC2700 ram
2 Maxtor 40gb DIamondmax UDMA133 drives in RAID ARRAY (Striped) via
MBFastTrack 133 lite built into Gigabyte GA8IEXP Mobo (Promise Tech
RAID Controller).
1 Seagate 40gb HDD (Data)

2 days ago, my PC hung and I had to shutdown the system (win98se) and
reboot. When I rebooted, I did a scandisk and it got stuck at 48%
scanning the file allocation table (FAT), and promptly coughed up
"Scandisk encountered data error while reading the FAT on drive C".
Panic attack. Tried using scandisk several times with various options
- no go. Used Norton Disk Doctor (in DOS mode) - no luck either.
Strangely enough, I was still able to reboot, and because I had my
startup menu options available by default, I could always boot to
command prompt mode and even the Norton Antivirus would be able to
scan and run there. I was able to copy out my critical files from my C
Drive without any problems.

This made me think that there is simply a mismatch between the
original FAT and the backup (2nd) FAT which needs to be corrected
somehow. Or bad sectors might be the cause. So I downloaded Powermax
from Maxtor to check the 2 HDDs. It detected them properly and then I
ran an advanced surface test on the first HDD. After some time it
encountered an error and asked if I wanted to fix it. As I hadn't
completed copying out my files, I said no to the fix.

I tried running Win98 in Safe mode and that worked without any
problems. I used scandisk from within safemode and it recognised the
FAT error and fixed it along with some other errors (time stamp
errors) it encountered. Rebooted to normal windows after this, and no
problems. Did Scandisk and NDD 3-4 times including surface tests and
again no problems.

Did a powermax surface test again, and this time it certified both
HDDs as clear of errors/bad sectors!

What happened to the initial error? Does powermax's surface test
'check' the FAT to see if there is a problem there? I thought all it
does is check the surface for bad sectors? If it does check FAT then I
can understand why it's now cleared of errors, but if not... where did
my error/bad sector disappear to?

Is it time to change my HDDs??

Any help greatly appreciated on this!

 

[glee]

Most disk diags from the drive manufacturers test the file system before they test the surface of the drive. However you state that you were (apparently) well into the surface check when Powermax reported an error.

Modern hard drives have the ability to repair themselves, insofar as they can use a spare cluster to "replace" a damaged one, copying the data over if possible, and then removing the bad cluster from use.

Once the drive accomplishes that, neither Scandisk nor Powermax should see the bad cluster at all anymore. This may be what occurred in your case. Not a very technical answer, I know, but I think I have the gist of it right.

 

[Folkert Rienstra]

Most disk diags from the drive manufacturers test the file system before they test the surface of the drive. However you state
that you were (apparently) well into the surface check when Powermax reported an error.

Modern hard drives have the ability to repair themselves,

insofar as they can use a spare cluster to "replace" a damaged one,

Hard drives do not use clusters.

copying the data over if possible, and then removing the bad cluster from use.

Once the drive accomplishes that, neither Scandisk nor Powermax should see the bad cluster at all anymore. This may be what
occurred in your case.

Not a very technical answer, I know, but I think I have the gist of it right.

Barely. And it doesnt explain what he saw.

And now the even allow trolls to be MVPs.

 

[Folkert Rienstra]

Hi,

Hoping someone with experience using powermax can help me understand
this. My system specs:

Win98SE
P4 1.8ghz CPU 512mb PC2700 ram
2 Maxtor 40gb DIamondmax UDMA133 drives in RAID ARRAY (Striped) via
MBFastTrack 133 lite built into Gigabyte GA8IEXP Mobo (Promise Tech
RAID Controller).
1 Seagate 40gb HDD (Data)

2 days ago, my PC hung and I had to shutdown the system (win98se) and
reboot. When I rebooted, I did a scandisk and it got stuck at 48%
scanning the file allocation table (FAT), and promptly coughed up
"Scandisk encountered data error while reading the FAT on drive C".
Panic attack. Tried using scandisk several times with various options
- no go. Used Norton Disk Doctor (in DOS mode) - no luck either.
Strangely enough, I was still able to reboot, and because I had my
startup menu options available by default, I could always boot to
command prompt mode and even the Norton Antivirus would be able to
scan and run there. I was able to copy out my critical files from my C
Drive without any problems.

This made me think that there is simply a mismatch between the
original FAT and the backup (2nd) FAT which needs to be corrected
somehow. Or bad sectors might be the cause. So I downloaded Powermax
from Maxtor to check the 2 HDDs. It detected them properly and then I
ran an advanced surface test on the first HDD. After some time it
encountered an error and asked if I wanted to fix it.

As I hadn't completed copying out my files, I said no to the fix.

I tried running Win98 in Safe mode and that worked without any
problems.

I used scandisk from within safemode and it recognised the FAT error and
fixed it along with some other errors (time stamp errors) it encountered.

Rebooted to normal windows after this, and no problems. Did Scandisk
and NDD 3-4 times including surface tests and again no problems.

Did a powermax surface test again, and this time it certified both
HDDs as clear of errors/bad sectors!

What happened to the initial error?

It got cleared.

Does powermax's surface test 'check' the FAT to see if there is a problem
there?

Probably not, although some utes are FS aware.

I thought all it does is check the surface for bad sectors?

If it does check FAT then I can understand why it's now cleared of errors,

Nope, you said you didn't allow it to.

but if not... where did my error/bad sector disappear to?

You answered that yourself:
You used scandisk from within safemode and it recognised the FAT error and
fixed it along with some other errors (time stamp errors) it encountered.

Simple, no?

 

[AlmostBob]

Just a hint,
a google search for "Hard drive cluster" returns 397,000 responses
Details view in defrag displays a cluster map
Start/Help/Search/"cluster" returns this text
Drive Converter (FAT32) is an improved version of the File Allocation Table
(FAT) that allows hard drives over two gigabytes to be formatted as a single
drive. Drive Converter uses smaller clusters than FAT drives, resulting in
more efficient space use. Windows 98 includes a graphical Drive Converter
conversion utility, which quickly and safely converts a hard drive from the
original FAT to FAT32.

1.Perhaps Hard drives do use clusters,
and 2.Glee earns his stripes, you havent
--
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spybot http://security.kolla.de
AVG http://www.grisoft.com
Panda online scan http://www.pandasoftware.com/ActiveScan/
Catalog of removal tools http://www.pandasoftware.com/download/utilities/
Blocking Unwanted Parasites with a Hosts file
http://mvps.org/winhelp2002/hosts.htm
links provided as a courtesy,
Grateful thanks to the authors/webmasters


"Folkert Rienstra" <[email protected]> Stuffed Up Hugely in
| > Most disk diags from the drive manufacturers test the file system before
they test the surface of the drive. However you state
| > that you were (apparently) well into the surface check when Powermax
reported an error.
| >
| > Modern hard drives have the ability to repair themselves,
|
| > insofar as they can use a spare cluster to "replace" a damaged one,
|
| Hard drives do not use clusters.
|
<<Snipped for brevity>>

 

[glee]

I meat to say "sector" not "cluster".
I gave a possible scenario, not being sure from the info in the post what was fixed by scandisk in Safe Mode, nor what was found originally by Powermax. I answered the post in the win98.gen_discussion group, which is not the hang-out of disk specialists....there is no need for you to be rude.

BTW, Folkert, you calling someone else a troll is pretty funny, from what I recall of the time I spent in the pc.hardware.storage group a few years ago....why not do a search in Google groups archive, where you will see that I am certainly not a troll.

 

[Eric Gisin]

What a moron. Spend a day at pcguide.com. Hard drives do not have clusters.

 

[Folkert Rienstra]

Just a hint,
a google search for "Hard drive cluster" returns 397,000 responses

Hardly surprising when one doesn't know how to conduct a search.

Details view in defrag displays a cluster map

Start/Help/Search/"cluster" returns this text
Drive Converter (FAT32) is an improved version of the File Allocation Table
(FAT) that allows hard drives over two gigabytes to be formatted as a single
drive. Drive Converter uses smaller clusters than FAT drives, resulting in
more efficient space use. Windows 98 includes a graphical Drive Converter
conversion utility, which quickly and safely converts a hard drive from the
original FAT to FAT32.

None of that has to do with how a harddrive is organized/accessed on the
hardware level. Obviously you don't even know the difference between a
physical drive (harddrive) and a logical drive (formatted partition) and how
filesystems work.

1.Perhaps Hard drives do use clusters,

Nope, they use sectors (or blocks depending on depending on
whether you speak IDE or SCSI). Filesystems use clusters.

and 2.Glee earns his stripes,

Sure he does, applied with a whip, obviously.

you havent

Clueless.
Can't even setup his newsreader properly so thats actually no surprise.

 

[Folkert Rienstra]

I meat to say "sector" not "cluster".

Well, that can happen when you are a very lazy person that doesn't proofread
his posts, which you obviously didn't do this time as well. A very lazy person that
obviously lets the newsclient do the line breaking instead of doing that himself.

I gave a possible scenario,

not being sure from the info in the post what was fixed by scandisk in Safe Mode,

A good reason to refrain from answering, I would think.
And if you had read his post properly you would have found that he did post at
what point the drive was corrected.

nor what was found originally by Powermax.

He was very clear on that, initially.

I answered the post in the win98.gen_discussion group, which is not the hang-out
of disk specialists....

Obviously more reason to refrain and let the disk specialists answer it.

there is no need for you to be rude.

Ofcourse there is.

BTW, Folkert, you calling someone else a troll is pretty funny,

Nope, it is pretty serious.

from what I recall of the time I spent in the pc.hardware.storage
group a few years ago....why not do a search in Google groups archive,

where you will see that I am certainly not a troll.

You are, in my book, when you post a link to goodpost.htm but obviously have
never read it yourself and break about every rule in there and then some.

You toppost, you post using quoted printable, don't use linebreaks and to top
it off you have an account at Mindspring. Yeah, you obviously are no troll.

 

[Saidean]

Did a powermax surface test again, and this time it certified both

It got cleared.

While I can understand that I 'cleared' it via scandisk in safe mode,
I ask this question because as you stated next:

Probably not, although some utes are FS aware.

what I'm still confused over is that IF (as you stated) powermax's
surface test does NOT check the FAT, then the initial problem detected
by powermax's surface test should still be there, even though the FAT
was repaired by scandisk in safe mode. Isn't this correct?

(Also what is FS aware?)

You answered that yourself:
You used scandisk from within safemode and it recognised the FAT error and
fixed it along with some other errors (time stamp errors) it encountered.

Simple, no?

I don't see it though - IF scandisk repaired the error (which is
true), then powermax should STILL detect its error via its surface
test, since that doesn't involve the FAT. But after the FAT has been
repaired, powermax's surface test no longer showed this bad sector
error anymore.

If as a previous poster said, the HDD 'repaired itself', how does the
HDD know there are bad sectors if they were never marked? The HDD
never had any bad sectors marked or any problems with bad sectors
before this. Even now after several surface scans using scandisk, NDD
and powermax, it shows all clear.

So unless powermax DOES verify the FAT when it does the surface test,
(which would account for the error no longer being reported after
scandisk fixed it), I cannot understand how the bad sector error
reported by powermax disappeared after scandisk fixed the FAT.

 

[PCR]

It could be as Glee said, that it was auto-fixed by a chip on the hard
drive. But... indeed you do appear to have said Scandisk fixed the
error, two paragraphs before you ask where it went to.... "I used
scandisk from within safemode and it recognized the FAT error and fixed
it".

But, in case you are as batty as Reienstra/Gisin are nasty, just look
inside C:\Scandisk.log. What does it say in there?

Uhhhhh, I think, as the drive now passes all scans, it is still good.
Also, there was a good reason for the error-- you did crash first. Go
on, make a full system backup, though. And next week run those scans
again!


--
Thanks or Good Luck,
There may be humor in this post, and,
Naturally, you will not sue,
should things get worse after this,
PCR
(e-mail address removed)
| Hi,
|
| Hoping someone with experience using powermax can help me understand
| this. My system specs:
|
| Win98SE
| P4 1.8ghz CPU 512mb PC2700 ram
| 2 Maxtor 40gb DIamondmax UDMA133 drives in RAID ARRAY (Striped) via
| MBFastTrack 133 lite built into Gigabyte GA8IEXP Mobo (Promise Tech
| RAID Controller).
| 1 Seagate 40gb HDD (Data)
|
| 2 days ago, my PC hung and I had to shutdown the system (win98se) and
| reboot. When I rebooted, I did a scandisk and it got stuck at 48%
| scanning the file allocation table (FAT), and promptly coughed up
| "Scandisk encountered data error while reading the FAT on drive C".
| Panic attack. Tried using scandisk several times with various options
| - no go. Used Norton Disk Doctor (in DOS mode) - no luck either.
| Strangely enough, I was still able to reboot, and because I had my
| startup menu options available by default, I could always boot to
| command prompt mode and even the Norton Antivirus would be able to
| scan and run there. I was able to copy out my critical files from my C
| Drive without any problems.
|
| This made me think that there is simply a mismatch between the
| original FAT and the backup (2nd) FAT which needs to be corrected
| somehow. Or bad sectors might be the cause. So I downloaded Powermax
| from Maxtor to check the 2 HDDs. It detected them properly and then I
| ran an advanced surface test on the first HDD. After some time it
| encountered an error and asked if I wanted to fix it. As I hadn't
| completed copying out my files, I said no to the fix.
|
| I tried running Win98 in Safe mode and that worked without any
| problems. I used scandisk from within safemode and it recognised the
| FAT error and fixed it along with some other errors (time stamp
| errors) it encountered. Rebooted to normal windows after this, and no
| problems. Did Scandisk and NDD 3-4 times including surface tests and
| again no problems.
|
| Did a powermax surface test again, and this time it certified both
| HDDs as clear of errors/bad sectors!
|
| What happened to the initial error? Does powermax's surface test
| 'check' the FAT to see if there is a problem there? I thought all it
| does is check the surface for bad sectors? If it does check FAT then I
| can understand why it's now cleared of errors, but if not... where did
| my error/bad sector disappear to?
|
| Is it time to change my HDDs??
|
| Any help greatly appreciated on this!

 

[cquirke (MVP Win9x)]

It could be as Glee said, that it was auto-fixed by a chip on the hard
drive. But... indeed you do appear to have said Scandisk fixed the
error, two paragraphs before you ask where it went to.... "I used
scandisk from within safemode and it recognized the FAT error and fixed

Several items to clarify.

Firstly, Scandisk spends most of its time dealing with file system
logic errors that are unrelated to the HD's physical condition. Only
when Scandisk does a surface scan, does it look for defective
clusters, tho bad sectors can trip up its logic checks and repairs.

Secondly, it's important to remember that while the HD's firmware and
the OS's surface scanning do the same sort of thing, they work at
different levels, and the one is oblivious of the other.

At the hardware level, disk space is split up into physical 512-byte
sectors. These are addressed via the hard drive's own internal
hardware; everything else, from the UIDE controller backwards, can
only "ask nicely" for the HD to access these sectors.

If the HD's firmware defect management copies the contents from a
failing sector, writes it to another sector, and from then on maps the
old sector's raw address to the new one - then no software running on
the PC is any the wiser, unless it can query the vendor-specific HD
firmware in some way. Scandisk and the rest of the OS can't do that;
only HD-vendor-specific tools may have a chance there.

At the OS level, the OS sees an expanse of disk that has been set
aside as one or more volumes for its use (according to the
system-level partitioning scheme). It divides the volume into a file
system structure area and a data cluster area (a cluster contains
multiple sectors).

When Scandisk surface scan tests the cluser area, it can "fix"
clusters with failing sectors by copying them to a new cluster
address. This is the addressing scheme it sees; not raw sectors.

Uhhhhh, I think, as the drive now passes all scans, it is still good.

I'm less sure. The thing to do is use the drive vendor's diagnostics,
or failing that to do a Scandisk surface scan in DOS mode so that you
can watch the cluster progress counter.

When the OS (including Scandisk surface scan) accesses a failing
sector, it may take several retries before the HD finds the sector and
passes CRC-OK data from it. During that time, the HD's firmware may
"fix" the defect by remapping the bad sector, which you may hear as
nyaak-nyaak noises as the heads move about.

If it takes long enough to do this - and Scandisk accepts an absurdly
long time as "normal" - then Scandisk may timeout and call the cluster
Bad, and do its own cluster-map-level relocation.

The point about all this is that a HD that has latency and perhaps
even visible bad sectors or clusters that "get better" is still a
highly suspect HD that IMO should be dragged out and pulped once the
data's been evacuated. The HD firmware may have relocated the bad
sector, with or without loss of that sector's contents, and if so, a
fresh format may find no bad clusters. Plus, because the HD keeps
"spare" sectors for this purpose, you won't see a capacity drop.

Nonetheless, this is a HD that has started to fail. You can judge
whether all these auto-fixing shenanigans go about delaying support
calls until the HD warranty expires, or a genuine attempt to make life
smoother for the user (even if unsuccessful sector moves lose data).

Also, there was a good reason for the error-- you did crash first.

Maybe the HD defect was the good reason for the crash?

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

Running Windows-based av to kill active malware is like striking
a match to see if what you are standing in is water or petrol.

 

[Folkert Rienstra]

While I can understand that I 'cleared' it via scandisk in safe mode,
I ask this question because as you stated next:


what I'm still confused over is that IF (as you stated) powermax's
surface test does NOT check the FAT, then the initial problem detected
by powermax's surface test should still be there, even though the FAT
was repaired by scandisk in safe mode.

Isn't this correct?

No, it isn't.
By correcting the FAT it also corrected the bad sector in the FAT by
overwriting it. That sectors problem was either corrected at that point
or it was replaced by a spare sector.

(Also what is FS aware?)

File System aware, know where the file systems administration is and not
touch that. E.g., IBMs DFT can overwrite (=zero) bad sectors that are in
user data but refuse to do so for sectors in MBR, FAT or Directories.

I don't see it though - IF scandisk repaired the error (which is
true), then powermax should STILL detect its error via its surface
test, since that doesn't involve the FAT.

Of course does it involve the FAT, the FAT is on that 'surface'.

But after the FAT has been repaired, powermax's surface test no longer
showed this bad sector error anymore.

Because scandisk repaired it.
The bad sector was the cause of the FAT needing repair in the first place.

If as a previous poster said, the HDD 'repaired itself', how does the
HDD know there are bad sectors if they were never marked?

Because it can't read them, maybe? Simple eh. All it has to do is to mark
the sector(s) internally that they refused to read. On the next write to the
sector the drive can test it beforehand and decide to reuse it or replace it.

The HDD never had any bad sectors marked or any problems with bad sectors
before this.

A flat tyre is only a flat tyre because it wasn't flat before it became a flat tyre.

Even now after several surface scans using scandisk, NDD and powermax, it
shows all clear.

Yes, your tyre is no longer flat and will stay so until it springs a new leak.

 

[Eric Gisin]

What did I say to piss you off? Are you one of the idiots who think disks have
clusters?

 

[Folkert Rienstra]

Several items to clarify.

Firstly, Scandisk spends most of its time dealing with file system
logic errors that are unrelated to the HD's physical condition.

Only when Scandisk does a surface scan, does it look for defective
clusters,

Not only clusters, it also scans the system area, apparently.

tho bad sectors can trip up its logic checks and repairs.

Please explain.

Secondly, it's important to remember that while the HD's firmware
and the OS's surface scanning do the same sort of thing,

No, they don't.

they work at different levels, and the one is oblivious of the other.

At the hardware level, disk space is split up into physical 512-byte
sectors. These are addressed via the hard drive's own internal
hardware; everything else, from the UIDE controller backwards,
can only "ask nicely" for the HD to access these sectors.

If the HD's firmware defect management copies the contents from a
failing sector, writes it to another sector,

That is 'failing' in the sense of 'about to fail', 'not yet failed'.
Obviously, it can only copy them when the sectors can still be read.

and from then on maps the old sector's raw address to the new one -
then no software running on the PC is any the wiser, unless it can query
the vendor-specific HD firmware in some way.
Scandisk and the rest of the OS can't do that; only
HD-vendor-specific tools may have a chance there.

At the OS level, the OS sees an expanse of disk that has been set
aside as one or more volumes for its use (according to the system-
level partitioning scheme). It divides the volume into a file system
structure area and a data cluster area (a cluster contains multiple
sectors).

When Scandisk surface scan tests the cluster area, it can "fix"
clusters with failing sectors by copying them to a new cluster address.
This is the addressing scheme it sees; not raw sectors.


I'm less sure. The thing to do is use the drive vendor's diagnostics,
or failing that to do a Scandisk surface scan in DOS mode so that you
can watch the cluster progress counter.

When the OS (including Scandisk surface scan) accesses a failing
sector, it may take several retries before the HD finds the sector
and passes CRC-OK data from it.

ECC actually.

During that time, the HD's firmware may "fix" the defect by remapping the
bad sector, which you may hear as nyaak-nyaak noises as the heads move about.

Right, although the nyaak-nyaak noises are the retries, not the remapping.

If it takes long enough to do this - and Scandisk accepts an absurdly
long time as "normal" -

So the drive will likely succeed (or fail) well within that time.

then Scandisk may timeout and call the cluster Bad, and do its own cluster-
map-level relocation.

I don't think that there is relocation. Where-to? There are no spare clusters.
The cluster is marked as bad and not available anymore.

The point about all this is that a HD that has latency and perhaps
even visible bad sectors or clusters that "get better" is still a
highly suspect HD that IMO should be dragged out and pulped once the
data's been evacuated.

That is because you have no idea what a bad sector is and your
lower instincts are taking over: Don't understand? Smash it!

The HD firmware may have relocated the bad
sector, with or without loss of that sector's contents, and if so, a
fresh format may find no bad clusters. Plus, because the HD keeps
"spare" sectors for this purpose, you won't see a capacity drop.

Nonetheless, this is a HD that has started to fail.

Or a powersupply or ps-connector that has started to fail or is getting
old and tired.

 

[Folkert Rienstra]

It could be as Glee said, that it was auto-fixed by a chip on the hard
drive.

Strange what topposting people read in posts that isn't there.
Probably because they don't read at all.

But... indeed you do appear to have said Scandisk fixed the error,
two paragraphs before you ask where it went to.... "I used scandisk
from within safemode and it recognized the FAT error and fixed it".

But, in case you are as batty as Reienstra/Gisin are nasty,

Can't even get the name right.

just look inside C:\Scandisk.log. What does it say in there?

Uhhhhh, I think, as the drive now passes all scans, it is still good.

Also, there was a good reason for the error-- you did crash first.

Clueless. Take one guess what the reason was for that crash.

Go on, make a full system backup, though. And next week run those
scans again!

Hi,

Hoping someone with experience using powermax can help me understand
this. My system specs:

Win98SE
P4 1.8ghz CPU 512mb PC2700 ram
2 Maxtor 40gb DIamondmax UDMA133 drives in RAID ARRAY (Striped) via
MBFastTrack 133 lite built into Gigabyte GA8IEXP Mobo (Promise Tech
RAID Controller).
1 Seagate 40gb HDD (Data)

2 days ago, my PC hung and I had to shutdown the system (win98se) and
reboot. When I rebooted, I did a scandisk and it got stuck at 48%
scanning the file allocation table (FAT), and promptly coughed up
"Scandisk encountered data error while reading the FAT on drive C".
Panic attack. [snip]

 

[glee]

Have you never in your life posted a wrong word, in error?

 

[Hugh Candlin]

What did I say to piss you off?

Does "What a moron" sound familiar?

Are you one of the idiots who think disks have clusters?

No. I'm one of the volunteers in microsoft.public.win98.gen_discussion
who is secure enough that I see no need to insult people less technically
knowledgable than average, as traumatic discontinuities usually occur.

I would much rather demonstrate my grasp of the technicalities by explaining
the intricacies of the subject at hand in a straightforward manner.

Perhaps you could have explained that cluster is a logical concept, not a physical entity.
Instead, you didn't explain ANYTHING, leading the cognoscenti to believe
that you are nothing but a clueless Google jockey looking for attention.

I learned a long time ago, in a galaxy far far away,
that knowledge doesn't make you intellectually superior
to anyone else if you act like a pratt while dispensing it.


Cluster Size

An operating system function or term,
describing the number of sectors
that the operating system allocates
each time disc space is needed.

"Piss me off"? No. You simply demeaned yourself and your reputation.

 

[Eric Gisin]

Does "What a moron" sound familiar?

Appropriate way to deal with someone who repeats a false statement, and tries
to use google "hard disk clusters" as proof.

No. I'm one of the volunteers in microsoft.public.win98.gen_discussion
who is secure enough that I see no need to insult people less technically
knowledgable than average, as traumatic discontinuities usually occur.

I would much rather demonstrate my grasp of the technicalities by explaining
the intricacies of the subject at hand in a straightforward manner.

No, I am not going to explain disk fundamentals to newbies. I gave him
pcguide.com, which does so.

Perhaps you could have explained that cluster is a logical concept, not a physical entity.
Instead, you didn't explain ANYTHING, leading the cognoscenti to believe
that you are nothing but a clueless Google jockey looking for attention.

Now you are name calling too. I am not supposed to?

I learned a long time ago, in a galaxy far far away,
that knowledge doesn't make you intellectually superior
to anyone else if you act like a pratt while dispensing it.


Cluster Size

An operating system function or term,
describing the number of sectors
that the operating system allocates
each time disc space is needed.

"Piss me off"? No. You simply demeaned yourself and your reputation.

Hardly. I just don't have time for idiots.

 

[PCR]

You have been over-exposed to XP-radiation. That's all I can think!

--
Thanks or Good Luck,
There may be humor in this post, and,
Naturally, you will not sue,
should things get worse after this,
PCR
(e-mail address removed)
| What did I say to piss you off? Are you one of the idiots who think
disks have
| clusters?
|
| | > It could be as Glee said, that it was auto-fixed by a chip on the
hard
| > drive. But... indeed you do appear to have said Scandisk fixed the
| > error, two paragraphs before you ask where it went to.... "I used
| > scandisk from within safemode and it recognized the FAT error and
fixed
| > it".
| >
| > But, in case you are as batty as Reienstra/Gisin are nasty, just
look
| > inside C:\Scandisk.log. What does it say in there?
| >
| > Uhhhhh, I think, as the drive now passes all scans, it is still
good.
| > Also, there was a good reason for the error-- you did crash first.
Go
| > on, make a full system backup, though. And next week run those scans
| > again!
| >
|