program to map out weak HD sectors?

[mike]

I have a "tired" drive, but it's in a non-critical application
so I'm gonna use it until it dies.
Norton Disk Doctor finds one bad sector, but it also has trouble
reading several more. I'd like to map them out too.

Many years ago, I had a formatting program that timed how long
it took the data to show up and mapped out any marginal sectors that
exceeded the time limit...emphasis on the "had". I can't find it.

Is there a freeware program that can map out weak hard drive sectors?
Thanks, mike
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[Rod Speed]

I have a "tired" drive, but it's in a non-critical application so I'm gonna
use it until it dies.

Norton Disk Doctor finds one bad sector, but it also has trouble reading
several more. I'd like to map them out too.

Many years ago, I had a formatting program that timed how long
it took the data to show up and mapped out any marginal sectors that exceeded
the time limit...emphasis on the "had". I can't find it.

Is there a freeware program that can map out weak hard drive sectors?

Yes, the ute that comes from the hard drive manufacturer that does that.

 

[mike]

Yes, the ute that comes from the hard drive manufacturer that does that.

I've run into a snag.
I don't have a floppy drive or bootable CDROM. Everything I've found
requires one or the other.
mike

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[Rod Speed]

I've run into a snag.
I don't have a floppy drive or bootable CDROM. Everything I've found requires
one or the other.

Why isnt the optical drive bootable ? Doesnt cost
much to add one or the other to most systems.

There are ways of booting CDs if the
bios doesnt support booting from CD.

 

[Arno Wagner]

I have a "tired" drive, but it's in a non-critical application
so I'm gonna use it until it dies.
Norton Disk Doctor finds one bad sector, but it also has trouble
reading several more. I'd like to map them out too.

Many years ago, I had a formatting program that timed how long
it took the data to show up and mapped out any marginal sectors that
exceeded the time limit...emphasis on the "had". I can't find it.

Is there a freeware program that can map out weak hard drive sectors?
Thanks, mike

Try looking some more for the old software. Modern HDDs perform
this function on every reead operation, so you just need to
read tehm completely from time to time for preventive maintenance.

Arno

 

[Folkert Rienstra]

Try looking some more for the old software.

Modern HDDs perform
this function on every reead operation, so you just need to
read tehm completely from time to time for preventive maintenance.

What exactly did you not understand in:
"

 

[helpdisc]

mhd

 

[mike]

Why isnt the optical drive bootable ? Doesnt cost
much to add one or the other to most systems.

There are ways of booting CDs if the
bios doesnt support booting from CD.

The short answer is that I don't know what I'm doing.

It's a Fujitsu LifeBook B112. Bios Date is 1998.

The CDROM is PCMCIA, can't boot from it. Yes, they did
make a bootable PCMCIA CDROM for this system, but mine ain't it.

Talk to me about ways of booting from CD. I use smart boot
manager on my desktop. It allows me to boot from the CD, but
the CD is recognized/supported by the bios. Is there something
similar that will work with PCMCIA CDROM?

When you boot windows 98 from floppy, it creates a ramdrive
and puts everything there so you can mess with the C drive.
Is there a way to put a program on the C drive that moves itself
to a ramdrive and lets you reformat the C drive, then puts itself
back? You'd only get one shot, cause if it failed...
I've got 96megs of ram to play with.

I have the floppy, but there's a port replicator that I don't
have required to hook it up. I did reverse engineer the serial
port and get that hooked up to the GPS, but it's only one wire. Don't
think I'll tackle all the wires for the floppy drive.

It's running windows 2000 Professional formatted NTFS.
I have zero experience with either one.

The bios supports up to 8gig, but the drive is 20gig.
Don't know how they did that. Doesn't seem to be running an overlay.
I don't have the administrator password or the install disk, but
there's a guest user with no password and administrative privileges.

My disk tools don't understand NTFS. I'm afraid if I hoze it
completely, I won't be able to get it back. I don't have any
systems that understand NTFS, so I can't just stuff the drive into
a desktop. Not sure what would happen if I tried to fdisk/reformat Fat32
and stuff it back into the B112. That worked on a 6 gig drive, but
not sure it will on the 20gig. W2k/NTFS may have some capabilities
overriding the bios disk parameters that W98/FAT32 doesn't???
Ideally, I'd like to put W98 on it. W2K has nothing I need and
lots of stuff that's in the way.

So, I'm looking for a non-invasive way to patch up marginal disk
sectors. And I'm learning stuff too...
Thanks,
mike

 

[Rod Speed]

Rod Speed wrote

The short answer is that I don't know what I'm doing.

It's a Fujitsu LifeBook B112. Bios Date is 1998.

The CDROM is PCMCIA, can't boot from it. Yes, they did make a bootable PCMCIA
CDROM for this system, but mine ain't it.

Talk to me about ways of booting from CD. I use smart boot
manager on my desktop. It allows me to boot from the CD, but the CD is
recognized/supported by the bios. Is there something similar that will work
with PCMCIA CDROM?

Have you tried it with that drive ? That is what I had in mind.

When you boot windows 98 from floppy, it creates a ramdrive and puts
everything there

That is just a convenience, to get more onto the floppy.

so you can mess with the C drive. Is there a way to put a program on the C
drive that moves itself to a ramdrive and lets you reformat the C drive, then
puts itself back?

Yes, that is doable. Dunno if its been done tho, presumably.

You should be able to do it yourself using how its done on a floppy.

You'd only get one shot, cause if it failed...
I've got 96megs of ram to play with.

I have the floppy, but there's a port replicator that I don't
have required to hook it up. I did reverse engineer the serial
port and get that hooked up to the GPS, but it's only one wire. Don't think
I'll tackle all the wires for the floppy drive.

Yeah, its quite a bit more difficult.

You dont actually have to boot the CD to install 2K
you can just copy the files to the hard drive manually
and install it from there. Or even install it over the lan.

It's running windows 2000 Professional formatted NTFS.
I have zero experience with either one.

The bios supports up to 8gig, but the drive is 20gig. Don't know how they did
that. Doesn't seem to be running an overlay.

Its possible to boot 2K from the drive with only 8G initially
visible and have the driver see the full drive once its loaded.
You just have to ensure that what needs to be seen when
access is still being done via the bios is in the 8G thats visible.

I don't have the administrator password or the install disk, but
there's a guest user with no password and administrative privileges.

My disk tools don't understand NTFS.

Yeah, thats the main downside with
NTFS, the simpler free tools often cant.

I'm afraid if I hoze it completely, I won't be able to get it back.

Its always possible to get systems like that back if
you are careful about making images over the lan etc.

You may well be able to do a net boot.

In your case it would be simplest to just install the
drive in a system that does have a bootable CD
and image it there in case it all goes pear shaped.

I don't have any systems that understand NTFS, so I can't just stuff the drive
into a desktop.

They dont need to understand NTFS
to do that basic bad sector scan type op.

Not sure what would happen if I tried to fdisk/reformat
Fat32 and stuff it back into the B112. That worked on a 6 gig drive, but not
sure it will on the 20gig. W2k/NTFS may have some capabilities overriding the
bios disk parameters that W98/FAT32 doesn't???

Yes it certainly does. Tho even W98 can do it if you are
careful about the location of the files used during the early
boot phase so they are visible when access is still via the bios.

Ideally, I'd like to put W98 on it. W2K has nothing I need and lots of stuff
that's in the way.

You can certainly just manually copy the W98
CD to the hard drive and install it from there.

So, I'm looking for a non-invasive way to patch up marginal disk sectors.

I'd do it with the drive in a desktop system myself.

And I'm learning stuff too...

Yeah, that stuff is doable, just a bit fiddly, but doable.

 

[mike]

Have you tried it with that drive ? That is what I had in mind.




That is just a convenience, to get more onto the floppy.




Yes, that is doable. Dunno if its been done tho, presumably.

You should be able to do it yourself using how its done on a floppy.




Yeah, its quite a bit more difficult.

You dont actually have to boot the CD to install 2K
you can just copy the files to the hard drive manually
and install it from there. Or even install it over the lan.




Its possible to boot 2K from the drive with only 8G initially
visible and have the driver see the full drive once its loaded.
You just have to ensure that what needs to be seen when
access is still being done via the bios is in the 8G thats visible.




Yeah, thats the main downside with
NTFS, the simpler free tools often cant.




Its always possible to get systems like that back if
you are careful about making images over the lan etc.

You may well be able to do a net boot.

In your case it would be simplest to just install the
drive in a system that does have a bootable CD
and image it there in case it all goes pear shaped.




They dont need to understand NTFS
to do that basic bad sector scan type op.




Yes it certainly does. Tho even W98 can do it if you are
careful about the location of the files used during the early
boot phase so they are visible when access is still via the bios.




You can certainly just manually copy the W98
CD to the hard drive and install it from there.

I think this is a problem with NTFS. Don't I have to reformat it
FAT32? Then my installation file is gone and I have no way to reboot
it. Only way I can see is to use partition magic to split off a chunk.
Use boot manager to let me install a new OS on that chunk and boot from
it. Then reformat the original chunk and ghost the image onto it.
But I think boot manager may barf on the 8gig/20gig issue.

Thanks guys for the inputs. I downloaded MHDD I'm gonna play with that.

I may just have to do some musical chairs with laptop drives, put
a 4gig into the B112 and use the 20gig in a "real" laptop.

mike

I'd do it with the drive in a desktop system myself.




Yeah, that stuff is doable, just a bit fiddly, but doable.

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[Rod Speed]

Rod Speed wrote

I think this is a problem with NTFS.
Nope.

Don't I have to reformat it FAT32?

Yes, but it isnt hard to do that without a bootable floppy or CD.

Then my installation file is gone and I have no way to reboot it.

You dont need to reboot it, just run setup from the hard drive
once you have the contents of the CD copied to the hard drive.

Only way I can see is to use partition magic to split off a chunk. Use boot
manager to let me install a new OS on that chunk and boot from it. Then
reformat the original chunk and ghost the image onto it.

You dont need to format it if you're going to write an image to it.

But I think boot manager may barf on the 8gig/20gig issue.

Should be fine, and there are plenty of other
boot managers that can handle that fine.

Thanks guys for the inputs. I downloaded MHDD I'm gonna play with that.

I may just have to do some musical chairs with laptop drives, put a 4gig into
the B112 and use the 20gig in a "real" laptop.

Yeah, thats another obvious approach, just
put whatever you want on it with the drive in
a system that does have a bootable CD etc.

Network ops are another way of doing those systems
that dont have a bootable floppy or CD too.