Second HD Failure within one year.

[Guest]

I had a Maxtor 60GB hd fail a year ago and I replaced it with an identical
drive. Yesterday the drive failed on me and you know it was under the exact
same circumstances. This new drive I had formatted in two partitions, one
10GB C: for the system and the rest in D: drive. C: drive chkdsk went fine
only minor problems cleaned up, then I did D: drive and it came back with
'bad block' and windows would not recognize anything on it. Why does this
happen when I'm doing a chkdsk? I thought checkdisk was to prevent things
like this happening. Had I not run the checkdisk, my D: drive would still
be fine right now. Is this some conspiracy between drive makers and
Microsoft to cause hard drives to fail?

Now coincidentally a few days ago I have ordered from Tiger Direct a new
Seagate 750GB drive as I'm starting to download and store a lot of 'stuff'.
I don't want the same thing to happen a third time a year from now.

I have several more questions. The new 750GB drive I'm installing I would
like to format in a similar style. 10GB C: drive for the system and the rest
a D: drive. I have both Acronis TrueImage and Disk Director which work very
well. Should I install this 750Gig drive as a slave and partition it and
then change it to the master drive and copy over my system image, or just
install it as the master drive right off and copy the system image to it,
then after it boots up create the D: partition?

Next question: After I have this new drive installed and running fine I
want to keep all my files backed up. I have a small external drive for
keeping images of the system partition, but after I have amassed a lot of
data on the D: drive that small external would be useless for backups. Short
of buying another 750Gig drive and using it for backup is there anything else
I could consider? I thought about partitioning the new drive in three and
keeping backups on the third partition, but in view of my recent experience
would this be wise?

I appreciate any help here. Thanks.

 

[Dave Patrick]

Are you sure the drive failed or was it file system corruption. I'd run the
manufacturer's disk diagnostic utility. NTFS is the native file system of
Windows XP and is always recommended. Also consider a fault tolerant
solution such as a hardware raid 1 or 5.

--

Regards,

Dave Patrick ....Please no email replies - reply in newsgroup.
Microsoft Certified Professional
Microsoft MVP [Windows]
http://www.microsoft.com/protect

:
|I had a Maxtor 60GB hd fail a year ago and I replaced it with an identical
| drive. Yesterday the drive failed on me and you know it was under the
exact
| same circumstances. This new drive I had formatted in two partitions, one
| 10GB C: for the system and the rest in D: drive. C: drive chkdsk went fine
| only minor problems cleaned up, then I did D: drive and it came back with
| 'bad block' and windows would not recognize anything on it. Why does this
| happen when I'm doing a chkdsk? I thought checkdisk was to prevent things
| like this happening. Had I not run the checkdisk, my D: drive would
still
| be fine right now. Is this some conspiracy between drive makers and
| Microsoft to cause hard drives to fail?
|
| Now coincidentally a few days ago I have ordered from Tiger Direct a new
| Seagate 750GB drive as I'm starting to download and store a lot of
'stuff'.
| I don't want the same thing to happen a third time a year from now.
|
| I have several more questions. The new 750GB drive I'm installing I
would
| like to format in a similar style. 10GB C: drive for the system and the
rest
| a D: drive. I have both Acronis TrueImage and Disk Director which work
very
| well. Should I install this 750Gig drive as a slave and partition it and
| then change it to the master drive and copy over my system image, or just
| install it as the master drive right off and copy the system image to it,
| then after it boots up create the D: partition?
|
| Next question: After I have this new drive installed and running fine I
| want to keep all my files backed up. I have a small external drive for
| keeping images of the system partition, but after I have amassed a lot of
| data on the D: drive that small external would be useless for backups.
Short
| of buying another 750Gig drive and using it for backup is there anything
else
| I could consider? I thought about partitioning the new drive in three and
| keeping backups on the third partition, but in view of my recent
experience
| would this be wise?
|
| I appreciate any help here. Thanks.

 

[Guest]

Thanks Dave. It certainly could be file related, as when I started Explorer
the D: drive showed up but when I clicked on it I got the 'drive not
formatted' error and did a quick format so it's once again useable, albeit
quite empty. I did run Seagates' utility and the results were:

The Drive Self-Test has determined that the drive may have one or more
failing sectors. Please run SeaTools Desktop for additional information
about this problem.
Any drive reporting a S.M.A.R.T. error should be considered likely to fail
at any time. You should back up your data from any such drive as soon as
possible. Contact your computer or hard drive vendor to obtain return
information.


I suppose I should scap the drive then, but could you answer my other
questions though? Thanks again.

 

[Kerry Brown]

Answered inline

I had a Maxtor 60GB hd fail a year ago and I replaced it with an
identical drive. Yesterday the drive failed on me and you know it
was under the exact same circumstances. This new drive I had
formatted in two partitions, one 10GB C: for the system and the rest
in D: drive. C: drive chkdsk went fine only minor problems cleaned
up, then I did D: drive and it came back with 'bad block' and windows
would not recognize anything on it. Why does this happen when I'm
doing a chkdsk? I thought checkdisk was to prevent things like this
happening. Had I not run the checkdisk, my D: drive would still be
fine right now. Is this some conspiracy between drive makers and
Microsoft to cause hard drives to fail?

If the drive was going bad then running chkdsk only found the problem. If
you hadn't run chkdsk it may have taken longer but the same thing would have
happened eventually. What model was the Maxtor? Some models are known to
have problems. It may have been coincidence. You may have a heat problem.

Now coincidentally a few days ago I have ordered from Tiger Direct a
new Seagate 750GB drive as I'm starting to download and store a lot
of 'stuff'. I don't want the same thing to happen a third time a year
from now.

Make sure you have backups. Hard drive failure is one of the most common
problems with computers. Make sure your case has proper ventilation. The 750
GB drive will most likely run much hotter than the old drives. You may have
to add a fan, reroute cables, etc. to make sure the drive doesn't overheat.

I have several more questions. The new 750GB drive I'm installing I
would like to format in a similar style. 10GB C: drive for the
system and the rest a D: drive. I have both Acronis TrueImage and
Disk Director which work very well. Should I install this 750Gig
drive as a slave and partition it and then change it to the master
drive and copy over my system image, or just install it as the
master drive right off and copy the system image to it, then after it
boots up create the D: partition?

Install the new drive as the only drive. Copy the system image from your
external drive to it. You don't need the defective drive at all. If you are
cloning the old drive then install the new one as the master. Do not reboot
with both drives installed. Once the cloning process is finished power off
the computer and remove the old drive before rebooting.

Next question: After I have this new drive installed and running
fine I want to keep all my files backed up. I have a small external
drive for keeping images of the system partition, but after I have
amassed a lot of data on the D: drive that small external would be
useless for backups. Short of buying another 750Gig drive and using
it for backup is there anything else I could consider? I thought
about partitioning the new drive in three and keeping backups on the
third partition, but in view of my recent experience would this be
wise?

It is a waste of time backing up a drive and then storing the backup on the
drive. You will need to buy a bigger external drive, a tape drive, or use
some other method of backup.

 

[Dave Patrick]

I'd make the operating system partition 20 gB. How you partition the rest of
your drive probably doesn't make much difference. Yes, always use a separate
physical device for backup purposes.

--

Regards,

Dave Patrick ....Please no email replies - reply in newsgroup.
Microsoft Certified Professional
Microsoft MVP [Windows]
http://www.microsoft.com/protect

:
| Thanks Dave. It certainly could be file related, as when I started
Explorer
| the D: drive showed up but when I clicked on it I got the 'drive not
| formatted' error and did a quick format so it's once again useable, albeit
| quite empty. I did run Seagates' utility and the results were:
|
| The Drive Self-Test has determined that the drive may have one or more
| failing sectors. Please run SeaTools Desktop for additional information
| about this problem.
| Any drive reporting a S.M.A.R.T. error should be considered likely to fail
| at any time. You should back up your data from any such drive as soon as
| possible. Contact your computer or hard drive vendor to obtain return
| information.
|
|
| I suppose I should scap the drive then, but could you answer my other
| questions though? Thanks again.

 

[Shenan Stanley]

I had a Maxtor 60GB hd fail a year ago and I replaced it with an
identical drive. Yesterday the drive failed on me and you know it
was under the exact same circumstances. This new drive I had
formatted in two partitions, one 10GB C: for the system and the
rest in D: drive. C: drive chkdsk went fine only minor problems
cleaned up, then I did D: drive and it came back with 'bad block'
and windows would not recognize anything on it. Why does this
happen when I'm doing a chkdsk? I thought checkdisk was to prevent
things like this happening. Had I not run the checkdisk, my D:
drive would still be fine right now. Is this some conspiracy
between drive makers and Microsoft to cause hard drives to fail?

Now coincidentally a few days ago I have ordered from Tiger Direct
a new Seagate 750GB drive as I'm starting to download and store a
lot of 'stuff'. I don't want the same thing to happen a third time
a year from now.

I have several more questions. The new 750GB drive I'm installing
I would like to format in a similar style. 10GB C: drive for the
system and the rest a D: drive. I have both Acronis TrueImage and
Disk Director which work very well. Should I install this 750Gig
drive as a slave and partition it and then change it to the master
drive and copy over my system image, or just install it as the
master drive right off and copy the system image to it, then after
it boots up create the D: partition?

Next question: After I have this new drive installed and running
fine I want to keep all my files backed up. I have a small
external drive for keeping images of the system partition, but
after I have amassed a lot of data on the D: drive that small
external would be useless for backups. Short of buying another
750Gig drive and using it for backup is there anything else I could
consider? I thought about partitioning the new drive in three and
keeping backups on the third partition, but in view of my recent
experience would this be wise?

I appreciate any help here. Thanks.

CHKDSK finds problems - it can try and correctfor them - but hardware errors
cannot be corrected permanently by software solutions. Your hard drives
failed because they had a defect - not because of anything else. It's just
that CHKDSK cuts every part of the disk - where you may have never touched
these parts before.

You'll probably have better luck with the Seagate drive - although the 750GB
size is still fairly new. I still prefer to buy 400-500GB drives and RAID
them toegther for performance and reliabiltity.

I would make your system drive a minimum of 20GB - preferrably 40GB. You'll
be happier in the long run.

I would just make it master right off the bat - personally.

Storing yor backups on the same physical drive is worthless for hardware
failures. Your safest method (and easiest in many ways) would be to buy
another 750GB drive (and RAID card if needed) and RAID it together - a
mirror RAID array - so everything is backed up automatically - this way you
have a constant and bootable backup.

This does not mean you should not still backup files to external media -
external media you take someplace safe.