translate System event log to physical disk / partition

[- Bobb -]

Yesterday I got about 100 of these in a row:

Event Type: Warning
Event Source: Disk
Event Category: None
Event ID: 51
Date: 7/7/2010
Time: 10:10:56 PM
User: N/A
Computer: AMDbox
Description:
An error was detected on device \Device\Harddisk2\D during a paging
operation.

I have several drives (2 internal and one external) and lots of partitions
.... how you I translate that into " Harddisk2\D "
Since it says "during a paging operation", I'd assume it's wherever the
pagefile is, but I'd like to know - does it start at drive 0 then drive 1 ,
or does it start at 1 then 2 ?
I'm guessing - "system disk" - but does Partition D = the 4th parition.
(Starts with A then B ?...)
Thanks for any pointers.

 

[Paul]

Yesterday I got about 100 of these in a row:

Event Type: Warning
Event Source: Disk
Event Category: None
Event ID: 51
Date: 7/7/2010
Time: 10:10:56 PM
User: N/A
Computer: AMDbox
Description:
An error was detected on device \Device\Harddisk2\D during a paging
operation.

I have several drives (2 internal and one external) and lots of partitions
... how you I translate that into " Harddisk2\D "
Since it says "during a paging operation", I'd assume it's wherever the
pagefile is, but I'd like to know - does it start at drive 0 then drive 1 ,
or does it start at 1 then 2 ?
I'm guessing - "system disk" - but does Partition D = the 4th parition.
(Starts with A then B ?...)
Thanks for any pointers.

In my case here, Harddisk2 = Disk 2 in Disk Management (the third disk down
in the disk management window).

There is a sort-of recipe here. I wish they're write a technet article on
this, with a *complete* set of options.

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;159865

The "D" doesn't mean what you think it does. Options there are D, DR, FT,
and possibly others, followed in some cases by a number. So that isn't a
"drive letter".

And the word "paging" is also a misnomer.

Here, a user attempted to copy files from one drive to another, and
a "paging" error was reported. When you see that error, it doesn't
mean the computer was working on a paging file.

http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/57229-45-write-failed-paging-operation

All we can reasonably assume, is that your computer lost access to
harddisk2, during some kind of file operation. Once you look in
Disk Management, you'll have a better idea which disk that is.

Paul

 

[Bert Hyman]

In "- Bobb -"

I have several drives (2 internal and one external) and lots of
partitions

I started getting those when I installed a USB-connected HD for backup.

It was configured to go to sleep after not being accessed for a while,
and random Windows processes and functions would poke the drive for no
apparent reason and I'd end up with event log entries like the ones
you're seeing.

If you finally track down the drive as being your external drive, that
might be the cause.

I've since replaced that drive with one using an eSATA interface and
don't have that problem any more, even though it too spins down when
idle.

 

[- Bobb -]

Thanks guys.

When I checked, I do see that internal are drives 0+1 so the "issue" was
with my fairly new external WD 1 terabyte drive ??

Before posting, I checked that error at the Microsoft link and there is said
" if not the system disk then ignore the error". How useless an info message
is that ? IS there a problem or not ? Should I return under warranty ??

In general I think all of MSFT's troubleshooting is related to " is it our
fault?" If not, then .... we don't care.

Usually that is my backup drive and is turned off .
For now I'll live with it and see if it happens again .If so, then I'll try
to get the data copied to yet another drive. ( when I was shopping I WAS
going to get a Seagate, but reviews said WDC was better. agrrrrrrhhh.)

 

[Paul]

Thanks guys.

When I checked, I do see that internal are drives 0+1 so the "issue" was
with my fairly new external WD 1 terabyte drive ??

Before posting, I checked that error at the Microsoft link and there is said
" if not the system disk then ignore the error". How useless an info message
is that ? IS there a problem or not ? Should I return under warranty ??

In general I think all of MSFT's troubleshooting is related to " is it our
fault?" If not, then .... we don't care.

Usually that is my backup drive and is turned off .
For now I'll live with it and see if it happens again .If so, then I'll try
to get the data copied to yet another drive. ( when I was shopping I WAS
going to get a Seagate, but reviews said WDC was better. agrrrrrrhhh.)

I would recommend going to the Western Digital site and downloading
DataLifeguard tools for disk testing. I don't know what restrictions
exist on that software, like what interfaces it doesn't work on.
Perhaps if you run a diagnostic, it will confirm there is some
kind of problem. The download page, specifies tools as a function of
the drive model, so presumably they'll list a test tool that is
relevant.

The OS is written by Microsoft, such that kernel operations remain
responsive. Now, if you have some software present, that violates
any of the real time properties, or inserts shims or the like in
a software stack, that can change the properties in a way not
anticipated by the OS designers. An example of intrusive software
might be some AV software. Googling on "Delayed Write" failures,
from the past, might dig up software situations, where some
third party addition has upset proper OS operation.

Some hardware operations on disks, have longer timeout constants than
perhaps the driver is willing to wait. Say the disk will attempt for
20 seconds, to read a flaky sector. And the OS disk driver will only
wait 5 seconds for the disk to respond. That could result in log
entries being generated, and perhaps even a consistency problem.
There are some disks, where a parameter is changed, to make that
less of an issue in certain situations. Western Digital makes RE
drives, where for twice the price of a regular disk, they change
the timeout constant to somewhere around 5 to 7 seconds. The purpose
of that, is so a severe disk issue, won't cause a RAID array to go
offline. (The disks are intended for usage in RAID arrays.) At one
point, some of the WD disks, supported the usage of a utility, to
flip the timeout constant, without paying an exorbitant premium
to WD, but they closed that loophole.

So there could be physical reasons for this, such as a bad brand
new disk. Or, it could be software induced (for more reasons than
I know about).

I'd start with a backup first, leaving the drive powered off
until you're ready to run the transfer. Connect a replacement disk,
and make sure all your data is safe.

After that, try a chkdsk, and see if any problems are detected
with the file system(s) on that disk. If there is a persistent
problem, and it is inserting problems in the file system structures,
the longer you leave it, the harder it would be for chkdsk to
repair it.

Shut down, and run the WD diagnostics. (Some diagnostics use read
only testing, with options to do more destructive write testing.
I usually just stick with read testing.)

The SMART statistics kept by the drive, have a few key parameters
that tell you about drive health. I couldn't decode that info,
if my life depended on it But one key parameter, is the
"Pending" count. That tells you, how many suspect sectors the
drive has detected. On the next write attempt to those sectors,
the drive will have to decide whether that sector is dependable
or not. If the next write fails to work, then the sector is
spared out. Seeing a persistent pending count, might be a
sign of trouble to come. I don't think I've seen any "Pending"
accumulate on drives here, when I've looked at the SMART stats.

The file system, also has mechanisms for tracking "bad clusters",
and that is a search term you could try, for more information
on where that kind of thing might be logged. For me, the
logging of physical disk problems is more important, as I
spook easily, and at the first sign of trouble, I install
a new disk. It's one of the reasons I have so many
spare disks sitting on a table in the junk room

Paul

 

[Patok]

Hello, Bobb, I just now saw your thread. I would have answered before
and saved you some work. I had that problem, asked here at the end of
May, and solved it. Read about it here:

http://groups.google.com/group/microsoft.public.windowsxp.general/browse_frm/thread/107e88f9920ff6d3

In short, it /is/ the WD external drive, and it is working fine, nothing
wrong with it, just a little slow to spin up. You can stop the warnings
by increasing the disk timeout value in the registry:

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Disk]
"TimeOutValue"=dword:00000020


Moral of the story: always do a search first, before asking questions.

 

[- Bobb -]

Thanks
I created the variable and hopefully that' ll fix it

BTW I did search for messages for "Event ID: 51" and found no match.

Hello, Bobb, I just now saw your thread. I would have answered before
and saved you some work. I had that problem, asked here at the end of May,
and solved it. Read about it here:

http://groups.google.com/group/microsoft.public.windowsxp.general/browse_frm/thread/107e88f9920ff6d3

In short, it /is/ the WD external drive, and it is working fine, nothing
wrong with it, just a little slow to spin up. You can stop the warnings by
increasing the disk timeout value in the registry:

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Disk]
"TimeOutValue"=dword:00000020


Moral of the story: always do a search first, before asking questions.

Thanks guys.

When I checked, I do see that internal are drives 0+1 so the "issue" was
with my fairly new external WD 1 terabyte drive ??

Before posting, I checked that error at the Microsoft link and there is
said " if not the system disk then ignore the error". How useless an info
message is that ? IS there a problem or not ? Should I return under
warranty ??

In general I think all of MSFT's troubleshooting is related to " is it
our fault?" If not, then .... we don't care.

Usually that is my backup drive and is turned off .
For now I'll live with it and see if it happens again .If so, then I'll
try to get the data copied to yet another drive. ( when I was shopping I
WAS going to get a Seagate, but reviews said WDC was better.
agrrrrrrhhh.)

 

[- Bobb -]

Paul
I had d'loaded the WD diags but wasn't ready to wipe/test a nearly full 1 Tb
drive yet.
I'll follow your links/ procedures. Thanks

Just thinking ... on my second IBM pc I had a 40 MEGAbyte drive and needed
to make a copy of it. I started before bedtime - and it was still going when
we woke up. ( My first PC had dual floppy drives only - hard drives weren't
yet small enough. I used to work on 20MB drives in banks etc that were the
size of pizza ovens. Now I have a 1 Terabyte drive on my desk - for $99 ! )

 

[Twayne]

In

Yesterday I got about 100 of these in a row:

Event Type: Warning
Event Source: Disk
Event Category: None
Event ID: 51
Date: 7/7/2010
Time: 10:10:56 PM
User: N/A
Computer: AMDbox
Description:
An error was detected on device \Device\Harddisk2\D during
a paging operation.

I have several drives (2 internal and one external) and
lots of partitions ... how you I translate that into "
Harddisk2\D " Since it says "during a paging operation", I'd assume it's
wherever the pagefile is, but I'd like to know - does it
start at drive 0 then drive 1 , or does it start at 1 then
2 ? I'm guessing - "system disk" - but does Partition D = the
4th parition. (Starts with A then B ?...)
Thanks for any pointers.

Control Panel; Administrative Tools; Disk Management will show you the
numbering system used in your computer. That's the naming conventions you
want to use.

HTH,

Twayne`

 

[Paul]

Paul
I had d'loaded the WD diags but wasn't ready to wipe/test a nearly full 1 Tb
drive yet.
I'll follow your links/ procedures. Thanks

Just thinking ... on my second IBM pc I had a 40 MEGAbyte drive and needed
to make a copy of it. I started before bedtime - and it was still going when
we woke up. ( My first PC had dual floppy drives only - hard drives weren't
yet small enough. I used to work on 20MB drives in banks etc that were the
size of pizza ovens. Now I have a 1 Terabyte drive on my desk - for $99 ! )

The first drives I got to play with, were 5MB and 10MB, full height drives.
I didn't know it at the time, but I was reading recently, that those
cost somewhere around $1400 each back in the day. We had a purchaser and
a shipping department, so never got to see the price of things.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ST-506

And for floppies, we were using the 8" ones. The floppy drive had an
AC motor, and required 120V to spin the floppies inside the sleeve. That was
what each desktop system had in it, as well as one hard drive. Unlike modern
systems, where all the wiring inside the computer is low voltage, it meant the
floppy drive had to be spliced into the AC wiring.

We used these for departmental file servers,

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3c/DysanRemovableDiskPack.agr.jpg

and these for backups.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9f/9-track-drive-open.jpg

We had a person hired full time, just to make tape backups and
see they were put on a truck and shipped off site.

Even back then, when people discovered we were using 9-track tape
for backups, they'd give us a strange look. I was kinda curious
where they were buying the transports, because I thought that
was a dead technology. I suppose they were cheap.

Paul

 

[- Bobb -]

The first drives I got to play with, were 5MB and 10MB, full height
drives.
I didn't know it at the time, but I was reading recently, that those
cost somewhere around $1400 each back in the day. We had a purchaser and
a shipping department, so never got to see the price of things.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ST-506

And for floppies, we were using the 8" ones. The floppy drive had an
AC motor, and required 120V to spin the floppies inside the sleeve. That
was
what each desktop system had in it, as well as one hard drive. Unlike
modern
systems, where all the wiring inside the computer is low voltage, it meant
the
floppy drive had to be spliced into the AC wiring.

We used these for departmental file servers,

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3c/DysanRemovableDiskPack.agr.jpg

Same disk packs as for the 20/30 mb drives , but the technology got a lot
better thru the 80's and they could "fit more stuff onto them" to get 200mb
(RP06) then 300mb(RM05) on a pack. I made a lot of money fixing drives when
the heads crashed onto the disk surface. Even though the pack was maybe 20
inches in diameter, they only used the middle ~ 2 inches.

For those who care, the heads were spring loaded and if you spin the pack
fast enough (xRPM) it builds up a surface force/resistance. If/when anything
got in that space ( a few mm) then then "the stuff" would get between the
spring loaded head and the surface of that disk causing a "scrape" then
THOSE flakes would be in there causing more trouble, 'snowball going
downhill effect' and then a fault light as the drive spun down. I'd come
in - take it all apart, replace the 20 heads, realign all of them to be
perfectly in line again, then get cusotomer buys a new pack and ... all done
until next time. There was always a next time. Common example back of the
relationship between the heads and the surface was a 747 flying 400 MPH one
foot off the ground. Any undergrowth causes a crash.

and these for backups.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9f/9-track-drive-open.jpg

I used to work on those in the 80's - it's a Digital Equipment Corp (DEC)
Model TE16 - I was in field service for them then... and no kidding .. about
a month ago ... cleaning out some old papers and found a service report for
one. Company name / contact /phone number and description ... " TE16 - won't
load".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:9-track-drive.jpg

We had a person hired full time, just to make tape backups and
see they were put on a truck and shipped off site.

and when there was a problem with the drive .. they'd call ... me.

Even back then, when people discovered we were using 9-track tape
for backups, they'd give us a strange look. I was kinda curious
where they were buying the transports, because I thought that
was a dead technology. I suppose they were cheap.

Paul

Cheap and easily portable. With a disk pack - it might only fit one model.
( like Blu-Ray, DVD, CD). With tape reel, if your computer room fried you
could take those tapes anywhere and rebuild your system. DEC started a
business doing just that (making computer rooms for 'hot sites') in the
90's, then spun it off to "Iron Mountain".

Now you just buy a few Tb drives and can leave them everywhere. But when
THEY go ... that's a lotta data gone.

 

[- Bobb -]

I did increase the timeout entry and same result, so I dropped a note to WD
support at their website along with jpg's of their Status reports which show
drive 'Exceeded Threshold' on some drive variables that meant nothing to
me. I sent that info along as well as a few Error '51' logs from errorlog. I
asked " what do the results of their reports mean?" as well as " I see newer
firmware on your site, might that address my problem? Can you give me a
pointer to a webpage that lists what the update does ?"
I just got their reply - which has no info about what I asked and is a :
"Press F5 to send the customer a standard 'first line of troubleshooting'
message.":

"Thank you for contacting Western Digital Customer Service and Support. I
apologize for the inconvenience. Did you check your hard drive for errors
and defragment it? If this does not fix your hard drive's partition problems
then something damaged your drive's partition. I would recommend that you
use drive partitioning or data recovery software to repair your hard drive's
partition. I would also recommend that you run an Extended Test using our
Windows diagnostic utility. If you don't care about the information on the
drive then you should be able to repartition/format it and it should work."

Well isn't that special ?
I'm gonna write them back a quick note, like:

Did you even read my info/ questions?
As I said - yes I did defrag.
As I said - this is only an archive drive -- no daily heavy activity, so
fragmentation was/is not an issue.
The drive shows INTERNAL errors - THAT's what I'm asking about. At some
point a SMART drive "fails". It seems to me that this is on the way to that
trip-line.
As for retention, if I didn't care about the info on the drive I would not
have bought a one TERAbyte drive.
And to back it up to ....?
Re: " you should be able to repartition/format it and it should work." Well
what if it doesn't ?
What if I have already spent hours migrating all of my data to this new WDC
drive ?

I suggest that under the warranty program WDC send me another drive. I then
copy all of my data to the new one, and send this bad one back under
warranty .... I like that solution much better.

Woulda, coulda, shoulda... I originally was gonna buy Seagate, but when I
got to Best Buy, these were on sale for $40 off. I checked online and
reviews at Newegg etc seemed ok.
Anyone have issues with their Seagate external drives ?

Hello, Bobb, I just now saw your thread. I would have answered before
and saved you some work. I had that problem, asked here at the end of May,
and solved it. Read about it here:

http://groups.google.com/group/microsoft.public.windowsxp.general/browse_frm/thread/107e88f9920ff6d3

In short, it /is/ the WD external drive, and it is working fine, nothing
wrong with it, just a little slow to spin up. You can stop the warnings by
increasing the disk timeout value in the registry:

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Disk]
"TimeOutValue"=dword:00000020


Moral of the story: always do a search first, before asking questions.