BW said:
Paul,
it turns out that the boot sector, sector 0, of my HDD failed to "read,
write, or remove write-protection." I am assuming that the drive, well, to
be PC, failed. I have reinstalled XP Pro SP3 with a slipstreamed version I
created some time ago - boy, was that slick! No waiting for SP2 and SP3 to
download.
Is there anything I can do to fix the HDD? I have recovered my data as
described in the previous post, but I would like to have the HDD around for
backup purposes.
Thank you again,
BW
So is the message you quote above, coming from the diagnostic test ?
Hard drives, when they have a problem with a sector, mark it as "pending".
An attempt to write the sector later, is when the drive will try to
resolve the problem. If there are spare sectors left, the drive will
use a spare sector, to take the place of the broken sector. That would be,
if sector 0 could no longer be read without error, and had been
marked as "pending" substitution.
So if you do something to write to the disk, and write sector zero,
at that point you'd know whether it could be solved or not. For example,
perhaps using Recovery Console and FixMBR, might have written a new
sector 0. Since the hard drive isn't healthy, you might use the Recovery
Console from the WinXP install CD. FixMBR takes a disk argument,
implying you can write sector 0 on more than one disk.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fixmbr
http://www.microsoft.com/resources/.../proddocs/en-us/bootcons_fixmbr.mspx?mfr=true
I use a Linux LiveCD for various kinds of disk maintenance, and if I wanted
to experiment, there are ways there as well for screwing around with the
disk. For example, rather than learning how to use the Recovery Console,
I've used "dd" to copy the sector 0 MBR from one drive, to another. I've
had three occasions now, where it needed to be repaired.
Modern hard drives don't "low level format" like they used to. If you
want to "freshen up" a drive now, what you need is a process that writes
to each sector. If any sectors are pending, the substitution process
will take place during the write. I would use whatever I could get as
a disk eraser program, as a means to write to all the sectors.
*******
These are some examples of ways to erase all the sectors on a disk.
1) This is a port of Unix "dd", to the Windows environment.
http://www.chrysocome.net/dd (DOS program, use command window)
dd if=/dev/zero of=\\?\Device\Harddisk0\Partition0
That would use sectors filled with zeros, to erase the entire Harddisk0.
You must be *very* careful to ensure you have the correct disk address.
For example, you could overwrite the current WinXP boot partition, if
you get the name of the disk wrong. The "dd --list" command, gives
the names of the disks and partitions. If each of your disks has a
different number of partitions on it, that helps tell you which disk
is which. "Partition0" means the whole disk, while "Partition1" is
only the first partition on the disk (not the whole disk). So in my
example, the entire disk will be erased. Since no "block size" or
"count" parameter is being used, the command runs until the output
file specification is exhausted for space (i.e. hit the end of the
disk).
2) The CMRR SecureErase program, uses an erasing feature inside the disk drive.
You need to read all the documentation on this page, before using it.
(The reason you need to read the documentation, is because the erase
feature is protected by things like passwords, which complicate the
ability of the user to successfully access the command.)
And as in (1), be absolutely sure you have the right disk. Since this
one boots from its own CD (they offer an ISO9660 file, to prepare a CD),
you can physically disconnect all but the disk to be erased.
http://cmrr.ucsd.edu/people/Hughes/SecureErase.shtml
3) DBAN from dban.org, can erase all hard drives on the computer. For
safety, have only the disk you want to erase, connected up. Use
the Quick Erase option. It isn't really that Quick, but if you start
it running before you go to bed, it should be ready the next day.
DBAN can run from a floppy, so you don't need your working WinXP
disk connected, to make it work.
Once the disk is erased, connect the erased disk and your regular
WinXP boot disk to the computer. Boot WinXP. Then, you can use
HDTune 2.55 free version, from hdtune.com , and do a surface scan
of the disk, to check for bad sectors. If the entire surface of the
disk is "green", you can use it again. What that doesn't tell you,
is how many spare sectors are left. If some of the blocks aren't
green, then chances are you have broken sectors which can no longer
be substituted. Toss the disk in that case, as it isn't worth
the aggravation. You can get new disks at prices from $40 to
$100, and at some point, it no longer makes sense to use
a disk that is on its last legs.
If the disk is connected directly to the motherboard, the SMART
statistics also give you some idea of the health of the
disk. HDTune has a tab which will display the SMART stats.
If SMART is not accessible (due to the interface type being
used), the SMART tab will not display any data.
If erasing the disk and scanning it looks clean, you can
use Disk Management to put a partition on it, and begin
to use it again. Keep an eye on the SMART, and listen
for odd noises, if you expect to catch the disk before
it dies completely.
HTH,
Paul