If a HD crashes...should I toss it?

kid312 · Joined: Aug 17, 2004 Posts: 90

Hi,
I had a hard drive crash on me so I formatted it and reinstalled windows and now everything seems fine. I am sure it was a hard drive problem because I wasn't able to read it from any other comps (it would prompt to format the drive).

It's working fine now but is it likely that it will give me problems again? It's a pain having to reinstall everything all over again.

Thanks

zlim · Joined: Mar 11, 2005 Posts: 2636

Run diagnostics on it; if any bad sectors are reported then yes, I would use it only to store non-essential items like pictures or music that has alredy been backed up on CDs or DVDs.

WesternDigital http://support.wdc.com/product/download.asp?lang=en
Fujitsu
http://www.fujitsu.com/us/services/computing/storage/hdd/support/utili...s.html#
Seagate and Maxtor
http://www.seagate.com/ww/v/index.jsp?locale=en-US&name=SeaTools:_...ktop_Ed
Hitachi (bought IBM hd business)
http://www.hitachigst.com/hdd/support/download.htm#OGT

drwho07 · Joined: Nov 29, 2007 Posts: 1546 Location: Central FL, USA

There are many things that can cause data loss on a hard drive.
A momentary power glitch while the drive is writing something can result in bad data on the drive or even erasures of some sectors.

That's one reason that I strongly recommend to any knowledgeable PC user, that they use an Uninterruptable Power Supply (UPS) of sufficient wattage to ensure at least 10 minutes of run time in case of a power failure.

Once you have a drive reformatted and your OS and essentials loaded, you should immediately do a full drive backup.
I use Ghost 2003 for everything up to XP and Ghost 11.5 for Vista.

But there are free programs available too. Like Seagate's Disk Wizard and Maxtor's Maxblast software.

I download and install their software, both Seagate and Maxtor, then use that software to produce a boot CD, then remove the software off of the HD, to save space. Then I can run the backup programs from the bootable CD.

Then if you have another "event" that renders your HD non-bootable, a quick restore of your backup image file can put things right again.

I recently refurbished a Seagate 160 gig IDE drive, with a bad sector zero, that Seagate refused to replace even though it was still within their warranty period.
I used an old "Low Level Formatter" program from Seagate to completely wipe the drive. Then I ran FDISK and a DOS format, to partition and format the drive to FAT-32.
Then I ran "Spinrite 6" to completely scan and verify the drive.
The drive checked out to be 100% good.
That same drive is now running Windows XP on my backup computer.

So a seemingly bad HD is not always BAD. It may have just gotten its data scrambled by a power glitch, a virus, or some other mishap.
Loose connectors on the back of the drive can cause data corruption too.
Make sure all cables are on tight.

If that drive seems to be working OK, I would run CHKDSK /r /f on it every once in a while just to verify that it's ok.

Get in the habit of backing up your critical data to DVD's or an external HD on a regular schedule.

Cheers Mates and Happy New Year!

The Doctor Cool

goretsky · Posted: Wed Dec 31, 2008 12:57 am Post subject:

Hello,

Ouch! What reason did Seagate give for not accepting the return of the 160GB hard disk drive? I have never had them refuse to repair an under warranty part before.

Regards,

Aryeh Goretsky

drwho07 · Joined: Nov 29, 2007 Posts: 1546 Location: Central FL, USA

Hi Mr. G.

Well, they claimed that the drive was an OEM, originally purchased by Gateway.
(Seagate will only RMA on retail boxed drives and NOT on OEM drives)
They told me I'd have to go to Gateway for warranty support. Crying or Very sad

I don't know how that could be, unless one of my suppliers slipped me a used drive. I have no record of where that drive came from so I just have to move on.

The important thing is that a low level format seems to have fixed it.

I wonder just how many HD's, worldwide, are thrown away every day, when just low level formatting the drive would fix the problem. (?)

On that Seagate drive, Spinrite6 chewed on sector zero for almost and hour and reported that it couldn't fix the problem.
After the low level format, Spinrite6 reported NO problems on the drive.

On a little 4 gig Quantum Fireball drive, there were a bunch of bad sectors, reported by Spinrite6, but after a low level format, there were zero bad sectors.

I've now set that little drive up to boot into DOS and I'm putting all my DOS utilities on it. I'll eventually burn that to a CD or DVD.

Years ago, I used to low level format drives all the time, but not so much any more. That's another old FIX that seems to have passed into oblivion.

Happy New Year, Everyone!
The Doctor Cool

goretsky · Posted: Wed Dec 31, 2008 10:22 pm Post subject:

Hello,

Interesting. A while ago I ended up with about a half-dozen Seagate hard disk drives that I know were OEM because of the equipment they came out of, and when I checked to see if I could RMA them, they showed as purchased for retail use. I suppose batches destined for one channel or the other get diverted as needed.

Regards,

Aryeh Goretsky

drwho07 · Joined: Nov 29, 2007 Posts: 1546 Location: Central FL, USA

At Seagate's RMA dept, the left hand doesn't seem to know what the right hand is doing.
And,,,,,have you tried reading those serial numbers stamped on the drives?
I have one heck of a time deciphering them.
Of course, if you send in a drive and the serial number isn't exactly right, they don't try to make it right for you, they just send the drive back.
That's a lot of fun! Twisted Evil

I Hope Everyone had a good and safe and sober New Years Eve.

Doc Cool

drwho07 · Joined: Nov 29, 2007 Posts: 1546 Location: Central FL, USA

Time marches inexorably on...........

Since my last post, I've recovered two more hard drives with my "Low Level Format" program, originally from Maxtor.

Both drives appeared to be bad (surface errors) but after a Low Level Format, they checked out 100% good.

Both drives are now running windows XP with NO problems what-so-ever.

Cheers mates!
The Doctor Cool