[SOLVED] hard drive problem

[Bonniejo]

Hi, I have previously contacted you about problems I was having with my hard drive relating to bad clusters being found. Then it escalated to experiencing Fatal Exceptions errors while doing basic task like using WORD and being hooked up to the internet. Then I got some scary messages that said "Your system resources are dangerously low" do you wish to terminate the program WINWORD. I replied YES and the system hung! LOng story short, I have a DELL Pentium PC, XPS B800, a 45 GByte hard drive. I had contacted DELL and they gave me info. on doing an FDISK, reformatting the hard dirve and reinstalling windows. I DID that and STILL am getting clusters that are bad. They are in the same place as before I did the FDISK, etc. In other words, the two scandisks that I have done on the newly formatted drive, show up the same addresses and clusters as before! I even HEARD the PC trying to re-access these bad clusters and finally it got past them! My question is: Should I return this PC as it appears to have a hardware problem? I have two years left on its warranty so I do have time but I am concerned and feel that it is and should be "out of my hands" at this point! Am I just getting paranoid here or do you think I have a valid reason for returning it and asking for a new one? I have not yet reloaded any software on it so it is running a pretty basic setup here! All and any responses will be greatly appreciated and considered! Thanks in advance! Bonnie

 

[rkselby98]

Bonnie you might want to check the hard drive manufacture web site for a diagnostic test for the hard drive. If they have the program run it and it should tell you if the hard drive is going bad. At that site they should also give you information on how to contact them about the warranty.

 

[Bonniejo]

Hello again! Maybe I should have included more information on my exact scan results. They are as follows: I have rec'd feedback that I have 32,768 bytes of bad sectors. It says that 32.768 bytes are in each allocation unit, I do not understand what an allocation unit is? Is this serious or not? In my old system, before I did an FDISK and reinstall , I had the same message of 32,768 bytes in bad clusters. I could not seem to run any programs, especially WORD without experiencing PC problems ranging from error messages to hanging of the system. Hope I am clear here, if not please question! Bonnie

 

[Mike C UK]

Hello rkselby98

Don't know if you noted this but Bonnie has replied to this on a new thread:

{I have merged the thread with this one-- RR}

Regards

 

[rkselby98]

Thanks for the notice but I am not jumping from post to post. I must be getting old, can't keep up with these people.

Thanks Mike

 

[Bonniejo]

I apologize. Got lost in what I was doing or should be! Bonnie

 

[Bonniejo]

Mike, Thank you for your reply. I do not know of the manufacturer of the hard drive. It was a package deal. I did post another message with more details, should have just posted a reply and sorry for that! I am too new at all of this! I am thinking that the hard drive is indeed flawed. It appears to find the same clusters no matter what I do. Though I am surely not any kind of expert here! Just worried about fully loading this drive with all of my programs and encountering the same kind of problems in the future! Thanks for your help and response. Bonnie

 

[rkselby98]

Bonnie go to the Dell web site, look up the model of your machine and it should give you the specks including the manufacturer of the hard drive.

 

[Dan O]

Bonnie,

Almost every hard drive will evenually have some bad sectors. You ask if 32,768 bytes of bad sectors is bad? It depends on the size of your hard drive. If it is more than 10% of the size of the drive than I would say it is a problem. I think Dell would replace it for you for free. The key if a hard drive is going bad is when the number of bad sector keeps growing every day. When you run ScanDisk are you using the Thorough option? It will mark the bad sectors and Windows will not use them. Run it a few times and watch the count. Good luck.

 

[Bonniejo]

Dan , Thank you. So far, the number of bad sectors is the same. I will test it out a few more times but twice it has ocurred in the same area and for 32,768 bytes. I have not experienced any increase in bad sectors just problems with software and programs running. NOw that I have reformatted this PC, maybe it will be okay once I reload all of my programs. MY thought was, should I reload and attempt to go ahead with this "somewhat massive" process or just ask for a new hard drive! I guess it is a toss up! Maybe I will get a new one with more problems than this? No clue here! It is a 45 gig a byte machine and I will be using it for alot of intense work with music software and augmentative communication device backup and dynabeam software( meaning alot of extra resource usage with new and extensive software, etc.)
So, to clarify here, in the scheme of a 45 gig system, is 32,768 bytes a concern? It seems to be NOT but, again, this has been a problem in the past, even in a simple program such as WORD!
Though, I have not loaded any programs into this newly formatted system nor tested thwem out!
My fear is, when I watched and listened to the scandisk and it got to the problem artea, I "actually" heard it attempting to get past this portion of the drive! Wow! It retried at least 20+ times and then advanced forward! That scared me and made me think it has a major problem! But, I am no expert here and know more about MAcs than PC's. Ha! Bonnie

 

[radio operator]

You said you have 2 years left to run on the warranty, how long have you had the machine ?. How long before you noticed the bad parts of the Hard Drive ?. Would personally get it changed as you may have been sold a faulty Hard Drive in the first place.

 

[Mike C UK]

I agree Bonniejo.
You have nothing to lose in contacting Dell and putting your case to them. Whether they will agree to replace all or part of your PC is rather in the lap of the gods but what the heck, it's worth a try.

 

[TweakBoy]

Low Level Format?

 

[Mike C UK]

Hi again Bonniejo.

Just in case you're wondering what Tweakboy is referring to with LLF, take a look at this link:

http://www.seagate.com/support/kb/disc/low_level_ata.html

You may not have a Seagate drive but the info is pretty good.

 

[Dan O]

Bonnie,

With a 45GB drive it is about 1.5% of bad sectors. Most vendors will not exchange it until it get over 10%, but you could try. Have you used the Thorough option of ScanDisk as I have suggested? It should make fix your problem for normal Windows operations. Your concern that the same sectors are marked as bad is normal. Because it's a bad spot on the hard drive which are not self healing.