Bad Sectors (WinXP SP-2)

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I was having disk problems, and ran chkdsk first at boot up and then, since I got rrors, in the Recovery Console.

This raised two questions:

1) When I ran the check at startup, I happen to catch the “266 bad sectors” but nothing else as it whisked by. Isn’t there a way to make it pause, or a place to review the findings? and

2) If you have bad sectors, what’s to stop checkdsk from being “on” one of the bad sectors, thereby corrupting the scan itself? Should you therefore “primarliy” trust chkdsk if it’s run from the install CD?

Chuck Billow

Chuck Billow

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Chuck,
I don’t believe that Windows will load if chkdsk is on a “bad” sector, although I could be wrong. I’ve run into a situation where some of the Win98 system files were located on 24 bad sectors, and the entire o/s refused to load. Your question is valid, and, yes, I’d say that’s correct. Depending on how valuable this installation is, and how much time you have into it, you might want to download Steve Gibson’s SpinRite 6 , arguably the best disk utility out there. It’s very possible that SpinRite can completely restore your hard drive to working order, repairing the damaged disk sectors. It’s expensive ($80 US), but it’s paid for itself if it saves just one hard drive from death. Plus, if you buy SpinRite 6, you get the right to download and use SpinRite 5 (the 16-bit version). Both are superb. SpinRite has saved half a dozen seemingly dead hard drives for me over the last year or so; a copy of it is always in my toolbag. It works, and works well.

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Liberty:

I.m not sure if Wi (XP) will load either — but I do know that it tries — for a LONG time. And this after a re-boot of a session that seemed to be going OK… And also, I had just run chkdsk yesterday, finding several errors then as well.

I’ve seen SpinRite… that may be a good idea. GRC puts out top flight software, you’re right. It’s not so musch that any data is that precious, or, for that matter, irretrievable, as I do image fairly regularily.

It’s more that idea that if it happens (more than once, which it has, 3 times in the last 3 days), then there are issues that need addressing.

Regards,
Chuck

Chuck Billow

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While imaging your drive is a great idea, it won’t work out if the drive has physical problems, as you are no doubt aware. Buying another hard drive is definitely an option; that would allow you to use the current drive as a slave. However, in order to get the data transferred to the new drive, the physical problems need to be addressed. I’d suggest investing in both SpinRite and a new drive. Use SpinRite to repair the current drive (if possible), then use your imaging program to copy the operating system to the new drive. Once you do that, you’ll be in a position to set the old drive as slave. It could then be formatted and used for data storage. Just a thought.

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John/Liberty:

This whole thing has just been over the last week or so. And I do enough tinkering that maybe I had the sectors for a while and just wasn’t aware…

I do think SpinrRite is a good idea, and I’m looking into getting 2 100 gig drives even so, and (maybe) mirroring them… or at least setting up some sort of rack system…

Thanks guys,
Chuck

Chuck Billow

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I’m curious; do you do enough video rendering or intensive 3D graphics to warrant a striped Raid array? If not, setting up a Raid array could be a waste of good space.

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Liberty:

No fair showing my ignorance…

I don’
t do enough of anything… I just figured that if I had 2 drives, and I could copy 1 to 2, or mirror, or… then I could eliminate worrying about this “stuff”…

“Cause I *have* lost things in the past, and now that this “irregularity” is showing up, my gun-shy side steps forward and says: “Hold on here… maybe there’s a better way…”

Regards,
Chuck

Chuck Billow

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Oh, I see now. You just want to slave the second drive, and use it for data storage. You’re not talking about a Raid array at all. The word ‘mirror’ threw me, and made me think you wanted to set up a Raided array.

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I’m not sure at all what Chuck is referring to, but for clarity/accuracy, RAID Level 1 is usually referred to as mirroring.

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Leif:

I wasn’t entirely sure either, but after reading through the reference you sent, that is exactly what I was referring to for my system.

It may be is a bit of overkill… I dunno. I do know that every time I have some issue like this it’s the blinking file I was just working with a hour ago that becomes inaccessible, and my backup is from the night before.

So, I say to myself, “Self, how much is having to recover / reconstruct data costing you, if it’s even possible?”

And so, from there I go looking for solutions…

Chuck

Chuck Billow

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Raid setups only give you protection against hardware failure. If you go for Raid 1, for example, and a file is corrupted, you will have a perfect copy of that corrupted file on the mirror.

If you need to survive a hardware breakdown with near-zero downtime, then invest in Raid hardware. If you want to survive hardware breakdown, *and* file corruption *and* getting out of multiple blind tweaks, then invest in backup/ghosting software and employ a rigorous protocol of running backups and understanding exactly what and why you are doing something.

Sometimes the simplest things are the best. For example, if you are working on a Word document with the option to create a backup each save, then you basically have one lifeline, timed from the last save. If the document is that valuable, then every 30 minutes (or whatever) you save it with a new filename. If it is even more valuable, you save it with a new filename and copy it onto a different drive. If it’s even more valuable than that, you save it with a new filename and copy it onto a different computer, and so on and so on. Only you can decide at what point your time is worth more than investing in more hardware.

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Leif:

You know, you’re probably right… but it ends up in a little different direction than you (or I) have thrown in the mix:

Right now I have two drive, a 40, and an 80 gig. I’ve been using the 80 for storing install setups, downloads, backups, and misc. files.Since I, sooner rather than later, am going to need at the least more drive space, maybe what I should do is re-organize my entire plan:

Move ALL my files, except backups, to one drive, and use the other for nightly copying of the first.

I could then run however many backups of documents, the registry, or restore points during the day to disk 2 to protect against file corruption, installation problems, “tweaking mistakes”, etc. and then at night copy disk 1 to disk 2. That way, I’d have a back door for “changes in plans”, and yet have copies of in fact everything on a nightly basis.

Geez, you’d think I was talking about national secrets to hear me. But I just HAT losing stuff… especially when I can say to myself: “I was trying to tell you…” That way I (hopefully) feel a little less foolish.

Regards,
Chuck

Chuck Billow

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Just don’t get any viruses or worms, since they’d affect both disks. You still will have to occasionally back up to DVDs, then store the backups off-site (in case of fire, flooding, etc).

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Yup.

Chuck Billow

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Chuck,
Are you running chkdsk with the Repair option? If you are, and this behaviour is ongoing, I’d suggest that you investigate a replacement hard disk soon.

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