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Thread: UH oh........bad clusters.........oh darn

  1. #1
    Insane Member Warthog's Avatar
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    UH oh........bad clusters.........oh darn

    Today I turn on my computer....Scandisk tells me there are bad clusters and is going to fix them. So far there are three. It's still scanning the 45gb.

    And this is after I just told 50 people that IBM drives rock

    What can I do? Do I have to reformat soon? Defrag?

    Or.....buy a new harddrive????

    Warthog

  2. #2
    Xtreme Member NDC's Avatar
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    Depends on how severe the bad sectors are. If it comes to the worst, you're gonna see some more bad sectors start to appear...

    Do not defrag the disk! First do a scandisk. You don't want defrag moving data to bad sectors...

  3. #3
    Insane Member Warthog's Avatar
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    Ok, I won't defrag.

    I clicked "Fix it"....should I have done that? Oh well.

    What is the "worst"? I mean, what would I have to do - buy new hd or reformat?

    Warthog

  4. #4
    Ultimate Member otheos's Avatar
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    Noooooooooooooooo!!!!

    Don't run scandisk and try to fix them!!

    Go to IBM and download DFT (in downloads) and use it to RECOVER THEM!

    scandisk/disk doctor will just create more bad clusters!

    Anyway, if this is the 45G 75GXP, have it RMAd and INSIST to get either a refund (if you can from your dealer) or an 60GXP (even at smaller size) from IBM.

    I won't say I am totally convienced about the "failing 75GXPs" story, but better safe than sorry!

    BTW, bad sectors are covered by your warrantee (3 years normally).

    Remember to backup everything ASAP.

  5. #5
    Ultimate Member voogru's Avatar
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    I had (2) IBM drives go bad a 60GB and a 30GB. 30GB recently started having bad clusters. its all WD from now on.

    DONT BUY IBM!

    also to top it off. i cant get a Refund i can get an exchange but tell me. why exchange it and then get another bad drive. it already happend once.

    [This message has been edited by voogru (edited 08-17-2001).]

  6. #6
    Xtreme Member NDC's Avatar
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    Otheos

    Why not run scandisk? Does that make mark bad sectors on sectors that aren't actually bad?

    What is different about the IBM recovery utility?

    Thanks!

  7. #7
    Senior Member S.D.Willie's Avatar
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    Warthog:
    im with voogru on the western D kick. its all ive ever bought, and they'll replace them if you send your old one in. i was on the job where it took me 3 hours to ghost a drive with bad clusters to a new one. THIS WAS A 3 GIG DRIVE!!! shoulda took around 15 minutes in my case. point being id get a new drive and get it up and running while you still can.
    just my 2 cents.

    SD

  8. #8
    Senior Member Nighthawk's Avatar
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    "fix it" is good, since my understanding is that then it'll try to remap the bad sector to a good one.

    Bad sectors can signal anything from a dropped hard drive to a dying hard drive.

    "worst" in this case would be a new hard drive purchase (bad drive with warranty run out) or a new controller card (controller on your motherboard for some reason died)

  9. #9
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    maxtor for me, they are reliable, and can be replaced in advance within 2-3 days usually.(with a hold on a credit card of course) and just in general the company is a pleasure to deal with. Once i had a replacement drive from them go bad. I called, explained my situation and they sent someone out to MY house to pick up the drive, and THEY payed for shipping BOTH ways. didn't cost me a cent, not even gas or postage...Maxtor's service has sold me as a customer for life.

    **edit** I should add that this was a 6 gig drive that was replaced the second time, and upon recieving the new drive, i was absolutely amazed to find a 30GB drive. which i'm using as a secondary drive to my 27gig maxtor 7200rpm. the 30 is 5400 so it makes a good archive drive.

    [This message has been edited by falcompsx (edited 08-18-2001).]

  10. #10
    Member dyer_maker's Avatar
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    Hey "BossHog" if you do end up deciding to reformat and you want to start completely over from scratch do an unconditional format. Format c: /u. That should help with getting rid of the bad sectors I believe.

    dyer_maker

  11. #11
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    Having bad clusters does not mean that the drive is toast or will be soon. As Nighthawk said the “fix it” redirects all the data in a bad cluster to a new/good one. You should checkout Steve Gibson’s website, http://grc.com , he has a very good article on harddrives and a highly acclaimed program that re-maps hardrives with bad blocks.

    AL


    [This message has been edited by aldtech (edited 08-17-2001).]

  12. #12
    Insane Member Warthog's Avatar
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    I was kinda depressed when I saw the message after it was finished....may have to replace hardware. But now that I read what you guys have said, I feel better .

    The drive is 1 year old in December. I'm sure I still have the receit, too.

    We'll see what happens.

    Warthog

  13. #13
    Ultimate Member otheos's Avatar
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    Have you heard of the Shutdown bug?

    It floated some time ago with Win98 and fast processors shutting down earlier than the cache of the drive took to write the data on disk.

    The same problem exists in W2K but has not been fixed (unlike the W98) with a patch yet (not sure about SP2 though).

    Anyway, the shutdown bug can cause bad clusters but these are fully recoverable.

    If you use scandisk/ndd they try an "abrassive" read of the cluster untill they decide to mark it bad. In the mean time if there is a physical problem in the area (an actuall contact between disk and head occured in the past and caused the bad cluster) this technique might damage the surrounding clusters. Some times it also causes a hard IDE reset which in terribly unlucky cases can cause contact of the head and the disk.

    Back up your data, and run the full DFT. This will write then read on the disk (you'll lose all data) and if the cluster is trully recoverable it will be recovered. If the drive fails the test RMA it right away.

    Sometimes the drive may report bad clusters again. If they can be correlated to a shutdown then there's no problem, (other than DFT again) and shutdown after you close all programs and leave the system idle fo a couple of minutes before shutdown.

    Have you checked the SMART status? (get EZ-SMART from IBM). SMART is very helpfull and should pickup any imminent failures.

    BTW, never low level format. You can zero it if you want using the manufacturer utility.

    EDIT: Do you get the screeching noise?

    [This message has been edited by otheos (edited 08-18-2001).]

  14. #14
    Insane Member Warthog's Avatar
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    No noise and no problems since this happened yesterday.

    If I run that utility, it will erase everything on my hd and I have to reinstall windows?

    Warthog

  15. #15
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    I'm not an expert on this either, but I'd say run scandisk and forget about it, IMO.

    I had a Seagate develop bad clusters some years ago, I let Windows take care of them and the drive is still in use today. I have't been using anything other tha WD's for the last few years, and I haven't seen any bad clusters on any of them.

    I don't think you should let any of this influence the high regard you have for IBM... "stuff" happens to every drive, and drive manufacturer occasionally.

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