wtf? new hd already getting bad cluster?

[Nights_L]

First, I must apologize to post this here, but I think it's quite urgent, I need an answer asap, so I decide to post it here

For some reason, I sold my old Maxtor 30G, and buy a <b>new</b> same hard disk, except it's a 40G (DiamondMax Plus8)
When I got my new hd, I did the same thing as I did for all my old hd, I divide to 3 partitions, do a fresh Windows installation etc, to summary, I use this hd the exact same way as I do with the other hds.
But then, only after 2 weeks of usage, tonight, for some reason, while I was restarting computer, (no crash, I just restart it) it goes into ScanDisk automatically, and then it takes extremly long to scan drive C, after scaning, it says there is a <b>bad</b> Cluster of 8 KB, the msg is actually sth like Windwos replaced 8KB in pagefile.sys (can't remember exactly)

I've never encounter with hd's problem, so from my knowledge, it means hd is developing bad sector and might be gone soon or later, am I right?
so what should I do now? backup all my important files and get a new hd? since it's still under warranty, can I just go back to the store and ask for a replacement?
note: SMART Status is OK from Bios
I appreciate for any of ur help in advance, and sorry for my crappy English.
oh yeah, you might want to check my post at Hard disk section a few days ago, it was about some driver, could this lead to a bad sector?
<A HREF="http://forumz.tomshardware.com/hardware/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&p=95624#95624" target="_new"> AIDA32 disk benchmark, is it normal?</A>

 

[mwgorecki]

Dude - I had the same problem with one of my year old WD 80 GB drives. WD replaced it, and the other half of the pair is now having the same problem. I have no idea why it happened - and to both drives. Sorry, I cannot help, but I feel your pain.


sz

 

[Rob423]

Damn That sucks......... i had this gay problem on my drives, im pretty sure it's the maxtor....... i hear a SICK Clicking Sound once n' while......... its kinda annoying....... maybe 3 times a day

Asus A7N8X Deluxe
80gb Maxtor
200gb WD 8mb cache..
Lian-Li PC-60
Lite-On 52X
AMD XP2800+
LeadTek GeForce 4 Ti4200 w/vivo 128mb 8x
Hitachi CML174
1 GB Corsair XMS PC3200 Cas2

 

[Nights_L]

What do you do? you keep using them?

 

[jihiggs]

its probly that virus sodnighthawk was talking about rofl.

wpdclan.com cs game server - 69.12.5.119:27015
now featuring (optional) cheating death!

 

[Nights_L]

What Virus?

 

[jihiggs]

i dont have the link, but dont worry about it, it was really over the top and retarded.

wpdclan.com cs game server - 69.12.5.119:27015
now featuring (optional) cheating death!

 

[Rob423]

I didn't do crap the problem still persists.... well lets see i built this computer over a year already when i was 18 now im gonna be 20 the problem started maybe 3 months ago from today maybe alittle sooner..

well i never use my WD 200gb, i use it to just store stuff like movies, but i rarly access the drive, its the maxtor that has my OS and whatever else im running... So far So good, i recently did a fresh clean Install, im thinking about ghosting the drive and then loading it on a new HD

Asus A7N8X Deluxe
80gb Maxtor
200gb WD 8mb cache..
Lian-Li PC-60
LiteOn 52X/LiteOn 811s DVD-RW
AMD XP2800+
LeadTek GF4Ti4200 128mb
Hitachi CML174
1GB Corsair XMS PC3200

 

[Nights_L]

If I can, do you think it's still a good idea to get a new hard disk?
cuz I want to play safe..another thing is that, it happens often that after scandisk, I often got some file fragments, even I did nth bad, which didn't happen before

 

[mwgorecki]

I get the same thing - as a matter of fact, it just did it. But I have WD drives, but I too have the Asus A7N8X Deluxe. Interesting...


sz

 

[mwgorecki]

Until WD sends me the replacement - yes! But I just ordered two 160 GB SATA drives, too.


sz

 

[Rob423]

well i don't think it's the WD, i am almost positive it's the Maxtor

Asus A7N8X Deluxe
80gb Maxtor
200gb WD 8mb cache..
Lian-Li PC-60
LiteOn 52X/LiteOn 811s DVD-RW
AMD XP2800+
LeadTek GF4Ti4200 128mb
Hitachi CML174
1GB Corsair XMS PC3200

 

[mwgorecki]

It might be the board. But I built 3 identical systems that weekend, and only mine has the problem...


sz

 

[endyen]

My favourite computer shop no longer sells maxtor hdds because they had to rma so many. They will only sell the WD drives with 3 year or better warranty. Mostly they like the seagates.

 

[redface]

new hdds are too fragile....
that's why those fxxxxxx manufacturers cut warranty period from 5yrs to 1yr.
But for your info, please wait for 1minute after you shutdown your computer before you move your computer around cause the hydraulic xxxxxx motor need some time to fully stop. If you happened to bump it a few times while it is still spinning you know the consequence (of course too fragile..).

A fine day!

 

[redface]

oh, and also some of the computer shop guys said that for those new hdds never hold the hdd by palm clamping the top/bottom, always hold their sides. donno why but they good 4boxes of rma'ed hdd in one day.

A fine day!

 

[Derek1970]

replace the drive immediately after backing up your data. Bad clusters (blocks) or clicking of any kind should not be tolerated especially if the drive is still under warranty. These are signs of impending failure. I am finding more and more companies are releasing bad batches of HDs ... IBM in particular suffered a 80% failure rate of the 40 gig GXP Deskstar drives (i lost two within a week of each other .. both just over a year old). The replacements seem to work fine .. for now. ;-)

 

[Nights_L]

I just find out that even on my partition E, there is a 256KB bad sector appeared...
crap..guess i should get it exchanged asap, can't wait for a new nForce2 board..

 

[grafixmonkey]

Sometimes drives just fail early. I just had a 3-month-old Maxtor drive bite the dust. Got a warranty replacement, system now working ok.

If I were you, I wouldn't put any important data on a drive that shows signs of failure (clicking, squealing, etc.) those are signs that the read/write head is banging on the disk surface somewhere. It will read fine in some areas but will fail in others, and the bad sectors will spread out and eventually fail the whole drive. Get a warranty replacement, or if the drive is out of warranty, then well I guess it was just its time to go.

If you need the info that was on it, I like this tool called R-Studio from R-Labs. It recovers data from a drive that has crashed, just needs the platters to still be spinning. I used it on a 100GB WD drive, and I could hear the read heads squealing against the platter surface while the program was running, but it still got the stuff off.

 

[Nights_L]

I went back to the store where i got this hd, and they told me to go home and run PowerMax from Maxtor, and to format everything and re do all the partitions
(he said sometimes, software could cause this kind of error)
On first run, it won't even let me format my C Drive, it says unabled to read FAT file system or sth
I deleted all the partions, and ReFormat all the 3 Drives again. I used PowerPax again, it says there is an error, and PowerMax will correct it. It "corrected" the error, and says "Congratulation, ur HD is certified to be Error Free"
I used ScanDisk from Win98 bootDisk to scan all the 3 partitions, now no disk is having bad sector, I installed WinXP, and working currently..
But i'm a newbie on this domain, not quite sure what's the real problem now, software or hardware?
bah, i think i'll just go grab another HD and leave the maxtor one as a backup ..

 

[grafixmonkey]

PowerMax probably caused the disk to bypass the bad sector. (I think it can do that... anyone?)

Did you run the FULL test? or the quick one? I'd run the full test if I were you, because if that drive is starting to develop bad sectors already and it's still under warranty, you should take advantage of the warranty. My philosophy is that the HDD companies have started being more willing to sacrifice reliability, because it is more intangible than other features and customers don't have good tools for determining if the reliability of a brand of HDD is sub-par. So, if they are willing to do this, then we should be able to stick it to them when our drives begin failing prematurely.

Also, my experience is that bad sectors tend to multiply and grow.

Of course, it could also have been your drive cable the whole time. It's pretty unlikely that Windows is at fault, the windows code would have to be corrupted in a very specific way, along the lines of "a million monkeys randomly toggling bits will eventually create that code circumstance."

 

[Nights_L]

I run the full test..