Archived from groups: microsoft.public.windowsxp.basics (
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Sharon, as usual, you hit the nail on th head, and pointed
me toward what I believe is a happy solution to my faulty
hard drive problems. There is still one small anomaly.
Despite their incomplete explanation as to how to us their
Data Lifeguard Tools, which had inhibited me from testing
W-D drives with W-D software, I managed to add what was
needed and now I have tested all my drives with quite happy
results. A drive which showed 10 contiguous bad sectors
when tested with Seagate's SeaTools.......showed *none*
when tested with W-D's tools, and none when subsequently
checked with chkdsk/r .
The mystery, which I'm willing to remain as such, is whether
W-D's Tools fixed (or marked as unusable) the sectors which
Seagate reported, or whether Seagate's SeaTools just will not
give believable results for W-D drives.
Thanks for the sage advice, and thanks for forcing me to use
the right tools for the task. I hope other readers will keep
these things in mind as well.
Bill Lurie
>Sharon F. wrote:
>
> Bill, I think this is a concern that deserves a closer look. Problem drives
> can do very weird things. Better to get a "good" drive than to try
> troubleshooting problems that are due to a drive in poor condition. That
> kind of troubleshooting is always a lose/lose proposition. Replace the
> drive. If the problem continues, then troubleshoot.
>
> I am not a hardware expert. The terminology below may be wrong as may be my
> understanding of how hard drives work. It's the general "gist" from what
> I've read and what I've been taught.
>
> A small number of bad clusters is considered normal.
>
> With older hardware, one wasn't concerned unless this number started to
> grow steadily over time. Bad clusters were flagged as they occurred and
> life moved on. Again, no concern unless that number of bad clusters
> continued to grow.
>
> On the other hand, "newer" hard drives have a built in "slush fund" of
> spare clusters. (Quotes around "newer" since this has been around for
> several years now.) These are intended to be used behind the scenes for
> replacing an occasional bad cluster. In most cases the allotment is
> sufficient for the life of the drive and the end user doesn't even realize
> that slush fund existed.
>
> However, when the end user sees bad clusters in disk tools results that
> indicates there already has been an accumulation of bad clusters. The slush
> fund is used up. This is why ,nowadays, you so often see the quick advice
> to "replace the drive" when bad clusters are mentioned.
>
> Another point: You're using Seagate tools on a Western Digital drive.
> Shouldn't be a problem but be aware that they may misreport specialty areas
> of the drive that were created by a different drive manufacturer (such as a
> slush area). Chkdsk is not as refined of a tool as these manufacturer
> utilities. When it is seeing bad clusters, it is most likely the regular
> old fashioned kind - those located in the area of the drive that the
> average user would be concerned about.
>
> So if just Seagate is reporting a bad cluster - it may be looking in areas
> that normally aren't a concern for everyday use. If Seagate *and* chkdsk
> are reporting a bad cluster, contact the manufacturer for a replacement.
> Since it's fresh from stock, it is still under warranty.
>
> Hard drives are "cheap" right now. Lemons and less than perfect drives seem
> to make it out the door and onto the shelf more often than they used to.
> One has to stay more on guard for bad units but luckily most manufacturers
> are quick to replace them with usable drives.
>
--
William B. Lurie
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