Rocky 1,224 Posted February 1, 2006 Share Posted February 1, 2006 The device, \Device\Harddisk2\D, has a bad block. HD2 is my SATA boot drive (120Gb) Anyone got any advise on maybe tracking down the bad block? I could stop using the partition that it's in (hopefully not the boot partition)... or I could start to prepare for a fresh install on a new drive. This one should still be under warranty anyway - less than 2 years old...? Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Specter 0 Posted February 1, 2006 Share Posted February 1, 2006 (edited) The device, \Device\Harddisk2\D, has a bad block. HD2 is my SATA boot drive (120Gb) Anyone got any advise on maybe tracking down the bad block? I could stop using the partition that it's in (hopefully not the boot partition)... or I could start to prepare for a fresh install on a new drive. This one should still be under warranty anyway - less than 2 years old...? ← Depends on who made the drive, and whether it's an OEM drive or not, for the warranty duration. You couldn try Vopt 7 for XP. I believe it will mark bad blocks so that they are no longer used. I know Norton Speed Disk and Disk Doctor do this, but chances are, if you have one bad block, there are more on the way very soon. Check into the warranty at the mfr's website. The best thing to do is replace the drive. some OEM drives are only warrantied for a year. retail drives are usually 3 years. You'll just have to check and see. It's really to bad that low-level formatting, like with older IDE and ScSI drives is no longer an option. It allowed you to physically redraw the drive's geometry, creating new tracks, blocks, and sectors. But that is a thing of the past. Edited February 2, 2006 by Specter Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Rocky 1,224 Posted February 1, 2006 Author Share Posted February 1, 2006 Yeh it was on OEM Maxtor driver. I downloaded their tool for checking the integrity of HD's , but it threw out an error and would not even run. You're probably right about the disk anyway, once it starts going bad, best thing is just to replace it. Kind of annoying only to get 20 months out of it though. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
firefly2442 0 Posted February 1, 2006 Share Posted February 1, 2006 Western Digital make good drives. Maybe go with them when you replace it. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Specter 0 Posted February 2, 2006 Share Posted February 2, 2006 (edited) Normally, Maxtor makes excellent drives. This would be the first one I've heard of doing this. especially since they bought out Quantum, who was an industry leader for nearly a decade. but don't mess with it Rocky. Just get it replaced. It will just become a majo headache if you don't. check with maxtor though. I think they may go 3 years on their OEM drives. Edited February 2, 2006 by Specter Quote Link to post Share on other sites
CR6 0 Posted February 2, 2006 Share Posted February 2, 2006 You're probably right about the disk anyway, once it starts going bad, best thing is just to replace it. Kind of annoying only to get 20 months out of it though. ← I agree you should back up the data off it and replace it ASAP. Once a HD goes bad, it just gets worse ... and it's good you can still take advantage of the warranty. I used to exclusively use Quantum in the past, then Maxtor, and still do, but since I got the Raptors, I've used a few 7200rpm WD HD's and been impressed. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Rocky 1,224 Posted February 2, 2006 Author Share Posted February 2, 2006 I ordered a replacement today. It's a seagate SATA of almost identical spec. Item: Seagate ST380817AS Barracuda 80GB 7200RPM SATA/150 8MB Cache - OEM I'll format it as a boot drive and once it's up and running with all my apps, I'll send that maxtor back under RMA - it's only 11 months old! Quick question, can I leave my current HDs in, add in the new Seagate and format it, then pull out the existing boot drive and boot up on the new clean seagate and do the XP install? Is that the easiest way? Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Specter 0 Posted February 2, 2006 Share Posted February 2, 2006 You can do it that way, but depending on where you plug it in, Windows may not be the C drive. But then XP doesn't really care, as it can be loaded on any drive, as long as it's loaded on a primary partition, but some of your apps might. Just something to keep in mind. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
CR6 0 Posted February 2, 2006 Share Posted February 2, 2006 You can do it that way, but depending on where you plug it in, Windows may not be the C drive. But then XP doesn't really care, as it can be loaded on any drive, as long as it's loaded on a primary partition, but some of your apps might. ← If you specify in your BIOS to boot to your new HD, you can install Windows as a "C" partition if you want. It will detect the old "C" partition from your old drive and designate it as another letter. You should reinstall all your old apps anyway, as a clean install won't have any of your apps registry entries. BTW, a clean install is a good time to upgrade your video card (hint hint) Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Rocky 1,224 Posted February 2, 2006 Author Share Posted February 2, 2006 BTW, a clean install is a good time to upgrade your video card (hint hint) ← Yeh, actually, I've been thinking today, and I've almost convinced myself to build a new gaming PC. Details to follow... Quote Link to post Share on other sites
CR6 0 Posted February 2, 2006 Share Posted February 2, 2006 I just helped a friend put together a Athlon 64 X2 system after his P4 2.6 system motherboard died. Only prob is he had a Sapphire X800XT AGP he spent a hefty sum on and wanted to keep using it, so it was actually not easy for him to find a decent Socket 939 board with AGP these days. If you upgrade to PCI-E, sounds like you'll need a video card, mobo and CPU ... Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Rocky 1,224 Posted February 2, 2006 Author Share Posted February 2, 2006 If you upgrade to PCI-E, sounds like you'll need a video card, mobo and CPU ... ← Yeh, looking at the AMD 3200 chip, an ASUS 939 socket PCI-E mobo, and a video card to be determined Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Snake@War 0 Posted February 2, 2006 Share Posted February 2, 2006 (edited) Here are 3 mobos where you have 1 AGP and 1 PCI-E. The first board had AGP 4x/8x, second has AGP express, and third, has AGPC (AGP Compatible Slot). There is a fourth, but it is a refurb of the first. I'ld go with the first. ASRock 939Dual-SATA2 Socket 939 ULi M1695 ATX AMD Motherboard - Retail AGP Slots: 1x AGP 4X/8X CPU Type: Athlon 64 FX/Athlon 64/Sempron DDR Standard: DDR 400 (PC 3200) FSB: 1000MHz Hyper Transport (2000 MT/s) Maximum Memory Supported: 4GB Number of DDR Slots: 4x 184pin DDR PCI Express x1: 1 PCI Express x16: 1 PCI Slots: 3 South Bridge: ULi M1567 Model #: 939Dual-SATA2 Item #: N82E16813157081 Edited February 2, 2006 by Snake@War Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Specter 0 Posted February 2, 2006 Share Posted February 2, 2006 The only reservation I would have is that the board is an Asrock, and they are pretty famous for being limited on options, and not real configurable. That may have changed, but I'm not so sure. I just haven't had alot of luck with them. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Snake@War 0 Posted February 2, 2006 Share Posted February 2, 2006 Disregard my above MOBOs. They are all having problems with the "AGP" slots. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Rocky 1,224 Posted February 4, 2006 Author Share Posted February 4, 2006 I installed my new HD today, I was thinking about detailing the whole process, don't know if that would be of interest to anybody, considering that some folks in here probably reinstall windows routinely. What I did was disconnect all 3 of my current drives (one SATA connection the other two IDE), then slap in the new SATA drive and install windows on it. Once I'd done that all that is left is to get all the important routine stuff off the old boot disk, like email accounts, email white lists, browser favourites, PDA files etc etc. So at the moment I am booting off the old HD until I get all those files moved over onto the new boot drive. Anyway, once I had all the old drives back in and booted back up onto my usual system, it looks like one of the folders didn't do too well. The folder I use to store ad hoc downloads, has a bunch of 0 byte files named with weird characters like @£$?. It may be a coincidence that last night I started deleting a bunch of files from that folder, but I don't really know what's happened there. Anyway, I'll go make a new post of everything I did to get a virgin drive up to XP Pro secure, because I wrote it all down anyway... Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Rocky 1,224 Posted February 4, 2006 Author Share Posted February 4, 2006 I forgot to ask the question I had heh.... That'll be 4 harddrives in this PC, there is only one case fun running, do I need to see about fitting another one? Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Specter 0 Posted February 4, 2006 Share Posted February 4, 2006 I forgot to ask the question I had heh.... That'll be 4 harddrives in this PC, there is only one case fun running, do I need to see about fitting another one? ← It would actually be good to see about adding at least one, maybe two if you can. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
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