Any way to test health of hard drive? 8.1

[Itaregid]

I have used WD Black drives for years and they are the only ones I know about that still have a 5 year warranty.

Oh? A quick Google looks shows Seagate still has several drive models with 5 year warranties. And so does WD as seen here, including some Red, Raptors, and externals, as well as Blacks.

Samsung even have some with 7 year warranties (though Samsung drives are now made by Seagate).

 

[caperjack]

most computer company's use the cheapest drive they can buy,for entry level computer ,the more you pay for your computer the better drive they will use ,im sure

 

[Itaregid]

most computer company's use the cheapest drive they can buy

Yet another reason to build your own, or find a trusted local builder to custom build one for you.

 

[Pittguy578]

@Pittguy578 - You could just be having a bad luck streak with drives, but note (if unlucky) even a single sudden loss of power can corrupt a hard drive. If you have had several power outages, or if your power supply is a bit unstable, these problems may persist. You might consider swapping in a known good PSU.

You can also run a chkdsk /f /r

chkdsk /f /r in Command Prompt.

the f=fix. the r= repair

Sorry guys but there is some confusion here. You don't need to use /f with /r because /r "implies" (already includes) /f.

In other words, all you need is chkdsk /r and chkdsk will attempt to fix any error AND recover any readable information on that drive, just as if you used chkdsk /r /f.

Also, please note /r is for "recover" not repair and this is why /r includes /f - the drive cannot recover any data without first attempting to fix the error at that location.

To verify this yourselves, use the common DOS /? switch. Open a command prompt and enter chkdsk /?. There you will see examples of all the syntax options, and their descriptions. Note if you know your drive was formatted using the NTFS file system, you could use chkdsk /b and this will "imply" (include) /r which already implies /f.

Got it. I do have a brand new power supply. A 750 watt Antec nearly a year old . I build my own systems. I like to tinker.

I think the main "shut downs " have been my fault like bumping the power cord the other night or my son hitting the power button. He is 20 months old.. Not sure how to prevent him from doing that .. Maybe put duct tape over the button ?I have a large steel case .

I should have qualified the previous rma before I got this second drive . It was due to the drive falling out of the cage so it was my fault . Can't believe they sent me a new one , but I wasn't going to argue. I had no major issues with it until literally the other night . Unsure if it had bad sectors before that ..

I know you said a single power outage could cause a corruption and I understand that .. But in terms of corruption do you mean permanent damage ie bad sectors or something that can be fixed with a refresh ?

 

[Itaregid]

He is 20 months old.. Not sure how to prevent him from doing that ..

Look in your BIOS Setup Menu. Typically you can configure the action of the power button so you have to press and hold the power button for 4 seconds before it will actually shut down.

I know you said a single power outage could cause a corruption and I understand that .. But in terms of corruption do you mean permanent damage ie bad sectors or something that can be fixed with a refresh ?

It is rare for it be permanent but it is not unheard of.

 

[whs]

You guys are right. /f /r is just an old habit. It does not hurt anything but as you said, the /f is superfluous.

 

[Itaregid]

You guys are right. /f /r is just an old habit.

And that is common so don't feel alone. With XP and before, /r did not include /f.

It does not hurt anything but as you said, the /f is superfluous.

Right. No harm is done but I still generally mention it, if for no other reason than to remind folks /? works for a lot of DOS commands. And that what we knew and did with XP is probably no longer true with current Windows.

 

[whs]

Use help in lieu of /?

 

[Itaregid]

Yeah, you can use help chkdsk for example and get the same screen as chkdsk /?.

 

[Pittguy578]

I am back. I found one of my old external 1TB hard drives. Tested and working fine.
Can a drive be "Too damaged" to clone?

I have Acronis True Image installed on my 250 Seagate (the old backup that is working fine). I have the bad drive as the "D" drive. I have the external USB as the I drive. I have tried to use Acronis 3 times. It keeps telling me that the clone has failed. Any idea what to do?

 

[Itaregid]

Can a drive be "Too damaged" to clone?

Sure. If the drive cannot be accessed, it cannot be cloned.

Tested and working fine.

With what?

 

[Pittguy578]

The drive can be accessed. But I finally found the log in there. It said there was a file system issue with the "bad" drive. Trying to repair it again. This is totally awful. I had no warnings drive was going bad until this happened . Hoping the repair process will let me do the cloning . Usually was good about backing up .. Didn't even think about cloning to a usb external drive until today

One other quick question. When I am using the 250 gb Seagate drive I can access the programs folder on the bad drive and get some of my games to work. Worst case scenario could I drag the full game folder onto the USB drive to try to save from having to reinstall the games ?

 

[Itaregid]

This is totally awful. I had no warnings drive was going bad until this happened .

That's not unusual. That is also why having a current, viable backup of ALL your data is essential.

I can access the programs folder on the bad drive and get some of my games to work.

I don't understand why you do that. If you can access folders and games, you should be backing them up, not playing them.

You will still likely need to reinstall the programs because if you move them, the locations saved in the registry will be different.

 

[Pittguy578]

I don't have anything mission critical on there . I do back up the photos and videos of my son to an external drive plus Google drive . That is the only thing that I was worried about . I will just clone the sea gate I have now and reinstall the programs if this repair doesn't work

I wasn't trying to play games . I went onto the bad drive to access the desktop though my username to get some photos I hadn't uploaded or backed up. While I was looking at the drive I thought I would go into the programs folder to see if any worked . Just booted one up . Didn't play

 

[Itaregid]

Sounds like a plan.

As far as playing game, you said you got them "to work". That suggests to me you "ran" the programs. While "playing" may not have been correct, I still feel making backups was a first priority. This is because whenever you start a program, files are opened and marked as open in the drive's file allocation tables. Typically temporary files are also written to the disk. With a potentially bad drive, those actions can make it worse. That was my concern - staring programs, not "playing" them. Sorry for my poor choice of words.

 

[Pittguy578]

Sounds like a plan.

As far as playing game, you said you got them "to work". That suggests to me you "ran" the programs. While "playing" may not have been correct, I still feel making backups was a first priority. This is because whenever you start a program, files are opened and marked as open in the drive's file allocation tables. Typically temporary files are also written to the disk. With a potentially bad drive, those actions can make it worse. That was my concern - staring programs, not "playing" them. Sorry for my poor choice of words.

I know . It was just weird I never had two primary drives hooked up at the same time like that. Just didn't know what would happen.

I think it was a lost cause anyways. I set Windows to repair the bad drive at startup, and it did go though to 100%, but when I tried to clone it I got the same error.

The 250gb one has all of the essentials on it like Office and Battlefield. I will just have to reinstall the other programs don't think many others. Now that I know I have a second external usb drive that will be same size as main disk I will back it up on a regular basis . I just didn't think I had another "empty " drive to back up the 1tb WD or else I would have done it .

 

[Itaregid]

I keep multiple backups in multiple locations. Think physical security. What happens if your house burns down, is flooded, or hit by tornado? Or if your house is broken into and the badguy steals your computer, and your external drive?

 

[caperjack]

only thing I worry about loosing is my wallet and my Memory ,the rest is trivial