hard drive going, CRC error, etc...

to avoid confusion, i should explain up front that i have encountered the "hard drive failure immenent" message, i have already procured a new hard drive for if and when it does actually fail, but since my pc is subjected to a heavy salt air environment, i intend to defer installation of the new hard drive (to delay it being subjected to the salt air degradation...) as long as possible...

further, the motherboard/processor "went south" a couple of months ago and upon replacing them, carried forward the existing hard drive, left the old primary partition intact, and reinstalled in a new primary partition, gradually rebuilding the software base to some extent, but not fully...

so, what i would like to do before the old hard drive actually fails, is backup the old primary partition (using drive image) so that i can retain that base for future access... problem is, atttempting to do so, drive image encounters the CRC error (cyclical redundany check error), and using the basic reccomended problem resolution procedures (chkdsk /f, scandisk, partition magic error check, etc., but have not yet tried any software/freeware/costware "utilities ") does NOT resolve the problem...

now, i have researched resolution of the CRC error to some extent, but did not really find much help over and above the above noted basic fixes, so i was wondering if anyone out there might have a suggestion...

i was also wondering if defragging the old primary partition would help, and since it is a very large partition would like to avoid wasting the time (and overworking the supposedly failing hard drive needlessly) if someone might know if that might actually be of any help...

lastly, since drive image is an older version and powerquest has been acquired by symantec, is it possibly feasible that upgrading/procuring different software might resolve the problem, and what are the best disk fix oriented "utilities" out there that are deemed reliable???

> xp sp2, drive image 2002, partition magic 2002, western digital 80 gig 8 mb cache hard drive

Oops, my sincere apologies, for some reason I neglected to include the significant fact that I had already downloaded and ran the western digital data lifeguard tests, maybe because they were inconclusive to me and of no help, but to elaborate…

On the data lifeguard diagnostic startup, “smart” info on drive displayed as follows” “Smart status = fail, Raw read error rate = 200, threshold = 51” (all other stats were ok…).

In the initial foray with data lifeguard diagnostics, I encountered a fatal error on the quick test, and then after about 10 minutes on the extended test, it stopped on a sector and just sat there for about another 10 minutes, at which point I bailed out. However, since I did bail out on the extended test, thought I would fire it up again and let it run for an hour or so, why I am not sure, except that on the rerun, it did get past the initial stall after about 15 minutes, only to encounter several others shorter in duration, and then aborted after about an hour (see below for info on…). So, beginning to wonder if anything short of going ahead and installing the new hard drive is going to work, although some of the costware utilities that surfaced on a google of the CRC error message promised to fix this or any disk problems and at this point my bottom line question is, is anyone aware of whether or not these expensive disk utilities would actually fix this seemingly unfixable problem (and allow me to eventually backup the old primary drive)?

DLG test results follow....

Running dldiag quick test, At 8 seconds into the 2 minute test encountered hard error:
Quick test on drive did not complete
Status code = 07 (failed read test element, failure checkpoint = 65 (error log test)
Smart self-test did not complete…

(Re)ran the extended test, and this time after hanging up for about 10 minutes on that first sector, it finally resumed the test, but kept doing the same thing on subsequent sectors, and after about an hour, emitted message “too many bad sectors detected” with a big red X and also “test stopped with errors” as follows…

Test Option: QUICK TEST
Model Number: WDC WD800JB-00CRA1
Serial Number: WD-WMA8E6487673
Firmware Number: 710.W771
Drive Type: IDE
Capacity: 80.03 GB
SMART Status: FAIL
Test Result: FAIL
Test Error Code: 06-Quick Test on drive 1 did not complete! Status code = 07 (Failed read test element), Failure Checkpoint = 65 (Error Log Test) SMART self-test did not complete on drive 1!
Test Time: 11:25:47, January 25, 2006
Test Option: EXTENDED TEST
Model Number: WDC WD800JB-00CRA1
Serial Number: WD-WMA8E6487673
Firmware Number: 710.W771
Drive Type: IDE
Capacity: 80.03 GB
SMART Status: FAIL
Test Result: FAIL
Test Error Code: 08-Too many bad sectors detected !
Test Time: 12:21:19, January 25, 2006

 

It's doubtful that any utility out there is going to be able to create a useful image of your primary partition. I think these utilities are telling you that it's too far gone. I'm not even sure I'd want an image of a drive that was obviously failing.

Why not just install the new drive and install everything from scratch? Once you have your OS, drivers, software, etc. loaded, then make an image of that.

Unless you have variable data on your old partition, I'm not sure what kind of resolution you're expecting.

Gary

 

quote "It's doubtful that any utility out there is going to be able to create a useful image of your primary partition "

response: the (new) primary partion image copies just fine, it is the old (no-longer) primary partition that will not backup and that has the CRC errors...

quote: "I'm not even sure I'd want an image of a drive that was obviously failing "

response: see prior response...

quote: "Why not just install the new drive and install everything from scratch? "

response: it is my intent to eventually install the new drive (and restore an image copy of the primary partition rather than take the time to "start from scratch ", and as previously indicated i am need to postpone that as long as safely feasible...

quote: "Unless you have variable data on your old partition, I'm not sure what kind of resolution you're expecting. "

response: the answer is complex, but at a high level, basically i am attempting to capture the a huge undocumented installed software base and associated data from the old partition for future needs, as i do not have the time to deal with the process of even beginning to sort all of that out right now - the simplest, most expedient resolution for me is to try to simply fix the bad sectors and create an image copy of it......

on that last point, for emphasis, i have noted that there are several costware utilities that indicate that they can fix any disk problem, but i am not familiar with them and am simply trying to determine if anyone has knowledge of them, if they really work, and which one(s) might be best for the money...

 

So all this really boils down to you not being to able to read/copy/access/whatever your old partition.

Yes, there are services that can most likely recover all your data but I hear they're quite expensive. Sorry but I have no referrals for that.

Have you looked into into this product:
http://grc.com/spinrite.htm

Gary

 

incorrect, i can read/copy parts of it, i just do not have the time to deal with it now and simply want to image copy it for later useage...

yes, spinrite from grc was one that i "reviewed ", altho in the process i noticed where grc was defending/explaining some current shortcomings, something to the effect that they were trying to catch up to advancing technology of curent day hard drives, or something like that, and it was also one of the more expensive utils...