Resolved AVG Scan/Maxtor Backup Mysteriously Change Coverage [Hard drive issues]

My wife's computer is Dell 4600 with Home XP SP3. We use a Maxtor One Touch 1TB external hard drive for daily data backup and HD imaging every three or four weeks. I recently noticed that the size of the HD image was significantly reduced in mid April (numbers attached). I did some checking at the Maxtor forum site but wasn't able to find any similar problems.

Just a couple of days ago my wife remarked that the scan time for her AVG 9.0 Free didn't take nearly as long as before. When I checked the history I noted that the # of objects scanned mysteriously dropped in mid March (numbers attached). I took a look around the AVG forum but didn't find anything similar.

My initial though when I had noted the Maxtor numbers was that the problem was with Maxtor. However, the fact that a similar thing happened with AVG leads me to believe that there is another problem. We haven't made any changes during that period that I can recall.

I looked at the Event Viewer for that period and I didn't notice anything significant (not that I would recognize anything that might cause this change). Any thoughts on what I should begin to look for?

 

Update:

It appears that the problem here may be a bad hard drive (Western Digital SATA 320 GB installed in January 2010). Today, I decided to try Acronis True Image (thanks to BBS' timely advertising) in lieu of the software that came with the Maxtor external HD. When I tried to image the WD SATA, it failed part way through the imaging exercise.

I searched around via Google and the Acronis website using the error messages I had gotten and began to suspect a hard drive problem. I downloaded the WD HD diagnostic tool from the WD website and ran that test. It failed on the Quick Test and when I tried to run the full test, it stopped part way through with an error message that there were "...too many bad sectors... ".

So - it appears that I may/do have a bad hard drive although the computer is working fine - other than not being able to image the hard drive. The data backups appear to be working fine. I'm looking at a couple of possibilities:

1 - Get another hard drive and restore using the last complete image recorded which was in April. We haven't added any significant programs - I think most of what I would lose would be the normal updates - Microsoft, Adobe, Java, etc. I am assuming that the data backups we have been doing on a daily basis are intact. There hasn't been any significant change in the backup file sizes like there was with the image file size.

2 - Get a new computer. This machine is about 5 years old and I had to replace the HD in January and the video card in April. At that time, I ran a power supply test which indicated the computer was running somewhat short in the power area. We had been toying with the idea of getting a new computer with Windows 7 any way. If we choose to go this route, would I be taking a significant risk using this computer as is until we do make the change.

Would appreciate any comments/opinions.

Also, this thread was moved from hardware - should it be moved back?

 

Pete,

I've been procrastinating on this task as I'm a bit apprehensive about getting started and the computer is still (or at least seems to be) working fine. I did get a new Seagate SATA HD and plan to start the task in the next day or so. I do have a couple of questions.

1. Which Recovery Disk to Use? The image I will use to restore from is on an external Maxtor 1TB HD. I have a Maxtor Restore CD which I used previously. The new Seagate also has a restore CD. Does it make any difference which one I use?
   
2. Can I Leave the Existing (Bad) HD Installed? If so, what should I do to make sure it is not recognized as the primary rather than the new Seagate - both will have the OS installed.
3. Back Up Vs Image Date Discrepancies? The most recent, usable, image is dated in mid April. However, the daily data backups are current to today's date. Once we restore the April image, can we do a data restore that will bring all the data files up to date? Or is that a question I should direct to Maxtor?

 

Pete,

Status report. I got the new hard drive installed this afternoon. My first attempt to restore using a recent (June) image failed. I restarted the system and then selected an image dating back to March prior to the time it appears the problems started. That one was successful.

I had two major concerns. My wife is an active genealogist and has thousands of e-mails that she makes use of as well as huge genealogy files. I backed those up outside of the Maxtor external HD and it's a good thing I did.

I was able to restore all the e-mails up through noon today. And I was able to restore the genealogy files to noon today as well. Although the Maxtor One Touch image restoration worked very well, the back up file restoration seemed to be confusing. If I hadn't backed those files up separately, I would have probably been in a fix.

I still have some updates to take care of - Adobe Reader among others and small fonts in OE folder and header lists, but I can do those at leisure. Thanks for your help and encouragement - I will post again after I get all the kinks out and let you know how it went and "Resolve" this thread.

 

Pete,

Final update. I think we have all the bugs ironed out - font sizes, dual display settings, various updates, etc. and all seem to be running fine. I have run the Maxtor image program a couple of times as we would complete major updates to save what we had just finished. The image size, about 35 GB, is consistent with what the images were before I noticed the hard drive problems.

I haven't switched over to Acronis yet but will in the next few days. I'm in the process of reading through the 200+ page user manual. If I run into problems in that area, I may be back. Thanks for the help and support. I will mark this one "Resolved ".