bad sectors

I can't get defrag or scandisk to complete. They both lock up the computer. I see that I have some bad sectors and don't know if it's the OS or the hard drive. Outlook is "iffy" sometimes it works and sometimes not. and I get messages that it( the computer , not Outlook) can't write to drive C along with a blue screen and freezing up on me.
So my question is do I need a hard drive or will f disking and reloading Windows do the trick? Thanks!

 

Hi bstaton1955
Welcome to the boards!
What we need to do, is get you through a scandisk first, to see what's going on, and see if it's repairable.
Have you tried doing a scandisk from safe mode? Can you give us a few system specs please?

Daizy

 

These usually represent physical damage to the HD.

We need to look at some * POSSIBLE * causes.

This can be caused by the HD getting bumped whiles it is being used or I have had it caused by a power Fluctuation.

Another VERY GOOD WAY to create these bad sectors is the use of the power button to shut down and restart the machine. If it is used to shut down and then a wait of about a minute before restarting then things are usually OK. But if shut down and then restarted with no wait it can mess up the HD.

Use of the RESET button does not cause this problem.

How you do it may depend on which version of Windows you have. I have Win98 SE so I can only relate to it.

I believe you need to boot to a DOS ( floppy ) boot disk and run Scandisk with surface check.

But what would be better yet would be to run Norton DiskDoctor from a DOS floppy boot up and run it with thoruogh surface check.

I would also suggest that you start making preparations for a new HD. Once these bad sectors start appearing they can multiply.

The messages that you are getting lead me to think the way I do.

BillyBob

 

Ok......I tried ScanDisk from the DOS prompt and still only got to 21% then a message that "ScanDisk encountered a data error while reading the FAT entry for cluster 276634. This prevents ScanDisk from fixing this drive." I should also tell you that it repaired 65 bad clusters before I got the message. The specs will be pasted below. I really appreciate the help from you guys!Thanks! Butch

Brand/Model Gateway GP6-400C
Type Desktop
Serial Number 0015592963
BIOS Intel Corp. 4F4JZ0XB.15A.0008.P06.9906171056 06/17/99
System Board Intel Corporation FJ440ZX AA729475-205



Processor


Description Your Results
Brand/Model Intel Celeron A
Nominal Clock Speed 400 MHz
Measured Clock Speed 400 MHz
External Clock Speed 66 MHz
CPUID Information 0x0665 0x183F9FF
CPU Load 7%
Level 1 Cache 32 KB
Level 2 Cache 128 KB
Speed Rating 1051 (94% of 32555 similar)




Memory Configuration


Description Results
RAM installed 192 MB
Windows RAM 192 MB
Total RAM slots 2
Available RAM slots 0
Max RAM module size 256 MB
Memory Type 128+64;|Unknown|DIMM|;T5
Level 1 Cache 32 KB
Level 2 Cache 128 KB
Chipset Intel 82443BX
Speed Rating 640 MB/s (96% of 32555 similar)

 

I tried ScanDisk from the DOS prompt

You say DOS prompt. How did you arrive at same ?

Did you reboot and use F8 ( or control key to get the Menu and choose Command prompt only ?

Or did you select DOS Prompt from within Windows ?

In your case it may not make a difference as far as fixing goes but the latter is not really DOS. Windows is still running.

BTW. What OS are you using. That could make a difference on how you get to DOS.

But the best way to do this is to boot the machine with a floppy Disk. That is a better DOS to use.

BillyBob

 

I did the restart in MSDOS and the OS is 98SE.

 

With 65 bad sectors, I would not try to use the drive for anything important. However, if I were to encounter a drive like that in my shop, being the curious person I am, I would do extensive diagnostic on it. You may want to try this, yourself.

First, I would delete all partitions on the drive; then I would reFDisk and format it. After formatting, I would run ScanDisk with the following command line:

scandisk c: /autofix /nosave /nosummary /surface

Of course, I would expect to find bad sectors and I would expect scandisk would take quite some time to complete, perhaps all night. At some points, scandisk may appear to be hung for minutes at a time, or even hours. After scandisk completes, I would repeat it with the same command line to see if it found new bad clusters. If it does the second time around, this tells you that you have a bad logic board on the drive and the drive is totally useless. If it does not, the disk, itself, probably has bad surface area and could be used once the bad clusters are marked. I repeat it should not be used for anything important.

I once had a hard disk that had over a hundred bad clusters. I used that disk for over a year without a problem; but, I didn't use it for anything critical. I just had it in a machine that received faxes, and that's all.

 

OH Lordy! I tried to fdisk my old packard bell and it's STILL not working! I can't even get it to boot with a disk now.
I'm obviously not good with that at all. This machine has a partition (put there by my brother in law) and I never understood why anyone would partition a hard drive in the first place. I thought Windows was supposed to manage the where fors and ats on the disk. I can work systems pretty well, but not the technical stuff. Even all the books have managed to confuse me. The computer logic part of my brain never developed. haha. But I'll try your suggestion too if I can figure it out. The last scan disk took about 12 hours because I had to keep walking by and selecting "fix it" every time I noticed it stalled. It may be worthy to note that I use SystemSuite as a firewall and virus scan and it has a defrag and scandisk utility that also gets hung at the 20% mark. I don't use my computer for anything other than the occasional web surfing and email.
BTW......I went to the Gateway site to find out exactly how much I can upgrade this system with the existing mother board, and could never find out the largest hard drive, processor or memory maximum for it. Does anyone have a suggestion for leads on finding out about that? I never knew a site like this existed until I ran across it on the web. I think it's great! I gives the techies a chance to merge and the computer dummies like myself a chance to learn a little more. In my case I'm SURE that I'm depriving a village somewhere of their idiot! LOL (can you tell that I like Daizy's signature??)

 

As for confirming the "fix it" thing, the command line I gave you will eliminate the need for confirmation.

 

KEWEL! I printed out the thread so I can remember it all. Thanks!

 

The idea of partitioning is to keep the OS and other programs separated so that ALL IS NOT LOST if a format of the C: drive is required.

With the drive partitioned things like Favorites, My Documents and most programs can be setup to use another partition.

Plus any backups can be stored on the other partition(s)

You can't see why partitioning and I can't see why not.

If you have a 20gig HD loaded with 15gig of data it is ( at least to me ( being straight forward and honest )) STUPID to lose it all.

Also the Windows Start Menu can be copied to another partition. If a format is required it can be copied back after the reinstall and you will know what you had and and where it was.

Yes. The software may need to be re-installed but 98% of the time it can go right back over itself. And by having the previous start menu you will know where it was.

I figure that the C: drive should be just large enough to hold the OS and associated software. With win95 though 98 SE 2gig is plenty.

Right now with 98 SE my C: drive is 3gig. But only 1.2gig is being used.

BillyBob

 

http://grc.com/spinrite.htm

 

What does this one mean?
I'm sorry I haven't been back, but working long hours is a bummer!
I tried the scandisk with the floppy and it didn't work either. So I'm back to finding a new HD. I really appreciate all the help and info you guys have given me! And the reasoning for partitioning now makes pertect sense to me. I just couldn't understand why I had 1.5 gigs of unused space on drive D that was never used for anything except a copy of Windows that was never used for anything. Now I understand. Thanks!

 

Spinrite is a disk repair utility that is generally better than Scandisk and Norton Disk doctor. It sometimes won't run with all drives/systmes, etc. I use it extensively for suspected physical problems with a hard drive or disk. Your symptoms are basically a physical hard drive problem.

You may also want to go to Ontrack's web site and download the evaluation version of Data Advisor. It will tell you if your hard drive is about to belly up! http://www.ontrack.com/dataadvisor/

If you know who the manufacuturer of your hard drive is you can co to their web site and usually obtain a diagnostic program which will do the same thing.

You need to back up any important data ASAP no matter what you do, I wouldn't shut off the computer either for any period of time as the hard drive may not spin back up. Restarts are OK but I would try to limit usage until you have your data backed up.

Hope this helps.

 

Upgrade

I went to the Gateway site to find out exactly how much I can upgrade this system with the existing mother board, and could never find out the largest hard drive, processor or memory maximum for it. Does anyone have a suggestion for leads on finding out about that?
___________________________________________________

According to the PDF document I found on Intel's Website, your computer will support up to 256MB of PC66 Memory, using 2 128mb modules. Unfortionatly, your 400Mhz Celeron is the max the board will support. As for your Hard Drive, I'm sure you could install a 30Gig drive without any problems. Drives larger than 32 Gigabytes will require 3rd party software inorder to be recognized by your system (Retail drives include this software). Here is the document I found on Intel's Website: ftp://download.intel.com/design/motherbd/oem/72609001.pdf

Good Luck!