[kelkay]

Well I decided after finding out I had 3% bad blocks on my hard drive to do a PC Doctor 5 check on my hard drive. It failed two tests, and I'm afraid it is going to need replacing.
It failed the Smart short self test (the read element of the test failed)
and a surface scan test (there was an error reading sector 6381900 and 6943860)
I have done a disk clean, and defrag. Redid the test with same results.

Previously I did a test with HD Tune finding out I had the 3% bad blocks.

I do not have the money to replace this hard drive. It is not two years old until this December...

Any thoughts?

[Advertisements]

If it's out of warranty you pretty much have to buy a new one. I don't know the specs of the drive but if you get a name brand one it will include a software disk that will allow you to clone your operating system to it so you won't have to reinstall or lose data. Do some shopping, you can find them on sale for as little as $50.

You haven't told us about your machine, is this a notebook or a desktop? It's very easy to replace drives in desktops, sometimes very hard in notebooks.

[Tyger]

If it's out of warranty you pretty much have to buy a new one. I don't know the specs of the drive but if you get a name brand one it will include a software disk that will allow you to clone your operating system to it so you won't have to reinstall or lose data. Do some shopping, you can find them on sale for as little as $50.

You haven't told us about your machine, is this a notebook or a desktop? It's very easy to replace drives in desktops, sometimes very hard in notebooks.

[kelkay]

This is a desktop. I had close to a 250 GB HD, but never used it all. If I could get a bigger HD, say 300 GB that would be good. I have never replaced a HD, and am scared of it. I have replaced minor things like a new CDRom and memory. That is about the extent of my under the cover work on my computer, or any computer. This is a HP computer. I am surprised that the HD is going out already. It is close to one and a half years old. It does get a lot of use, but not heavy gaming or anything especially taxing on memory. This couldn't of happened at a worse time for me to replace one of these things. I would have to try it myself, because paying for someone to do it would be out of my reach completely. Thank you for your thoughts on this. I was afraid that is what it meant.

Edited by kelkay, 26 July 2008 - 08:47 AM.

[kelkay]

I guess I should add that my computer is a HP Pavilion a1610n computer. I do not know about what type of replacement I will need exactly. Are they kind of like replacing a memory card in that you have to know certain details before replacing it, or are HD's all the same, and you just pick the brand, and GB amount you want?

[kelkay]

While I was at one site browsing hd's it said you need to consider speed and capacity. Both would be important to me, but is there a lower limit as to what I should choose on speed? (or do you have to know the capacity first to know whether the speed is fast enough?)

[happyrock]

you should edit your post instead of posting three or four time to the thread...the people that can help will think someones already helping you and won'y even read your question...

you have a 250 GB SATA 7200 rpm drive in there now...
go here and there is a 500GB SATA FOR CHEAP...62 BUCKS...
hard drives are simple to install...unplug the power cable and data cable ....remove 4 screws...
remove old drive and connect up the new drive

this here is a link for your computer support...

Edited by happyrck, 26 July 2008 - 10:02 AM.

[Tyger]

Here is the link to your machine. Look at Product specifications.

http://h10025.www1.h...f...117&lang=en

I would suggest a Seagate drive as they are dependable and a boxed drive will come with the software disk. When you get the drive put the disk in your machine and read the instructions for cloning your drive. I think you will find it much easier than you believe it to be. Anywhere from 160 to 320gb should work fine for you. You need SATA and I would stick with 7200rpm, it's quieter and more dependable, and the faster drives are more expensive now.

[kelkay]

Thank you both very much. You have made this feel easier than I thought, and I appreciate the help very much. It does cut down on that overwhelming dread I was feeling.

[The Skeptic]

Why did you test the disk in the first place? Did you have any visible problems? The fact that part of the disk isn't good doesn't mean that the disk must be replaced, certainly not urgently. Please right click your disk in My computer > properties > Tools > check now. Check the two boxes > Start. Reboot to enable the process and report what happens.

I would also run memtest86 to check the RAM. RAM failure can manifest itself, wrongly, as disk problems.

[kelkay]

I checked the disk because I had 3% bad blocks. My IOBit program said I needed to defrag yesterday, and I did. Then last night, it showed it was at Med level again, not fully optimized as it has been running. So I just did the C drive that time. That caused me to worry, and I decided to use PC Doctor 5 to check the computer out. Everything showed good, including ram and memory. (Except the HD) I will try what you said. Thanks. I am performing an Ad Aware scan now, when it is done, I will try what you suggested.

Edited by kelkay, 26 July 2008 - 01:47 PM.

[kelkay]

I ran the check disk program, but I had to leave when it was on step 5 about 60% finished on t hat last step. When I came home, and moved the mouse, it was at the part where you sign in. It did not tell me anything about the check disk at all. Is there a log file of this that I could look at, or will I have to run the whole thing again?

I decided to run the PC Doctor 5 test on the Hard Drive again. The same two areas failed. The SMART short self test said the read element of the test failed.

Hard Drive Surface Scan Test failed. Error reading sector 6381900, and 6943860.
The PC Doctor test was done after the Check Disk was done.

>>>>I would also run memtest86 to check the RAM. RAM failure can manifest itself, wrongly, as disk problems.>>>> I do not know how to do a memtest86. Do I do this from the start, run?

I decided to run the HD Tune program to see what bad block percentage it said now. This is what the disk health said when I clicked on the error scan, then to disk health. This may be from the last scan, or it may be in real time, I am not sure... I only ran it previously to see about bad blocks. This says the status of the Hard Drive is OK.

HD Tune: WDC WD2500JS-60NCB1 Health

ID Current Worst ThresholdData Status
(01) Raw Read Error Rate 199 198 51 8651 Ok
(03) Spin Up Time 253 238 21 1708 Ok
(04) Start/Stop Count 100 100 0 890 Ok
(05) Reallocated Sector Count 196 196 140 27 Ok
(07) Seek Error Rate 200 200 51 0 Ok
(09) Power On Hours Count 88 88 0 9042 Ok
(0A) Spin Retry Count 100 100 51 0 Ok
(0B) Calibration Retry Count 100 100 51 0 Ok
(0C) Power Cycle Count 100 100 0 858 Ok
(BE) Airflow Temperature 58 52 45 42 Ok
(C2) Temperature 108 102 0 42 Ok
(C4) Reallocated Event Count 197 197 0 3 Ok
(C5) Current Pending Sector 195 195 0 242 Ok
(C6) Offline Uncorrectable 200 200 0 0 Ok
(C7) Ultra DMA CRC Error Count 200 200 0 0 Ok
(C8) Write Error Rate 200 200 51 0 Ok

Power On Time : 9042
Health Status : Ok

The temp is 40 deg C
.3% bad block (I though it was 3% previously)

Edited by kelkay, 26 July 2008 - 08:45 PM.

[The Skeptic]

I really don't think that you have to worry. Sometimes sectors in the hard disk get damaged. If the the damage is physical then you should worry. If it's logical don't worry. When you run checkdsk the program tries to fix bad sectors. Sometimes it succeeds sometime it doesn't. When it doesn't, the corrupt sectors are marked as such and windows and other applications will just skip it.

If you don't have any visible problems just leave it like that. You can run chkdsk again just to be on the safe side.

[happyrock]

just backup your dara frequently...just in case

[kelkay]

If I had something to back it up to, I would. I haven't got the money right now to get something to do a back up with. It is excellent advise though, thank you.

I am just starting a av scan, once finished I will do another check disk scan. I feel good about the HD Tune test though, that says it is ok. I will see what the other test says before making a decision about whether to switch the hd out or not.

Edited by kelkay, 27 July 2008 - 12:15 PM.

[kelkay]

I did the check disk again last night. It finished, but it posted the results so fast I could not read it...then it went to the sign up before I could even read, much less write down the results. (I tried this twice last night) Any other ideas about knowing if my hard drive will be okay for a while longer, or not?