[confusedoldlady]

Me again, hope it's OK to post another problem so soon.

My hubby's hard disk is about 3.5 years old and I noticed in Event Viewer it has been warning about a bad block on the hard disk. I downloaded and ran Western Digitals Utility (called Data Lifeguard Diagnostic for Windows) for this disk and it says PASS - I did a quick scan first then an extended scan. Both tests passed. So who's right? Any sure way to tell?

thanks for reading.

Edited by confusedoldlady, 27 April 2010 - 06:33 AM.

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Hi,
I would 1st do the following....

Go to
Start and then to Run
Type in Chkdsk /r Note the space between k and /
Click Enter ...It will probably ask if you want to do this on the next reboot...click Y
If the window doesn't shutdown on its own then reboot the system manually. On reboot the system will start the chkdsk operation
This one will take longer then chkdsk /f

Note... there are 5 stages...
It may appear to hang at a certain percent for a hour or more or even back up and go over the same area...this is normal...
DO NOT SHUT YOUR COMPUTER DOWN WHILE CHKDSK IS RUNNING OR YOU CAN HAVE SEVERE PROBLEMS
This can take several hours to complete.
When completed it will boot the system back into windows.

Let me know if this fixes the problem

It is better to run the western digital diagnostics from the CD and not directly from windows.
Running from windows the program does not have exclusive control of the tests.

Download the diagnostics that would run from the CD. It will be in an iso file.
Use Burncdcc from my signature to burn the file.
Boot from the CD and then run the extensive test.

To boot from CD you need to be sure that the laptop is set to "boot from CD" in the bios.

[123Runner]

Hi,
I would 1st do the following....

Go to
Start and then to Run
Type in Chkdsk /r Note the space between k and /
Click Enter ...It will probably ask if you want to do this on the next reboot...click Y
If the window doesn't shutdown on its own then reboot the system manually. On reboot the system will start the chkdsk operation
This one will take longer then chkdsk /f

Note... there are 5 stages...
It may appear to hang at a certain percent for a hour or more or even back up and go over the same area...this is normal...
DO NOT SHUT YOUR COMPUTER DOWN WHILE CHKDSK IS RUNNING OR YOU CAN HAVE SEVERE PROBLEMS
This can take several hours to complete.
When completed it will boot the system back into windows.

Let me know if this fixes the problem

It is better to run the western digital diagnostics from the CD and not directly from windows.
Running from windows the program does not have exclusive control of the tests.

Download the diagnostics that would run from the CD. It will be in an iso file.
Use Burncdcc from my signature to burn the file.
Boot from the CD and then run the extensive test.

To boot from CD you need to be sure that the laptop is set to "boot from CD" in the bios.

[confusedoldlady]

Thank you

Will do it tomorrow when hubby is off his PC.

[confusedoldlady]

Couldn't do it today, combination of hubby using PC and not being able to boot from CD. Will try again tomorrow. thanks.

[confusedoldlady]

OK, ran checkdisk r and this is the result:

Event Type: Information
Event Source: Winlogon
Event Category: None
Event ID: 1001
Date: 29/04/2010
Time: 12:20:15
User: N/A
Computer: EVESHAM
Description:
Checking file system on C:
The type of the file system is NTFS.

A disk check has been scheduled.
Windows will now check the disk.
Cleaning up minor inconsistencies on the drive.
Cleaning up 30 unused index entries from index $SII of file 0x9.
Cleaning up 30 unused index entries from index $SDH of file 0x9.
Cleaning up 30 unused security descriptors.
CHKDSK is verifying Usn Journal...
Usn Journal verification completed.
CHKDSK is verifying file data (stage 4 of 5)...
File data verification completed.
CHKDSK is verifying free space (stage 5 of 5)...
Free space verification is complete.

240107458 KB total disk space.
32616756 KB in 179217 files.
58760 KB in 6635 indexes.
0 KB in bad sectors.
373430 KB in use by the system.
65536 KB occupied by the log file.
207058512 KB available on disk.

4096 bytes in each allocation unit.
60026864 total allocation units on disk.
51764628 allocation units available on disk.

Internal Info:
30 4b 03 00 08 d6 02 00 9d 30 04 00 00 00 00 00 0K.......0......
26 1e 00 00 02 00 00 00 65 0c 00 00 00 00 00 00 &.......e.......
d0 5b 92 0f 00 00 00 00 d6 0a 81 98 00 00 00 00 .[..............
28 84 80 23 00 00 00 00 56 ed db 27 04 00 00 00 (..#....V..'....
f6 10 ac c5 09 00 00 00 92 de ab c0 0e 00 00 00 ................
99 9e 36 00 00 00 00 00 c8 3a 07 00 11 bc 02 00 ..6......:......
00 00 00 00 00 d0 c4 c6 07 00 00 00 eb 19 00 00 ................

Windows has finished checking your disk.
Please wait while your computer restarts.


Does this look OK?

I can't get this PC to boot from a CD. My old PC used F2 to access the set up menu, but i can't find the button for this one.

Also, my new PC (cheap junk! I wish I hadn't bought it ) has a strange clunk from the disk every 5-6 seconds. It's not loud, just like water dripping onto a sink IYSWIM. Accessed the BIOS, but it said that bootable drives in parenthesis are disabled and when I tried to make the hard drive 2nd and the CD ROM first, it put all the drives into parenthesis, even the Hard Drive PANIC!! So I just exited without saving. This might sound dumb, but can I assume that "exit without saving" means without saving changes? It doesn't just mean "exit without saving anything at all".

I've tried to access the manufacturer's support but so far without success. I won't name and shame on here, but I'll never buy a cheapo PC like this again without checking out the support reviews!!

Sorry to ramble on.

Can I just trust the chckdsk r do you think for hubby's PC or should I persevere with trying to get it to boot from a CD? (hubby's PC is the subject of my original query).

Thanks for your time.