New hard disk problem- bad sectors?

Discussion in 'backup, imaging & disk mgmt' started by aigle, Jan 1, 2010.

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  1. aigle

    aigle Registered Member

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    I replaced the hard disk of my laptop( toshiba satellite M 70) yesterday. It was having a 40 GB Hitachi SATA HD( it died suddenly) and I replaced it a brand new SATA Seagate GB.

    Seems a nightmare so far. Initially I tried to restore an ATI image but ATI CD had problems to restore( may be because HD was raw, not formatted so far). Ubuntu CD and Parted Magic failed to see it. Tried Toshiba recovery DVD( basically a ghost image provided by toshiba) but the recovery was incomplete. However after this ATI CD was able to recover an older image. But when i installed Seagate disk wizard( re-branded ATI) and tried to make a fresh image, it showed a read error with possible bad sector. Again n again I tried and got exactly same error. I tried chkdsk /r and error disappeared.

    I was not happy so tried a restore from Toshiba recovery DVD that worked with no errors this time. I thoughts it,s all over. I just install SeaTools and seems still there are issues.

    Here are results:

    1- Short Drive self test ------ FAIL
    2- Long drive self test ------- FAIL
    3- Short generic test -------- PASS
    4- Long generic test --------- FAIL

    What do you suggest? I am surprised, brand new hard disk has such problems, never expected so from seagate.
     

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  2. wat0114

    wat0114 Guest

    aigle, is it showing up in the BIOS?
     
  3. aigle

    aigle Registered Member

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    Yes, of course. Otherwise I would not have been able to recover an image over it( am I right?).

    In fact BIOS showed it right from the beginning( I checked immediately after I put it inside my laptop), even when it was raw. So did win7 CD and Toshiba recovery CD and ATI CD. However before format Parted Magic and Ubuntu( GParted) failed to see it.

    Also initially whenever these boot CDs scanned devices during booting or after, i heard some hardware sound, a mix of a bit of whistling n scratching. This sound now disappeared. There a very minute disk chirping now while my system is active but I assume that is normal.
     
  4. wat0114

    wat0114 Guest

    I know it seems obvious, but I was just wondering if it did and whether it showed up correctly (BIOS listed it as something meaningful). Since it's new maybe the best course of action is take it back and have it tested?
     
  5. aigle

    aigle Registered Member

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    BIOS listed it with its model no just as the sea tools did.
     
  6. aigle

    aigle Registered Member

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    Is there a limit for hard disk size for a mother board? I mean the laptop originally had just 40 GB HD and now I put in a 320 GB HD. Is it OK?
     
  7. Raza0007

    Raza0007 Registered Member

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    It appears to me that your drive is either faulty or about to die. The Seagate tools SMART tests have failed, this shows a faulty drive. A botched windows restore can not cause SMART tests to fail. Take the drive back to shop and have it replaced.

    EDIT: Sorry, not the SMART tests but your hard disk health tests have failed.
     
  8. aigle

    aigle Registered Member

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    Thanks. I will sure try to return it. It was my first seagate- internal HD. It is made in China I think, does it matter?
     
  9. Raza0007

    Raza0007 Registered Member

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    No, Seagate usually manufactures all its 2.5 inch drives in China. It should not matter.

    You can try one thing. Format and zero-fill your drive using seagate tools and see if this solves your problem. Then before restoring your image, run the drive tests again. These drive tests should not fail and if they do on a brand new drive then the drive is faulty and needs to be replaced.
     
  10. bellgamin

    bellgamin Registered Member

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    Hey aigle, I'm sorry your drive is giving problems. Happy New Year anyhow.
    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
    The following is a bit off-topic because it mainly applies to a used drive rather than to aigle's brand new drive.

    When my Drive C developed bad sectors, I tried THIS. It cost me almost $40, but my repair guy was on New Year vacation & I needed my computer RIGHT NOW, so I spent the $40 -- figuring I would probably be ripped off, but it was worth a try for a desparate old man.

    Amazingly, the software I bought actually did repair the bad sectors (30 of them, all told) and my Drive C is now working quite okay.

    Your mileage may differ, of course. I am not responsible for any problems that may result from following my advice. This includes, but is not limited to, computer failure, erectile disfunction, PMS, the heartbreak of psoriasis, or your daughter running off with a biker gang. Follow my suggestions at your own risk. :blink: o_O :isay:
     
  11. whitedragon551

    whitedragon551 Registered Member

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    You cant repair bad sectors. Either its good or bad. Id back up your data and get a new drive.
     
  12. Meriadoc

    Meriadoc Registered Member

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    Don't be! Last year I had 2 brand new hard disks I had to return. First was a replacement I installed that let me install the OS then died, 2nd bad one was in a new notebook that started making little noises straight off and wouldn't let me unpack files.
     
  13. bgoodman4

    bgoodman4 Registered Member

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    Interesting, I have a drive (3rd drive on a custom built job) that I cannot copy my 109 gig music collection to but smaller jobs work fine. I tried running disk check etc, tried reformatting as well and no joy. I think I might give this a try although I could no doubt replace the drive for not much more than the $40 cost of the program (its a 200 gig drive and came out of an old PC that was experiencing lots of problems - the tech felt the problem had nothing to do with the drive but I always thought otherwise).

    Thanks for the link.
     
  14. aigle

    aigle Registered Member

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    Thanks. I think as my drive is just new, my first try will be to replace it, otherwise Sea Tools bootable DOS CD also have option to repiar( re-map) bad sectors. Will see how the things go.
     
  15. jonyjoe81

    jonyjoe81 Registered Member

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    One final thing, all these test your running are they run from within the laptop?
    The original "bad" drive did you test it on another computer? is it confirmed "bad"
    The reason I ask is because, I encounter a problem once where I replace a drive because it would no longer boot my computer. The new drive I installed also wouldn't work properly. windows wouldn't load on it, I was getting input/output errors. Eventually I ended replacing the motherboard, the drives where good.
    I would try and check both the old and new drives on another computer to verify if they are good, just to rule out a hardware problem on the laptop.
    As far as seagate, they make excellent hard drives that's all I buy.
     
  16. aigle

    aigle Registered Member

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    The old HD is trashed totally, not recognized by BIOS, not by any boot CDs I tried and gives a loud mechanical sound. Do you think I still nedd to try it in another PC?

    Thanks
     
  17. Searching_ _ _

    Searching_ _ _ Registered Member

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    Did you buy a remanufactured drive, or open box?
    I bought a brand new cpu and was sent an open box item once. Newegg, Christmas time, probably an oversite somewhere. The CPU fan was broken.

    Try Linux Live CD and hdparm secure erase to see if that straightens out the issues with the drive. Secure erase will fix remapped blocks, reallocated sectors as well as getting rid of any potential data.
    https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showpost.php?p=1587819&postcount=17
    http://ata.wiki.kernel.org/index.php/ATA_Secure_Erase

    Also, ATI and Toshiba were not very friendly to me in combination. ATI had issues for some reason. Which version of ATI are you using? 9, 10, 11?

    Have you looked at the drive with winhex or other hex editor to see how the sectors look?
     
  18. acuariano

    acuariano Registered Member

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    searching,one question?.about
    Have you looked at the drive with winhex or other hex editor to see how the sectors look?

    how does the sectors have to look?...if you can post please.
     
  19. Searching_ _ _

    Searching_ _ _ Registered Member

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    They will be empty with zeros, or will have data in some sectors.
    The point is to see if you can access and move around within the drive.
    Does the light blink when you traverse sectors?
    Put the Hex editor in write mode and add in some info. Reboot see if it is their.
     
  20. aigle

    aigle Registered Member

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    Thanks. I am ready to do some digging but first of all I will try to just replcae it. If not, then i will try other things.
     
  21. OldMX

    OldMX Registered Member

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    If the new disk is brand new, just RMA it, zeroing will only remap bad blocks and eventually it will fail again.
     
  22. aigle

    aigle Registered Member

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    What is RMA?
     
  23. Dundertaker

    Dundertaker Registered Member

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    Hi aigle;

    I too have been a victim of "new" Seagate drives failing. I bought one last May a 160gb IDE to resurrect one of my old pc and also encountered problems as yours. The Disc Wizard showed problems of read error on the new hdd. I also contacted Seagate CS and adviced to use SeaTools for Windows and SeaTools for DOS on the hdd. It failed big time.

    Since it was a new drive and it was still under warranty, I contacted Seagate CS and was adviced to make an RMA for replacement of the hdd. I did that and was prompty sent a "Certified Repaired HDD" from China/Thailand! Not a new one! Seagate CS says that they guarantee it's performance.

    I installed it and it was not recognized by the mobo. I ended up slipstreaming the driver in the Windows installation cd. I though it was okay when it finally recognize it but it was only a start of more poblems. Installing the OS will not pushg through as it says, that the drive is faulty. Retried several times until I used SeaTols for DOS again. Again it failed big time! After which it gave a "knocking sound" which I later found out that it got something to do with a head fault issue or a hard disk motor. DataClinic has a July 24, 2009 post about it at their site with a video.I sent all pertinent data to Seagate CS including a pdf copy of the DataClinic post but Seagate CS said that I was not to escalate the problem further..Wow, they gave a me a boner of a replacement and I was not to escalate the problem further. After that no other emails I sent where answered.

    I again returned the "Certified Repaired HDD" via another RMA. Was replaced only to experience another round of "the same problems" complate with the knocking sound and no-more-reply to emails sent to CS. In total I had made an RMA for the defective drive 4x with all the same problems until I have given up.

    A couple of times I also had been successful in installing the OS but the "knocking sound" would not go away and of course the SeaTools for DOS/Windows gave the same "fail" result. Checkdisk also gave bad sectors and corrupt files when I was installing the programs. I got close to installing half of the programs that I use but
    got into problems booting up. When it booted it gave the knocking sound and just seemed like forever thinking or if not would freeze or give a BSOD.

    I also tried to use a software called Flobo HDD bad sector remover which I remember now was the thing why I came close to installing all of my programs but the knocking sound that came after using SeaTools for DOS was always there to either freeze the pc, give it a BSOD or just make you wait to boot-up forever..

    It's still here in it's box(they deliver via UPS. They always came from Singapore for me). I bought a WD 250gb IDE and didn't took me the exhaustion that I have experienced with that Seagate drive. At the end of the 1st day I was up and running with the pc in cmparison to 3 days per "replacement hdd" ( I patiently did everything 4x..)

    I do not know why are there drives from Seagate like these but they used to be okay. I never experienced all of these before with their drives. As I asked around in the shops here, I was dumbfounded that there are also people who have experienced this kind of "phenomenon".

    For your drive, you can place an RMA at the Seagate website. They will replace it but will give you a "Certified Repaired HDD" which they said they can vouch for. Just beware and be warned of my experience. I hope you will not experience what I went through.

    I attached some of the images I have saved. It's a pity that I don't have the SeaTools for DOS results now with the recorded knocking sound. I seemd to have deleted it.


    Anyway, good luck and have a happy new year!
     

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  24. JRViejo

    JRViejo Super Moderator

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  25. Dundertaker

    Dundertaker Registered Member

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    Hi aigle;

    RMA is a Return Material Authorization. Please check out this link:

    http://www.seagate.com/www/en-us/support/warranty_&_returns_assistance

    You can return a drive as a guest or if your drive is registered you can just log-in at the Seagate website. I remember that it is a 3 step sequence of registering, then checking the warranty for the drive and then placing the RMA for the defective drive. You need not to contact Seagate CS as the last 2 of the RMA I did was with no CS assistance. I just placed an RMA then it got confirmed via email.

    Once you have returned a drive you will be given an RMA number from which you will use to check the status of the return material.

    The Seagate confirmation of the RMA will have to be printed and attached to the drive upon return to the designated drop-off point in your region/country. The replacement once received will be sent to your door-step via UPS.

    Good luck!
     
    Last edited: Jan 2, 2010
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