HD Problems and Formatting.

[Blitzer]

Hi,

I posted a while ago regarding problems with the hard disk on my FSX PC that basically had some bad sectors on the C: windows/parition.

I have two physical HD's on the computer concerned, a pair of 1Tb Samsung Spinpoint with teh first (main) drive being partioned into two volumes, C: for Windows/software and D: for storing documents etc. The second HD is not partitioned and used primarily for backup purposes, i.e. disk images of C: and D: and individual files.

A month or two ago I realiesed that it would be a good idea to defrag my drives but started running into problems with the main disk, with the outcome that I could not defrag the C: volume due to bad sectors being reported. I tried chkdsk to try and repair the disk, but after an hour or two I calculated that it was going to take about 4 DAYS to complete. This to me was not acceptable so I aborted and have basically continued to use the disk in it's fragmented state.

Today I thought it was about time I tackled the problem again so have elected to format the c: partition which was going ok, but now the pc has been sat there for a good 30+ mins at 11%. Until this point the formatting had been going at a fairly steady pace. It's a 300Gb partition so I was nto expecting it to be quick, but I am concerned it has run into problems and therefore cannot format past 11%. The drive light on the case is flashing at a steady pace, but the info on-screen is not telling me anything.

To be honest if it comes to it I will simply replace the drive and be done with, but as it's a 1tb drive and only a year or so old I would like to try and over-come the bad sector problem if possible, although I don't intend to wait days for the drive to either format or for chkdsk to repair it.

Anyway, if anyone can offer any advice it would be much appreciated. What I'm asking really is am I just being impatient, or is the disk simply not formatting because of the bad sector errors on it. I was hoping that simply reformatting the drive would deal with the bad sectors, but I am wondering now if a bad-sector problem is a lower level problem than a straight forward format will repair. Oh, I ran the format option via a command prompt and obviously did not simply use the quick format option.

Help! 

Thanks in advance for any advice. 

[Wolter van der Spoel]

I'd say do a checkdisk for all partitions and set it to auto repair, should solve a thing or two, be warned that it can be a lenghty exercise

rightclick the partition in explorer/properties/run checkdisk/

for the C:drive it will say it cannot be done, but schedule it for the next reboot

[Blitzer]

Tried that before and it was going to take 4+ days so gave up with that. Aborted the format in the end and no surprises really but now having problems trying to do anything with the disk. Tried some dyagnostic software from Samsung (drive is 1Tb Spinpoint) but no surprises "not compatible with your version of windows" blah blah, no other version available - great one. Currently trying to format the disk via USB connection via my WindowsXP based machine.

[Wolter van der Spoel]

I hear you,

it's a pain in the proverbial spot, hence I'm not a fan of large HDD's, imho a 500G HDD is big enough, better have a few of them, also in case of malfunction less stuff goes awol.

the options are limited, either bite the bullet sit it out for 4 days and pray it gets sorted or get some new HDD's wich will make you depart of some hard earned cash and gets you to do a full re-install.

keeping the partly broken HDD isn't a real option either as it cannot be trusted to stay functioning, so wichever way you go you have to make a choice that either is a real annoyance or hits you in the wallet

[Blitzer]

I had been considering various scenarios with what I could do...

• Assuming the drive was back in a functioning use I was considering buying another new HD for the OS and files to replace it, and then use the suspect drive for an installation of FSX ONLY. i.e. only run it from that disk so even if the disk did at some point die it would only mean I'd lost the installation of the game not any important files that may have not been back up recently enough.
• Throw the drive out and replace it - I created disk images of both partitions before messing with it anyway. As the drive is only a year old though it seems a waste to not use it at all, it does (was) working with little trouble so it seems a shame to totally disregard it as having use. The larger of the two partitions on it for example is working ok and I had no trouble earlier defragging it.
• What I was hoping to do was reformat the drive, restore my lastest disk image and be able to defrag it, even just to continuing using it as a temporary measure. Then once WIndows 7 comes out get that and a new HD and start afresh.

If the disk has had it, so be it as far as I'm concerned, just irritating to say the least that I can use it with minimal problems it would seem other than being unable to defrag it. Windows did throw up an error saying there was a problem with the disk, but then I was expecting this to happen sooner or later. ATM, I'm simply trying to determine whether it's effectively a terminal problem or something I can work around until I next upgrade. My thought at the moment is not so much as the disk is failing, but that it does have a bad sector that could be effectively marked as bad and then not used if that makes sense. I only built this machine about a year ago so this would probably not be for another year TBH, but the Window7 and new HD was a thought I had as a stop gap due to the HD problem and Window7 sounding like it is a better option for FSX.  \

[Wolter van der Spoel]

Windows 7 Ultimate 64 bit is the one to go for imho, with a fresh HDD for the OS and important other stuff partitioned and as you said the "dodgy" HDD for fsX for the time beeing is a sensible solution, alltough keep in mind that the lifespan of that HDD may be a little arkward.

[Blitzer]

You think Ultimate is really worth the extra £100 over the premium version?

As it happens I did let chkdsk finishing doing it's thing to the drive earlier albeit by connecting it via USB to my XP based desktop. I was on the verge of giving up with it altogether again and then it started to make some progress and finished much quicker than I expected. Unfortunately, having restored a disk image of the OS partition and then installing the trial version of O&O defrag 12 that was still saying there was a problem with the filesystem. I let chkdsk run the disc again (this time on the Vista machine in which it belongs) only this time I did not let it try and recover data from bad sectors (because I knew this would speed it up lots). The disk checking feature of O&O defrag (which is using chkdsk I beleive) still reported problems with the drive. Bottom line is that it looks like I need to replace the drive. However, what I may do is continue to limp along for a few weeks until Windows 7 is actually released then get a new HD at teh same time and start over. New HD, new OS and a fresh install should be about the best scenario until I can justify my next proper upgrade as it were.

Thinking about it I could always just use the 600Gb partition on the dodgy disk (which is not giving me any problems) for the FSX installation. Not ideal because the disk is obviously suspect, but if it fails i'll only lose the installation. I could of course create an image of the partition and replace that disk quite quickly using the disk image to quickly get up and running again. Sounds like a reasonable plan to me anyway. At least I might actually get to the point of having defragged HD's at last lol! 

[Maurice_King]

I have two physical HD's on the computer concerned, a pair of 1Tb Samsung Spinpoint with teh first (main) drive being partioned into two volumes, C: for Windows/software and D: for storing documents etc. The second HD is not partitioned and used primarily for backup purposes, i.e. disk images of C: and D: and individual files.

Running C:\ and D:\ Partitions especially when one is your documents, is NOT a very good idea because if the Physical drive fails you have lost you documents too.

A month or two ago I realised that it would be a good idea to defrag my drives but started running into problems with the main disk, with the outcome that I could not defrag the C: volume due to bad sectors being reported. I tried chkdsk to try and repair the disk, but after an hour or two I calculated that it was going to take about 4 DAYS to complete. This to me was not acceptable so I aborted and have basically continued to use the disk in it's fragmented state.

While CHKDSK was the staple for DOS, Caldera DOS Win 95,98 it is not all that suited to XP XPPro and later versions, there are some exceptional Utilities from O&O for achieving this task (Payware but Well worth it).

Today I thought it was about time I tackled the problem again so have elected to format the c: partition which was going ok, but now the pc has been sat there for a good 30+ mins at 11%. Until this point the formatting had been going at a fairly steady pace. It's a 300Gb partition so I was nto expecting it to be quick, but I am concerned it has run into problems and therefore cannot format past 11%. The drive light on the case is flashing at a steady pace, but the info on-screen is not telling me anything.

You MUST correct errors and or problems with the entire HDD before you can attempt to FORMAT that is to say remove BOTHE partitions  Scan for errors and repair them and then reset Partitions if you choose that path makeing a Primary Partition and then an extended partition with logical drives contained in the extended partition.

To be honest if it comes to it I will simply replace the drive and be done with, but as it's a 1tb drive and only a year or so old I would like to try and over-come the bad sector problem if possible, although I don't intend to wait days for the drive to either format or for chkdsk to repair it.

Anyway, if anyone can offer any advice it would be much appreciated. What I'm asking really is am I just being impatient, or is the disk simply not formatting because of the bad sector errors on it. I was hoping that simply reformatting the drive would deal with the bad sectors, but I am wondering now if a bad-sector problem is a lower level problem than a straight forward format will repair. Oh, I ran the format option via a command prompt and obviously did not simply use the quick format option.

You should format drives for XP Vista W 7 from within the OS and preferably using the "Computer Management Tab"

Reason is Windows is dumb and the more you can do from within Windows the better as then the OS has the drives indexxed within itself and as a result will maintain the MBR (Master Boot Record ) for each partition properly.

Unlike Wolter I don't have a problem with large drives providing you manage them well you shouldn't have BUT remember that Windows doesn't like Large Drives and there are tools from MS that are designed to help.

[Blitzer]

Hi Maurice,

Thanks for the very informative reply...

Running C:\ and D:\ Partitions especially when one is your documents, is NOT a very good idea because if the Physical drive fails you have lost you documents too.

So you suggest 3 physical hard drives, or at least 2 and an external drive? I would have done this when I made the computer but was running into budget issues at the time. My compromise was to have two drives with one dedicated for backing up the main HD that has the OS on one partition and my files on the second parition. This still at least reduces the likihood of file lose due to problems with windows no?

While CHKDSK was the staple for DOS, Caldera DOS Win 95,98 it is not all that suited to XP XPPro and later versions, there are some exceptional Utilities from O&O for achieving this task (Payware but Well worth it).

Sorry could you be more specific as to which product you are refering? If you mean on the defragging side of things I've already decided that their defrag software will be the way I go, but I could not see a specific piece of software that seemed to say it was an alternative to chkdsk, which I agree does not offer the user much in the way of help.

You MUST correct errors and or problems with the entire HDD before you can attempt to FORMAT that is to say remove BOTHE partitions  Scan for errors and repair them and then reset Partitions if you choose that path makeing a Primary Partition and then an extended partition with logical drives contained in the extended partition.

Noted, but doing so using just chkdsk seems to have failed to correct or even mark sectors of the disk that are bad - this is what I would have expected chkdsk to do at least.

You should format drives for XP Vista W 7 from within the OS and preferably using the "Computer Management Tab"

Reason is Windows is dumb and the more you can do from within Windows the better as then the OS has the drives indexxed within itself and as a result will maintain the MBR (Master Boot Record ) for each partition properly.

But if it's the volume that has the OS on it it won't let you do this - bit of a catch 22. 

[Maurice_King]

Reply answers in sequence.

1. No not necessarily 3 HD's but simply don't have "D:\" on the same Physical HDD as C:\ if your documents are stored on "D:\"

2. CHKDSK is a tool left over from DOS Days for repairing disk errors,  but still useful in XP etc , I prefer to use O&O Disk Recovery

O&O Defrag -Disk Status and Partition Manager (runs rings around  Partition Magic )

3. That's because CHKDSK is pretty basic and can't do what other software these days can do ( But these are generally Payware )

4. Assuming you have made a usable image of your OS then you simply boot from an XP Boot CD made with "Bart PE" and then restore your backup after the HD has been error checked and corrected.

[Blitzer]

1. See I was thinking that at least by having D: on the same physical drive as C: that at least both could be backed up to the completely separate drive which for me is E:. If I had a parition on the second hard drive for documents then I would be in more trouble if the disk fails because it is being used to both store the original files and to store the backups of those?

2+3. Well I'll definately have a look at those pieces of software, I quite like the look and feel of their defrag software so I certainly would not rule out purchasing something else from them to help me fix, or at least make the drive more usuable (safe) again. i.e. if the O&O software can mark the bad sectors so they are no longer used that would do me for now even as a temporary measure.

4. I'm actually running Vista 64bit. I did look at "Bart PE" quite a while ago, but at the time don't think it was possible for me to create a suitable boot-disk. I think this had something to do with the 64bit OS, although TBH I can't remember the exact details now.

Thanks again for your help. 

[Maurice_King]

1. (You can NEVER have too many Drives) Even if you have 4 or 5 Drives in the system where's the problem in that.  My advice get an 80-10 Gb Drive for the OS only pure and simple. Then using GHOST for instance you can make an image at anytime and restore just one file if needed as against Windows restore which can foul up big time and CANNOT repair all errors, Windows Restore is also VERY wasteful of resources.

Most Modern MoBo's have at least 6 SATA Ports and a couple of external SATA Ports as well. IMHO anyone that doesn't have at lease 1 LARGE drive dedicated to storing Images either internal or external (NOT USB this is a joke) is asking for issues in the long run.

I have a 20 Gb C:\  1 x 200 Gb D:\ Documents and settings, 1 x 1Tb Drive partitioned into Several Virtual drives for General Programs , Flight , Racing , Audio Applications and another Separate Drive for my Photography.

I have modified my OS to allow my data to be external of the OS as well as the User Profile so in the event of a crash major settings etc are not lost.

2+3. You won't regret it as having the right tools for the job WILL save you a lot of angst.

4. Doesn't matter what OS your running you should be still able to use Bart PE for Bootable management, GHOST Software recovery Disk ( A part of Symantec GHOST) allows you to format prior to restoring an image from memory.

I'm not sure that 32 v 64 bit is an issue when formatting or recovering a HDD.