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debs3759
Joined: 18 Jan 2006
Posts: 9477
Location: Northampton, Divided Kingdom
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 Posted: Thu Jan 10, 2008 5:06 am Post subject: |
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| Wizzard1 wrote: | | Can you image it to another drive and test? |
I don't have a spare 120G drive, so can't copy the drive image.
How would it help if I could? I'm not sure if I am missing something here, but I can't see how testing a copy of the drive would fix the sector the MBR is on? Naturally if there is something hadn't thought of that will save the disc once I have got a replacement to move files onto, I will do that (a spare working drive is better than a few pennies from the scrap yard).
| Quote: | | IN recovery console, chkdsk /r then fixmbr then fixboot... I saw 2HDDs last year with bad boot sectors, I repair about 20-30PCs/wk. |
It's not a bad boot sector (which could be moved and the MBR updated), it's a bad MBR sector. This is on a fixed place on the disc and cannot be placed elsewhere, so no tool that works with bad sectors will save it. As such, it is also not possible for fixmbr or fixboot to replace the damaged MBR - they cannot write to the unwriteable sector!
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debs3759
Joined: 18 Jan 2006
Posts: 9477
Location: Northampton, Divided Kingdom
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| Posted: Fri Jan 11, 2008 12:05 pm Post subject: |
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That's pretty clever!
If only that was the problem I have, it would be so easy to just download another AV package (making sure it this in its' definitions file) and then disable the one I use while I run that one (never know, it may even be better  )
I have reinstalled 3 times while trying to fix it, so am still fairly sure that it is a bad sector (the whistle that keeps coming from the direction of the PC is a bit of a give-away - that started last night!). I think I will look at some other AV software though, it is the only suggestion so far that I haven't considered, and that article does indicate a greater possibility than I had considered 
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My graphics card database can be found at http://www.gpuzoo.com.
I can resist anything except temptation.
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mtx500
Joined: 21 Nov 2003
Posts: 117
Location: Nuremberg, Germany
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| Posted: Mon Feb 04, 2008 9:35 am Post subject: |
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| debs3759 wrote: | | I have reinstalled 3 times while trying to fix it, so am still fairly sure that it is a bad sector |
Sorry for the late response, but I managed to type in a lengthy answer and then send it to /dev/null instead of to the forum 
Then I was away on a business trip, but now for the second time:
I doubt the single defective sector theory.
Modern drives do re-map weak sectors into a spare area before they really get defective. So random defective sectors will go unnoticed.
Only if there is a real big (mechanical) problem will you notices defective sectors on the outside. Usually, this happens when a head and/or the surface was damaged and the resulting debris damages more surface area and produces even more debris ..
Once you notice this type of problem outside, it's too late: The spare area is consumed, the defective sectors spread quickly ..
To give the user a chance to diagnose the drive before this happens, S.M.A.R.T. was invented by drive manufacturers: Self-Monitoring, Analysis and Reporting Technology.
It allows a diagnosis tool to look "behind the scenes" in a standardized way to see how much spare area is used/free, and a lot more (temperatures, mechanical wear which results into tracking problems, maximum acceleration the drive was exposed, ..).
IBM developed a really good tool for that. After the hard disk drive division of IBM was sold to Hitachi Global Storage, Hitachi continued work on this tool. It's called "Drive Fitness Test" and can be found here: http://www.hitachigst.com/hdd/support/download.htm?linkto=QL
Of course, IBM/Hitachi drives can be diagnosed with more detail (probably using undocumented interfaces), but others can be diagnosed fairly good just using the standard S.M.A.R.T. interface.
You don't need to worry about your data:
Most of the diagnosis functions are non-destructive. And the destructive ones need double confirmation before they start.
I would be interested in what this tool says about your drive. |
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debs3759
Joined: 18 Jan 2006
Posts: 9477
Location: Northampton, Divided Kingdom
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| Posted: Mon Feb 04, 2008 3:04 pm Post subject: |
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Thanks for the link. That'll be a useful tol for a lot of x86 systems, I'm sure (alongside memtest86, it'll be an important part of my test suite).
It says that there is nothing wrong with the drive. That's strange - there is neither a hardware nor a software fault! The boot sector has been replaced a few times by different utilities (PQBoot, FixMBR and I think I tried to fix it with FDISK as well
I haven't bought a new disk yet, but am thinking of seeing if it will boot from a different hard drive. If not, I will have to reinstall the latest BIOS, in case that has somehow got corrupted
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My graphics card database can be found at http://www.gpuzoo.com.
I can resist anything except temptation.
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