6 replies to this topic

[Baniboy]

You might have noticed how I've been venting out stuff on shoutbox, so here's my thread related to it. Like I don't have enough problems to deal with already, can't play HD video, can't install XP, I'm building a template and this stupid problem is holding me back quite a bit. Add Hard drive failure to the list, all I need now is a BIOS failure or something, but I'm sure that one is just around the... <insert computer blowing up sound here>
Ok, now to the problem
My secondary HDD is failing. This is my drive D. I first noticed it after upgrading to Karmic Koala. It gave me a warning for both drives. Look at them below.
 Screenshot_SMART_Data.png   92.65K   11 downloads
 Screenshot_SMART_Data2.png   88.77K   7 downloads
I used CHKDSK on windows and the memory diagnostic tool I have in the boot menu. Both said the same thing, the C drive is fine but the D drive is screwed up. So what will I say to HP? What will they think if I say that? "I'm sorry, but I have booted into linux Live-CD and it tells me to replace the C drive, too"? I have only about 25 days of warranty left. At least it's a good thing I found this thing in time. What I want to also know, is that could've linux caused the problem? I had my Ubuntu installation on that drive.
So, what exactly happens when I have millions of bad sectors? The D drive is going down hard for sure, but what about the C drive? It just says I have lots of bad sectors. Can't I remove them? (like out of sight, not actually getting rid of them, as that's probably impossible..).
My primary hard disk also has a recovery partition. If I replace the hard disk as Ubuntu suggests, I can't recover the factory settings of the computer any more. Is there any way to back-up the recovery partition? Another thing is, the D drive is failing now, what if C is next? But what if that happens after warranty expiration? HP won't replace my hardware, will it?

Any other suggestions? Like how the hell I'm going to explain this to HP?
Thanks for help in advance.
EDIT: I've completely uninstalled Ubuntu. I'm now posting using the live-CD. I was using windows, but I can't stand that buggy piece of junk for long.

Always screwing things up,
Baniboy

Edited by Baniboy, 08 November 2009 - 05:44 PM.

[rvalkass]

Baniboy, on Nov 8 2009, 05:34 PM, said:

I used CHKDSK on windows and the memory diagnostic tool I have in the boot menu. Both said the same thing, the C drive is fine but the D drive is screwed up. So what will I say to HP? What will they think if I say that? "I'm sorry, but I have booted into linux Live-CD and it tells me to replace the C drive, too"? I have only about 25 days of warranty left. At least it's a good thing I found this thing in time. What I want to also know, is that could've linux caused the problem? I had my Ubuntu installation on that drive.

Unfortunately you're unlikely to get the disk replaced because it hasn't actually failed yet, although it is very close to it. You will likely find it fails within one month of your warranty expiring. Linux couldn't have caused the problem - bad sectors are a hardware problem, often caused by the disk being of poor quality, getting knocked about or whatever. Like it suggests, your best bet is to copy your data off to a separate medium and replace the drive. It's certainly worth asking HP and at least getting them to record the issue - you might then have some comeback if it does fail after your warranty ends, and you can try to get them to replace it.

Baniboy, on Nov 8 2009, 05:34 PM, said:

So, what exactly happens when I have millions of bad sectors? The D drive is going down hard for sure, but what about the C drive? It just says I have lots of bad sectors. Can't I remove them? (like out of sight, not actually getting rid of them, as that's probably impossible..).

That's pretty much what the drive is doing at the moment. When it finds a bad sector it won't write data to it, and records that that sector is bad and not to use it again. It effectively reduces the size of your hard disk as more and more sectors become unusable. Bad sectors are usually a sign of other problems and certainly aren't a sign of a healthy drive though, so don't get complacent. Backup your data and replace the drive as soon as possible.

Baniboy, on Nov 8 2009, 05:34 PM, said:

My primary hard disk also has a recovery partition. If I replace the hard disk as Ubuntu suggests, I can't recover the factory settings of the computer any more. Is there any way to back-up the recovery partition? Another thing is, the D drive is failing now, what if C is next? But what if that happens after warranty expiration? HP won't replace my hardware, will it?

You should also have a recovery CD from HP, or can request one, that will contain the same information as the recovery partition. The bad sectors won't "spread" so your C drive should be fine. Although, if they're both the same model of drive then they could be part of a faulty batch, or just both be of low quality. Once your warranty has expired, HP are under no obligation to replace anything. Hard drives certainly aren't the most expensive components, but it's still annoying if you have to replace them.

Baniboy, on Nov 8 2009, 05:34 PM, said:

Any other suggestions? Like how the hell I'm going to explain this to HP?

EDIT: I've completely uninstalled Ubuntu. I'm now posting using the live-CD. I was using windows, but I can't stand that buggy piece of junk for long.

Just say to HP that the drive is reporting a lot of bad sectors, is failing and needs to be replaced. See what they say. If they won't replace if for you now, make sure they log the issue so that if it fails in the near future (even after the warranty) then you can say it is a running issue they were already aware of.

Uninstalling Ubuntu won't have helped in any way

[truefusion]

They're both the same drive, just different partitions. Running off of LiveCD should prevent your drive from dying any quicker. If you want to spare your drive for as long as you can, try not to do anything big, like installing an operating system, or moving big files, unless necessary. If you have a secondary computer (i'm assuming this is your laptop we're talking about), then i would suggest (though this may sound a bit contradictory to what i have just said) to transfer whatever you can onto it—of course, anything that will transfer quickly first. Obviously, just use whatever other computer you have lying around as your main computer for now, that is, if you have any.

Bad sectors, i would say, is one of the reasons why solid state drives (disks) are favored over HDD. SSDs don't have mechanical moving parts within them, hence they should last longer. But solid state drives are pretty expensive and for the price don't offer much capacity (space).

I remember when one of my hard drives started getting bad sectors in it. Didn't realize it for a bit, but one of the side effects of it was Windows acting up, complaining about a certain address space. When i tried loading an Ubuntu LiveCD environment, that's when i was informed of the bad sectors; the LiveCD environment wouldn't load. I guess it was trying to mount the SWAP partition i had, or something. If the LiveCD ever fails to load on you, then you should be able to safely conclude that the drive is completely dead.

[Baniboy]

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They're both the same drive, just different partitions

They aren't. I have C and E on my primary drive and D on my secondary drive.

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Unfortunately you're unlikely to get the disk replaced because it hasn't actually failed yet, although it is very close to it.

Wait till you see how my conversation with the HP support went. Here it is translated in English:

Baniboy: Hey, *I tell my serial number and some other things.* I have a hard drive problem, and the other one might be failing [...]
theHPdude: Right, make a recovery disc, a new hard disk will be delivered.

And that's it. Either he had a bad day and he just wanted to get rid of a caller, or HP has a very good customer care. The only thing I don't really like about HP is that all the computers you buy from them come pre-installed with all kinds of junk, like Norton, "My HP games" and other crap that I don't really need.

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Bad sectors are usually a sign of other problems

What kind of other problems? Other than poor-man's hardware

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Bad sectors, i would say, is one of the reasons why solid state drives (disks) are favored over HDD. SSDs don't have mechanical moving parts within them, hence they should last longer. But solid state drives are pretty expensive and for the price don't offer much capacity (space).

Yes, expensive indeed... I could get one of those too. Are they any faster to read/write on? The HP support staff member told me that I can upgrade, change and replace RAM memory and HDDs without throwing my warranty out of the window(but don't touch the CPU or motherboard, he said). I'm not sure if SSDs are compatible with my motherboard? Is there any difference in plugging stuff in? Wikipedia says there shouldn't be any compatibility issues as they emulate normal HDDs, but that's just wikipedia, any moron with an internet connection could've edited it ( ). What is troubling me is that SSD performance decreases over time. So, what I've been thinking of(well, "been thinking of it for the last 5 minutes") is this kind of setup:

I already have two 232 GB drives. So, I'm guessing the one that's failing could be used as a my "trunk"(well, we already have a 1 TB Buffalo hard drive in our house, that's been my trunk for a while now). Then I would have one partition on the primary HDD for Linux, one small partition on that same drive for occasional gaming and other stuff that I do on winblows.
Does this sound like a good setup?
I could do this, BUT it's this stupid windows vista disk management that doesn't let me shrink my C partition more than 78 GB. I have more than 150GB of spare space to use on my primary HDD but this ugly piece of junk doesn't let me free it for Linux! ARGH!

Another option here would be to wait until the new HDD is delivered. Then I could use that whole drive for Linux. I then would have the first one for Windows and the "secondary" drive for Linux. The only problem in this is that I would have over 170GB of space going to waste on the primary drive.

Any other suggestions?

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You should also have a recovery CD from HP, or can request one, that will contain the same information as the recovery partition. The bad sectors won't "spread" so your C drive should be fine. Although, if they're both the same model of drive then they could be part of a faulty batch, or just both be of low quality. Once your warranty has expired, HP are under no obligation to replace anything. Hard drives certainly aren't the most expensive components, but it's still annoying if you have to replace them.

I asked about that too, he said that I should make a Recovery Disc. Takes up two DVDs, already done it.

Thanks for replying! Your replies were helpful.
I didn't get a new primary drive because it's not failinf yet. Any ways to make it fail faster?

[-Sky-]

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Any ways to make it fail faster?

Well I guess, you could try knocking it about a little, cause more bad sectors, and force it to fail. Other then that, it's mostly hardware failures.

[truefusion]

Baniboy, on Nov 9 2009, 12:47 PM, said:

They aren't. I have C and E on my primary drive and D on my secondary drive.

Then your screenshots confused me. You said it gave you a warning for both drives, but the screenshots show the same HDD (HTS542525K9A300).

Baniboy, on Nov 9 2009, 12:47 PM, said:

Yes, expensive indeed... I could get one of those too. Are they any faster to read/write on? The HP support staff member told me that I can upgrade, change and replace RAM memory and HDDs without throwing my warranty out of the window(but don't touch the CPU or motherboard, he said). I'm not sure if SSDs are compatible with my motherboard? Is there any difference in plugging stuff in? Wikipedia says there shouldn't be any compatibility issues as they emulate normal HDDs, but that's just wikipedia, any moron with an internet connection could've edited it ( ). What is troubling me is that SSD performance decreases over time.

All computer hardware will fail eventually. Some SSDs were made to go into PCI Express x8 slots, others SATA, USB (the portable kind), et cetera. SSDs do perform faster than HDDs, some going as fast as over 600MBs a second (but this one is obviously out of the reach of most home consumers). All the ones that could be marked as "affordable" may not give you more than 32gigs of space.

Baniboy, on Nov 9 2009, 12:47 PM, said:

Another option here would be to wait until the new HDD is delivered. Then I could use that whole drive for Linux. I then would have the first one for Windows and the "secondary" drive for Linux. The only problem in this is that I would have over 170GB of space going to waste on the primary drive.

I'd wait for the new drive. I won't even recommend using another partitioner for the Windows partition.

[Baniboy]

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Then your screenshots confused me. You said it gave you a warning for both drives, but the screenshots show the same HDD (HTS542525K9A300).

Yes, that was the model number. They had different serial number and temperature

As for Cindy(my computer), the HDD arrived(I had to go all over to another city and find a stupid UPS delivery warehouse to get it, and I live in the freaking capital!). I've installed KK on it.

Thanks to all who replied on the thread. I think I could buy an SSD drive when it is affordable. Only install the programs and the system to make them faster(possibly).