Drive problems...

mindrot

mindrot

mindrot

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Joined
30 Aug 2005
Posts
350
Location
London
I bought a PC from OCUK about a month ago. Since buying it I've had some strange problems with it being a bit slow and un-responsive. I’ve re-installed Windows XP64 about 3 times since buying it.

It finally seemed fine until a couple of days ago when I got a small error pop-up on the system tray saying something about a “read-write fail on C” (I can’t remember the exact details). I then reset the PC but then the first hard drive was not detected in the post screen or in the Bios. I then shut down and then re-booted. It was detected just fine.

Since then my PC has been terribly slow and unresponsive at times. I downloaded Seagate’s Seatools for Windows and for Dos and both gave me errors on the First drive (C and D drive - I partitioned the first drive which became C and D).

Basically the drive failed both the short and long tests with that software. Is there anything I can do? The second 500 GB drive in the PC seemed to pass the tests.

Specs:

- Intel Core 2 Quad Pro Q6600 2.40GHz (1066FSB)
- Abit IP35 Pro Motherboard
- OCZ 4GB DDR2 PC2-6400 (2x2GB) (I also bought an extra 4GB of identical Ram so it's now 8GB in ttotal)
- Nvidia GeForce 8800 GT 512MB GDDR3
- 2x Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 500GB 7200RPM SATA-II 32MB Cache HDD...

I have also just contacted OCUK about this so I'll wait to see what they say as well.

If they want me to send it back do you think they'd want the whole PC or just the HD?

Thanks
 
It's just getting worse:

I'm trying to copy/move stuff from the D drive (partition) onto the second Drive ("E" which works fine) and it'll get to a point where some stuff moves/copies just fine (though it takes an age) and other items that I try just crash the PC. They're obviously on a bad part of the HD...

Edit: I also tried the pagefile thingy and I think that made things a bit worse. When Windows eventually launches the PC locks up. I can't do much. For example MS Messenger won't load at startup it just gets stuck with the loading icon on the system tray... I think its fragged :(

Any suggestions would be great...
 
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Can you actually hear the drive failing? (clicking noises, misaligned heads, etc?)
If its getting worse, I'd pull out the drive now to stop any more sectors being damaged by whatever is causing this failure.
If the data on there is really required, then I think a professional hd recoverer is the best way forward; any more attempts to get data off sounds like its just going to cause more and more damage.
 
No it's quiet still.

I think it jmainly got worse because I changed the pagefile - I actually had to go into safemode to be able to access anything (still trying to backup what was on the D drive - some stuff copies but not all), as windows wouldn't get past trying to load MS Messenger.

I'm still waiting for OCUk to get back to me as I'm guessing I'll have to get it swapped.
 
well, if it isn't actually sound like its degrading/getting worse, then a checkdisk under safe/dos only mode should allow windows to test for bad sectors and ignore them later. trouble is that probably quite a fair chunk of your hard drive is probably corrupt.

i'm guessing that you do not have another pc that has a workable windows that you can attach this bad disk to to run all the diagnostics from there- its horrible trying to do this from a damaged system thats bound to cause more and more instabilities.

might be even worth installing windows onto the second disk, booting up from there and running all the diagnosis that way. This way too you can yank the data you want out after, and still have a functional computer when eventually OcUK asks you to ship back the drive....
 
Thanks... I've got a new 250GB drive that I'm going to install in a bit. Once that's done I'll hopefully be able to rescue what's left.

Grimgoth said:
...when eventually OcUK asks you to ship back the drive....
Click to expand...

I was actually going to ask how long they take to give a response - been a day now. Last time I contacted them about the PC they were reasonably quick in getting back to me.
 
I was told a few hours ago by a guy from OCUK support that it could be one of the ports being faulty. He suggested I swap the two identical drives to see if the problem still persists.

It booted a bit quicker but then froze on a black screen just after the Windows Xp logo.

I still had a new, unused 250GB Hitachi Deskstar drive I also ordered seperately with the PC from OCUK, which I just installed Windows XP on with no problems (touch wood). It seems to be running a bit smoother than it ever did :D I installed it on the same SATA port that the problematic drive was on.

Anyway. I should be getting either a new HD or Mobo from OCUK soon, depending on how things go.
 
UPDATE!!!

UPDATE!!!

I got the drive swapped out from OCUK a while back, but now a month later the new drive is giving me Delayed Read/Write errors - basically the same as the original faulty drive.

I'm in the process of running the same Seagate Tools for Dos test. It failed the short test. I'm in the process of running the long one: it's asking me to repair the drive. The result was "passed after repair".

Is this okay or should I possibly contact OCUk again? Though I'm not sure if I'll get a swap out again.

Any help would be great again.

Thanks.
 
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