Failing Drive?

( |-| |2 ][ $ · 24 May 2006 at 13:56

A few months ago I developed some bad sectors, now on other partition i can't complete a full scan disk, defraging this drive often causes the drive to hang and then windows crashes.

I'm in the process of backing everything up, what can i do to be sure it's the drive that is failing before RMAing?

Messiah Khan · 24 May 2006 at 14:00

Once everything is backed up, write 0's to the drive(Should b able to do it with drive software from the manufacturer) Delete all the partitions, create new ones and format. Then test scandisk again. Also have a look at the smart status of the drive.

( |-| |2 ][ $ · 24 May 2006 at 18:24

I've done that, reinstalled windows and i've completed a full scan disk of the drive which returned no errors. So everything seems ok, and working fine.

Can a low level format fix a drive, or is only a matter of time before it starts playing up again?

Messiah Khan · 24 May 2006 at 18:26

Im afraid, only time will tell. It could behave itself from now on, or it could start playing up tommorow. What did the SMART status say? I would keep using the drive, but maybe keep important stuff on another drive, or keep regular backups.

( |-| |2 ][ $ · 24 May 2006 at 18:39

Here's a link to the test results. It all looks good?