failing drive?

BUDFORCE

BUDFORCE

BUDFORCE

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Hi guys, using win 10, got 2 drives, an SSD I boot Windows off and keep some stuff on, then a 2tb mechanical drive I keep games on really, some photos etc, but nothing too major, I wont be too upset if it dies.

Anyway, last few times I have booted it says scanning E: drive for errors and to fix them...or something along those lines, takes a minute or two, then boots and seems to work as normal.

Reckon its a failing drive or something else?
 
bremen1874 said:
Download and run the manufacture's diagnostic (assuming they provide one).
Click to expand...

Its a Seagate Barracuda t2, and yes they have tools.

I dont know what I am really doing with their program but on a short scan it got as far as 10% and failed. Looks like its on its way out then. Ive backup up some photos on a usb pen the rest of the stuff on there is re-downloadable from steam etc
 
Fair enough thanks for the help.

I've backed up everything I care about already so I'll just run with it until it dies and get a new one. I have no idea how old it is, but I checked all 3 of the possible websites I would have got it from and it isnt listed so its at least 5 years.
 
There's a chance that leaving it running will leave you with randomly corrupted files and no easy way of knowing.

There should be an option in the diagnostic for a full scan and repair. If you're lucky it'll be able to map out any bad sectors it finds.

Personally I'd replace it immediately. HDDs aren't that expensive.
 
Yes very true.

Do you know if you still have to mess around with a drive over 2TB? I remember when I get this one, I specifically went for a 2TB and no higher because you had to do some additional messing to get windows to recognise a drive over 2TB. Is that still a thing?

My PC is old, 6 years or so still running a Sandybrige i7, and motherboard from back then.

Any recommendations on drives? I use it for storage and keeping my steam library on, my primary SSD is only 250GB, so other than windows I pretty much keep everything on it, that being said, I dont use my PC for much other than playing games. I am currently using about 1TB, so really up to 2TB is probably enough.

I guess it depends on whether larger SSD's have come down in price and weighing that up against a larger cheaper mechanical.
 
Yeah that drive needs replacing.

For me I havent had a spindle fail in over 10 years at the very least, generally they get retired from been obsolete.
Sadly not the same case with ssd's, failed the test of "retire before fail", as my 850 pro died.

But I have deliberately avoided seagate spindles as they seem to have reportedly higher fail rates.

Also I would avoid WD green's, and if you get a new spindle check if the firmware is set to aggressively park the head, if it is, adjust the setting.
 
/\/\/\ if you setup the new Hard drive with your W10 installation then 2TB+ size hard drives are no problem. Just Initialize the disk as GPT in Disk Management.
 
Youll have no problem running drives larger than 2TB.

My last few drives have been WDC Reds. I've used Reds because they tend to end up in my Unraid box at some point.
 
All my spindles in my rig are also now all red drives. I did consider HGST but higher spindle speeds would be too noisy, so I considered red's to be a good sweet spot, for pricing also.

But if you get a red do check the park head setting.
 
hah so, after a day or so of issues, the drive then seemed to be fine until today, 2 (and a bit) months on from my original post, was updating some games it steam, one if which downloaded the update but once applying the update steam just said 0% updated and it kept trying to do it over and over, thought it was a bit odd.

Turned the PC off, turn it back on again (no because of that specifically just through normal use), anyway, PC turned on and the fixing errors on drive E: again on windows boot, this time i took ages, a good 5 minutes at least, but finally it booted.

I've gone an ordered a 1TB SSD today as I think I am now on borrowed time :)
 
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