Hard Drive Failure?

mks2005 · 12 Feb 2008 at 19:27

Hi

I recently noticed things were taking a while to load. I decided to benchmark my HD (a WDC 5000AAKS) to see if it was indeed slow. I was right to be suspicious. When testing with HD Tach, the Burst Test, CPU Test and Random Access Test seemed to go fairly fast, until reaching fourth one (not sure what it is).

Burst speed shows 4.0Mb/s, average read 3.7Mb/s, Random access; 50.2ms

So I'm thinking what the hell. I restarted and ran the test again. Burst speed was 200Mb/s, average read around 60Mb/s or so I think. Normal, I guess.

Some additional symptoms include: noticed stuttering and sometimes actually crashing, in games recently. Thought this might be down to heat but temps seem fine... more recently still... PC seemed to take ages on windows loading screen. Not good.

So what's the deal here. Is my drive borked? It's pretty new (about 2 months old). If this is definitely the case, does anyone know where I stand when it comes to getting replacements? Not sure if it's under warranty or not (guessing it's not)...

rpstewart · 12 Feb 2008 at 23:16

If it's only 2 months old then it should still be under warranty.

Go get the WD lifeguard diagnostics from their site and run them. It's also worthwhile checking the system error log, see if it can shed any light on things.

mks2005 · 13 Feb 2008 at 08:15

Thanks.

Intruigingly, I ran a SeaTools long diagnostic test on the drive which it passed.

I've just opened the System Error Log. Oh dear. This doesn't look too pretty.

rpstewart · 13 Feb 2008 at 08:20

Check all the cables and things, it's possible that the errors are due to a poor connection and Windows has dropped the interface to PIO mode as a result.

mks2005 · 13 Feb 2008 at 10:30

Running WD's diagnostic tool now. I will check it when I get home.

I'm hoping you're right about the cabling causing it. I did check that the SATA cable was secure though, and it seemed to be. It would make sense if the cable is dodgey I guess, seeing as the drive itself passed the first diagnostic test. Hmm, hope I have a spare SATA cable around.

Cheers for the advice.

Phil2008 · 13 Feb 2008 at 15:13

Also try a different SATA cable.

mks2005 · 13 Feb 2008 at 20:56

Gah. The WD diagnostic tool had been going 9 hours and still nowhere near finished!?

I tried replacing the SATA cable and I'm still getting errors in event viewer and stuttering in games.

Time to RMA?

Edit: It passes the Quick Test with no issues though.. I'm confused.

mks2005 · 14 Feb 2008 at 09:40

Estimated time to complete the test: 32 hours remaining. (That's after its been running overnight.) This can't be right, can it? :eek:

Gregeff · 14 Feb 2008 at 23:17

I have a similar problem and was about to make a new thread when I saw this one. My computer started to be really slow and have weird hard disk activity. I formatted, reinstalled windows and everything seemed fine again. Now it's gone back to being really slow and weird. Just checked the log like you have and have the same warning 'event 51' I guess it's the HDD gone, but i'm using two in RAID 0, so i wonder which one... very interested to hear if you find anything more out.

Gregeff · 14 Feb 2008 at 23:20

odd I just ran HDTach and got Avg Read 90MB/s burst 258Mb/s Random Acces 17.2ms which is fairly normal...

Cyber-Mav · 15 Feb 2008 at 02:29

why don;t you just run HDtune and go to the smart analysis tab and post a pic of the SMART results on here. that will tell you if the drive is nackered or not.

killersheep34 · 15 Feb 2008 at 10:16

I would run a checkdisk on that and it'll probbaly sort it out. Looks like it's some sort of file corruption or file system errors rather then a bad disk. Bad disks normally show up as bad blocks on device.

Start > Run > CMD

chkdsk c: /r (i think)
It'll ask to reboot and fix lots of errors.

Gregeff · 15 Feb 2008 at 10:48

Thanks Cyber-Mav, I ran HDTune error scan and it showed up one erroneous block over the whole disk. i guess i'll have to replace it. Unfortunately as it is a RAID0 setup I don't know which disk is faulty!

mks2005 · 15 Feb 2008 at 11:06

Thanks guys I will try both those suggestions. Would be nice if checkdisk could solve my issues.

killersheep34 · 15 Feb 2008 at 19:16

You should both visit your hard drive manufacturers website as they should have thier own hard drive testing utility which will scan the physical surface of the drive (can take a while) for problems and present you with an error code with the faulty drives, if they are indeed faulty.

mks2005 · 16 Feb 2008 at 12:22

I've installed a new, identical hard drive and cloned my existing disk across to it.

Will someone please explain this:

Old Drive - Not Booted From

New Drive - Booted From

New Drive - Not Booted From

Old Drive - Booted From

Is this normal?

killersheep34 · 16 Feb 2008 at 12:48

Did you run a checkdisk?

mks2005 · 17 Feb 2008 at 17:06

Checkdisk reports no errors so it seems.

Is it normal for the boot drive to benchmark like that?

Strangely I'm not experiencing any more errors in event viewer now....

joeyjojo · 17 Feb 2008 at 18:56

With regards to this HDTune software, what is the meaning of a red square in the Error Scan tab?

The drive has been a bit dodgy the past few days (vista claims a hardware fault - "backup your data asap"). I've got 2 red squares (=2*31MB) which click loudly when accessed.

Skyboat · 17 Feb 2008 at 22:23

joeyjojo said:
With regards to this HDTune software, what is the meaning of a red square in the Error Scan tab?

The drive has been a bit dodgy the past few days (vista claims a hardware fault - "backup your data asap"). I've got 2 red squares (=2*31MB) which click loudly when accessed.

They are bad sectors, i.e. the hard drive is on its way out.