Hard disk problem

Therefore the more you try to 'repair' the hard drive the more chance there is of the damage becoming worse.

You should remove this hard drive for the moment. Buy a new hard drive and install your OS onto THIS new drive.

Once you have a fully operational bootable operating system, you can re-attach the old drive as a slave, and attempt to copy whatever files are still intact, over to your new hard drive.

You should only be trying to copy DATA since existing programs will NOT work on the new hard drive since the new hard drive will not have any Registry Entries for the old programs.

Remember: once a hard drive begins to break down, it will only continue to get worse. ;)

Quick and simple answers to your questions:

(1) If you're using Windows to copy/paste, you're not using block by block copy. And, yes, CRC errors CAN be caused by bad blocks. CRC errors mean the file that was copied (or attempted to be copied) does not match the file that would be pasted. So, it doesn't paste.

(2) For now, leave your brother's HDD out of the picture. What happens to his HDD is NOT related to what happes to your HDD, even though they may have been purchased at the same time, they're from the same manufacture and they're the same model. It's no different than buying two brand new blenders at the same time. You plug them both in and one works but the other doesn't. Each device is unique and you can not relate problems with one device to another. Some fail, some don't. Some fail sooner, some fail later. Eventually, they ALL will fail. Now, if it's your second HDD that is failing, as previously mentioned.... STOP USING IT. Copy what you can from it and remove it from your system. If you can't copy files, forget them and move on. Quit playing with it before it's too late. Other hardware has absolutely NOTHING to do with a HDD that is failing. The fault is in the drive itself.

(3) You don't necessarily need to reinstall windows on your primary drive if the one that has bad blocks is simply a data drive. However, if you have installed programs on that 2nd drive, you will need to reinstall them after you have either replaced the drive or moved your data to your 1st or 3rd drive.

(4) If your brother's HDD has already developed one bad block, it will eventually fail like your 2nd HDD. Please note, in all of your previous posts you keep refering to your brother's HDD as not having any problems. Yet, you now tell us that it has one bad block. The fact of the matter is, your brother's HDD DOES NOW, and will continue to have, bad blocks. The problem will only get worse. Get rid of both drives right away.

The Bad Block is not happened in my HD that Windows was installed.

This problem happens is my another HD in my PC.

There is 3 HD in my PC,
One is where Windows installed (Even it is 6 years old, it doesn't have any Bad Blocks), One with Bad Block (I just bought it 15 months ago) and one which is my brother's (the same type with my HD but his doesn't get Bad Block problem, was bought on the same day with my HD that has Bad Blocks problem).

Now I'm only backing up my data because there is so much important data in it (about 120GB) and I'm still not adding any more data to my HD that has Bad Blocks.

Or you said I shouldn't backup?

1.So those event cause by bad blocks and is going to develop more bad blocks.Is this true? So what should I do now, I'm still in middle of backing up my data using Copy process (still about 50GBs more).

2.In my brother HD, there is a folder that took about 15-30 seconds to access, it is about 15GB and has about 30.000+ files.This folder was always like that since several months ago when it was created, it holds several games for PC. Does this cause the weak sector/ was caused by the weak sector?

3.Some people say that Bad Blocks could be cause by Logical or/and Physical problem on the HD and if it was Logical, it could fixed with some program/software, it is true?

4.I've brought my PC with all the HD to a Computer Technician and he told me that the HD (that with Bad Blocks) is fine and he told me to format it to fix this problem. Should I do as he says or get a new HD?

5.If I should get a new HD, should I run a HD Check Utility as precaution there is not Bad Blocks in the new HD?

[i]For question number 2:
My brother HD doesn't have Bad Blocks, it only has Weak Block/Weak Sector (a Sector that has >500ms to access).Should I be cautious to it? Seatools still marks my brother HD as Passed, though.[/i]

If it is reporting a problem this is the start of the problem it will get worse. As for Seatools as the drive is still currently working it will pass but Seatools isn't a definitive test. What will happen is that the drive will develop Bad Blocks and then you loose Data. Most people don't want to loose data so we try to prevent this. If you are not concerned by the data stored on the drive run it till it stops.

But really the real value in any computer system is the Data on the Drive it costs far more than a new system to put there quite a few thousand $ to recover if the drive fails and depending what it actually is can bankrupt a company or cause major Legal Problems if it is the only copy on a failed drive. I recently paid $46,000.00 AU to recover a 40 GIG 2.5 Inch Drive as the companies main NB was stolen and this drive had been dropped. They had to report to the Tax Man for an Audit and simply had to recover the data as the Australian Taxation Commission will not accept a [b]Sorry we lost it[/b] as an excuse on not furnishing records to determine how much tax needed to be paid.

[i]New question:
1.Yesterday, I used Speedfan to check my HDs fitness and performance.
The 6 years old HD has 98% fitness and 98% performance.
The HD with Bad Block only has 57% fitness and 98% performance.
My brother HD has 95% fitness and 98% performance.

I wonder what caused so much difference in the fitness between my HD that has Bad Block and the other two? I know all drives eventually failed, but I wonder what could be causing it failed sooner than the other two.[/i]

The difference in Fitness is due to the fact that the Data Surface has been somehow damaged so the drives Data Surface is no longer Fit to Save Data. The small variance in the others is just the individual drives different Manufacturing Tolerances.

[i]2.Someone said not enough power supply into it will eventually caused Bad Blocks problem. Is this true and how could I determine that my HDs has enough power?[/i]

This can happen but if it was the case all the drives fitted to this computer would be affected not just one.With a HDD and Power there are 3 things that you need to take into account that can be damaged if there isn't enough Voltage or Current. The Circuit Board on the HDD will not send the right signals tot he HDD and this will affect the way that the Read/Write Heads move across the surface of the platter and the inability to read all of the Disc if any at all. The Motor that spins the platter if there isn't either enough Power in the form of Voltage or Amperage the Motor will not run at the stated speed on the Sticker on the case something like 5,400 or 7,000 RPM [i]Revolutions Per Minute[/i]

Then there is the actual Stepping motor that moves the Read/Write Heads if there is not enough power available here either in Voltage or Amperage it will not be able to move the Heads reliably where it should. This is different from the Signals sent from the Circuit Board which tell the Stepping Motor where to sent the Read Write Heads while both have the same end result the reason why it is happening can be very different and unrelated to the complete mechanism.

[i]3.Last week, I brought my HD to a computer technician as I posted before.
The bad blocks error message doesn't reappear for few days, I'm even adding some more data into it and still not getting any errors. But,several days after that, I found some file are corrupted because of the repairing process by that computer technician, so I'm using a torrent do download it again. It is the same torrent that I used before the file is corrupted. In the middle of downloading, I get some Bad Blocks error message again.

My question for this number:

Does using torrents to download a file from the Internet could cause Bad Blocks problem (making the HD failing sooner) or the HD is actually already in process of failing (not because I'm using torrents to download)??[/i]

No using Torrents doesn't hurt the drive you are getting these errors because the drive is failing not because it is being used. Though if you want to get picky the more that the use it the more errors are going to crop up and cause problems. So what happens here is that the drive will continue to work creating more & more bad blocks till there is no data storage left on the drive.

[i]4.Attribute 001 (Raw Error Value) and 195 (Hardware ECC Recovered) Raw Value on my HD sis increasing by itself and both of them has same Raw Value (Raw Error Value = Hard ECC Recovered)every time I check the SMART Result. Is this fine? I'm using Seagate as my HDs that's why I used Seatools.[/i]

What's the Raw Value I don't know where this term comes from but as it's obviously from some software it really depends on what the person/people who wrote that software wanted it to do. It could be something as simple as a counter on the number of times used to something quite different.

Again I'm not sure what the ECC means in this context. in a general term it is a form of Memory that has Error Parity Checking and is used in Expensive RAM used in Servers. It's not normally used on domestic computers or workstations type PC's. It could relate to the Cache on the drive which is memory that is used to store the Read Write data either coming in or going out of the drive. The more cache on a HDD they faster it appears to be to the end user as it doesn't have to look for each bit of data every time a request is sent for something. With the Cache on HDD they copy all of the data close to the bit that was wanted to the Cache and if the next bit, packet or whatever is wanted it is sent from the Cache rather than getting the Heads to seek and locate it. So the more Cache and the faster it is on the HDD the faster it appears to move data from or to the computer. Though this is mostly used to copy from the HDD to whatever requires it.

Now with Seatools I only really look at if the drive passes or not and if it is Under Guarantee what the error message is as I can not alter anything and I do need the Error Message to fill in the Warranty Form. A HDD Engineer may want to know other things to improve the design on the next version but it isn't important to anyone else.

As for the Bad Blocks reappearing after a few days I would guess that the drive was Low Level Formatted and showed up as OK with no errors after the format but as it was used the Bad Blocks returned as the Magnetic Material lost the Magnetism or the level of magnetic charge either drained away or was built up from adjacent blocks of Storage. This is different to a Block shown under test as these are quite a few blocks where as the individual Data Block holds a certain amount of Data in either a High of Low Magnetic Charge and this leaches away to equal the surrounding blocks over time. A very short time but it would still happen even if the drive wasn't used the only difference is that you wouldn't be aware of this happening.

Now the reason why some accept Bad Blocks is that in the Old Days the technology involved in making these devices was a lot further backward that it is today. When you bought a New Drive it could have some Bad Blocks on it because this was a manufacturing issue so the drive makers made the drives bigger than the advertised actual size so that they could loose some storage and still be bigger than what the person Purchased. The reason for this was that they could say that there is nothing wrong with the drive and we are not going to replace it under guarantee. They used to let the drive go to up to 5% of bad blocks without the need to replace one Under Guarantee. There was then software around that stopped the drives accessing any Marked Bad Blocks and more software incorporated into BIOS which allowed you to Low Level Format a HDD. As the drives got more reliable the need for these bits of software was removed so it was eventually dropped as it cost the software companies and BIOS Chip Writers too much to continue to develop this software. By deleting this from BIOS it also cleared up space in the BIOS Chip that was used for other more important things to make the system work better.

Col

[i]1.Do you know what could affect SMART Value? Does it just the HD or another Hardwares could affect it? [/i]

Well there are certainly other things that come into play in how fast a HDD can work in a computer. The biggest is the M'Board. If it is a ATA 33 that is as fast as the M'Board can allow the Drive to send/receive data. 33 MEG per Second and if it is a ATA 150 that is as fast as the drive can move data 150 MEG per Second or to put it more correctly that is as fast as the M'Board can copy/send Data to the HDD. Then there is the IDE Lead which can limit the speed of Data Transfer the old 40 way connector is limited to a 66 ATA Speed and if you have a M'Board that supports faster transfer you need one of the newer 80 Way Cables. While these things will limit speed of Transfer they shouldn't affect anything else.

[i]I want to know this because:
The "Raw Read Error Rate" Current value of my brother HD was 118 2-3 days ago, after he used torrents to download 2 file about 170MBs, the value lowers into 115 and sometimes have unstable Current Value sometimes it is could be 109 or 114.[/i]

This depends on what is being used to perform the test here but it looks like the speed that the drive and copy/read data and the more fragmented it is the slower it will be.

[i]Lower "Raw Read Error Rate" Current Value mean the HD having trouble accessing sectors/indicate that there is a problem with either disk surface or read/write heads.

Could you clarify torrents could caused these things/not? These HDs don't have Bad Blocks though.[/i]

Torrents Should Not be causing this to occur at all. After all they are a constant fairly slow write to the HDD and if you where to say RIP a DVD Movie from the Commercial Format to a DVD Single Layer Blank the data would be written to the HDD faster and keep it working harder over a shorter period of time than a Torrent would. Of course with a failing drive constant low level use over a long period may increase the likely hood of problems occurring. It really depends on why the Bad Sectors are forming. If it is Physical damage to the Platter this shouldn't make any difference but if there is a Electronic Failure on the Circuit Board which has become degraded enough this could cause the problem to get worse. But if that is the case just using the drive will cause the problem to get worse so while it may appear to happen with a Torrent it would have anyway. So over all I would say that it doesn't make any difference what you use within reason of course.

[i]2a.In SMART Value there should be 186 Bad Sectors/Bad Blocks, the last time I scan it only found 173 Bad Blocks. Do you know what caused it?
b.It seems the Bad Blocks mostly in Free Space in my HD because I don't get many CRC error when copying my file to my External HD only about 3-4 times. What could cause Bad Blocks in the Free Space?[/i]

Again this depends on what is used to Test the Drive it may not read all the Data Area and miss some Bad Blocks under Data. It may look at what is where on the drive and only test the Unused space and think that anything that should have Data on it doesn't need testing. If that is the case the Bad Blocks will be unreported under the Data and the affected Data will be corrupt. You need to remember that any Test is only that a test and shouldn't be considered as a Definitive Answer by itself unless of course you have a total failure. These Tests are a Guide Only and will vary with the hardware installed. Think of them like Medical Tests. Any Test will tell you that you have got something if you have well if carried out correctly at least. But that same test Can Not tell you do not have something it can only say we can find no trace of such & Such. Come back in 3 weeks/Months to be tested again. So that doesn't mean that you don;'t have something it just means that no trace of it can be found at this point in time. Sure you could live at the doctors and constantly have whatever being drained out of you and constantly be being tested for something but in reality that's just not going to happen and if it did what would be the point of it anyway? Well other than using up all your money quickly there would be no point in having the tests performed would there?

[i]3.Could you give me a suggestion about a good type/brands of internal HD and how big an internal HD that people has now in average?[/i]

Well personally I like Seagate Drives at the moment. They seem to be reasonably reliable cheap and well they just work. I haven't needed to replace too many while Under Guarantee but I have had to replace some. Then Seagate send Repaired Drives and they only last about a month and then die. I just don't bother with any Repaired Drives as they are not worth the risk of using. Of course there are some places like Banks who never allow a HDD to leave the Organization intact they destroy these and there have not been too many Seagate's in these places that I have sent to be totally destroyed that have just died. Somewhere around the 2% mark of all the drives that I use or supervise fail.

As for size that depends on what you have in the way of hardware. Obviously a DX33 486 can not use one of the multi Gig Drives that are currently being used. And you need to look at what the hardware can use. If you have a IDE Interface then BIOS Dictates the Upper Size Drive you can fit to that computer. If BIOS supports 276 GIG you don't fit a 500 GIG Drive and have it working. So there is no Correct Answer here it depends on what you can use in the hardware that you have available to you.

[i]4.What could caused an External HD to failed/What problem could happen to an External HD and How long does an External HD usually working(not failing)?[/i]

Again Heat & Vibration are the biggest killers of HDD's. But in the case of External Drives you need to look at the Enclosure being used if it is plastic and the drive is left running all the time it will have a much shorter life than in a Metal Enclosure with Active Cooling. Ideally any External Drive shouldn't be left running 24/7 they should only be turned on when they are needed and if you need a constant on drive use an internal one as the chassis of the Case acts as a Heat Sink to keep the drive cooler. Also any fan in the case helps to cool the drive so with more metal surface area the cooler a drive will run. Plastic stops heat escaping so they run much hotter and don't live anywhere near as long.

[i]5.How do I check condition of Hardwares?
Like Cable,HD,Motherboards,Memory,Controller.[/i]

Download and run the Ultimate Boot CD occasionally to see if there are any hardware issues cropping up.

http://tinyurl.com/3jnpy

But the reality is if you keep the case closed and just use the computer things like IDE Leads do not fail all that often. They generally fail because they are being fiddled with if you set and forget they tend to last longer and I've have seen a few 8 year old computers that are still working as well as the day that they where made. Then again I've seen a 6 Month Old system where the end user fiddles with it and has destroyed in it that period of time. They where not satisfied in ripping the plugs off the IDE Cabled but they had to touch things with no Static Control in place and then try to say that they didn't do anything and this is UG and they will sue if it isn't repaired, Of course the maker Overclocked it from new so they lost from the word go.

[i]6a.Does constantly(every day) adding/moving files in HD make physical damage in the HD?
b.Does having too much files even the files is compressed into .zip or .rar could make Bad Blocks/physical damages in the HD?[/i]

No it doesn't hurt anything except that the drive is being used and has a limited life so the longer it is used the shorter the life will be when measured in the Number of Years that a Individual Drive Lasts. If a New HDD is placed in packing material in a safe for 10 years it should work after it is pulled out and connected to a computer. Well if that interface is still supported anyway. But that doesn't mean that it has lasted longer because it hasn't been used it just means that it hasn't been used and so has it's full number of hours left to run.

[i]b.Does having too much files even the files is compressed into .zip or .rar could make Bad Blocks/physical damages in the HD?[/i]

Well as such there is no definitive answer here the more that is on a drive the longer things like Defrags take. And if you exceed a certain limit the drives performance slows down under the OS you are using. So if you use 86% of the drive and store data on it all the time the performance will be less and your ability to use the tools that you normally would is diminished or removed. But otherwise there is no difference to the reliability of the drive. Though under some OS's you are limited to the number of Root Files that they can address so while the HDD can store more the OS will not support this as a option as it is unable to map these files.

[i]c.Some people said that Bad Blocks is logical problem, the others said it is physical problem. Or it should be physical problem that caused the logical problem.Which one is true or all of them are right?[/i]

It depends on the individual drive. Bad Blocks can be either a Physical Problem or a Logical Problem depending on what is failing in the drive. If the Magnetic Material on the Platter is failing for any reason this is a Physical Problem if the Bad Blocks are developing because the Circuit Board has been degraded this is a Logical Problem. There is no correct answer here fro all drives only for the drive that is being talked about.

[i]7.Does the changing of a HD or another Hardware in a clean environment? Which place is considered clean?[/i]

I don't know what you mean here if it is move the drive to another computer provided that the drive is treated properly it shouldn't hurt anything. But if you have a drive in a computer for the life of that computer and then move it to a new one it is far more likely to fail in the new one than the old one. Simply because it is older and has had more use so it has got closer to the end of it's Design Life.

If you mean open the drive and change things this has to be carried out in a Class 1 Clean Room if the drive has any chance to survive longer than a few minutes.

[i]8.I'm going to get a replacement to the shop where I bought the HD 1 years ago, what should I do if the shop owner refuse it?
I'm not really fond about shipping process in my country.
Maybe I will post some more question if the SMART Value in question number 1 could indicates a problem or I want to ask some miscellaneous questions.[/i]

I'm not exactly sure what you mean here if it is return the drive for a Warranty Repair then that isn't the Shop Owners problem it is between you and the Company who issues the Drive Warranty. You have to look at who should replace the drive according to the makers support services. If the Maker doesn't authorize the retailer to replace things he will be stuck with a dead drive that is useless to anyone and they will increase the cost of doing business for that person which will in turn cause the prices to increase. The Shop who sells these things doesn't offer any Warranty the Maker offers the Warranty and you should contact the Maker.

But if you mean that you plan to but a new drive and the shop owner refuses to sell you one which I can not see happening you simply go to another shop to buy a HDD.

Col

Thanks for your information and the link.

I want to ask some more:
1.I don't think that caused my HD to fail is Heat and Vibration, this HD has lower temperature than the other two my computer place in a desk that hardly move.

If these two was the cause, especially vibration. Won't the other two also get Bad Blocks problem? Does the placing of HD could make this problem, this HD with Bad Blocks is placed in the middle of the other two.

Could poor/failing cable and/or motherboard caused HD to fail?

2.I want to ask about weird things in my HDs.
I think it about the file system.

a.I set a folder to be view by list (View in Toolbar->List). But after I shutdown/restart my PC, that folder change into other modes of view like Thumbnails/Icons. I check Remember each folder settings in Folder Options menu.
I wonder what caused it?

b.Sometimes a folder is automatically arranged by name when I'm add new file into it. Explanation: the new file was at the end of list but when I change folder then go back to that folder the new file was automatically sorted by name. What caused it?

3.Does too much copying/moving file to a folder at once could damage the HD?

4.Could you give me a suggestion about doing backup?
a.The good place for backup?
b.How often I should do it?
c.The good method for backup?

5.I was deleting some file of the HD with Bad Blocks. I used McAfee Shredder to delete the files in the Recycle Bin but the shredding operation is slower than usual. What could caused it?

6.Does it normal to have high CPU usage (80-100%) when copying files? I'm experiencing it right now when I'm made a backup to my external HD.