Small story. I recently bought a new DVD burner, and as I had planned weeks earlier, I wanted to back everything up to prepare for a reformat.

Current config is Western Digital 80GB @ 5GB/75GB, with the former for WinXP, and the latter for everything else. At the time I thought it was the perfect solution for my needs, easy reformat of Windows without touching the data files. Turns out it wasn't so good, 5GB gets eaten up by Windows really fast. Even if I installed programs to the 75GB partition, there was always going to be small files & crap on the 5GB side.

So okay, enough was enough, I proceeded to back everything up nice & neat. I started with the first batch, and ended up coastering two perfectly fine DVD+Rs. There was a probem with one of the files, seems it couldn't be read by any of my programs... then a spine chill... I probably had a bad sector in my hands. No biggie, I quickly ignored the offending file in the hopes it'll 'fill' the bad sector till I successfully backed everything else up. I managed to get two DVDs burned, but I couldn't gurantee if any of the files could be read later on. With a tenth of my stuff on DVD, I deleted the duplicates on disk to free up some space... big mistake. Suddenly I had problems with several files. I did some rearranging, and tried making a DVD image before burning, a no go it seems, HDD would 'hang' somewhere in the middle.

Now at first I thought it was a problem with Nero. But after trying out a couple other programs, it slowly it dawned on me that I had a cataclysmic disaster on my hands. My 75GB partition was always near capacity, probably having at most around 5GB of free space, thats how it always was for the past year or so. It didn't occur to me that such low use of those sections of my HDD would result in such wasteful decay... absolutely devestating . What I suspect happened was that parts of my HDD was degrading over the months, but since it was always full with unused data, I never really noticed them. After freeing up that space, the problem came to the surface, and I have myself a nice situation.


System will operate as normal though, as long as I don't run programs that use the bad places of my HDD. If I did, it would do one of two things... system hang with HDD light brightly lit, or a frightening HDD shutdown in the middle of operation which'll result in a hang 10 seconds later. Attempt to warm boot will result in my HDD switching on and off continously during XP load screen. A most horrid of sounds, I can assure you . I skipped the scandisk phase during startup, since that would touch the bad spots, resulting in another round of anguish.

XP was of no help, as usual, so I relied on 3rd party software for fixes & such. There was one that looked good, but it relied on a floppy, so I moved on to something else. Since my HDD is a WD, I wanted to try their diagnostic tool. I got one from their site, and burnt the bootable ISO onto a CDRW. After boot, I did a full scan and... it says my HDD had too many problems. Yesss ! There were a couple of things of great importance on my toasty HDD, so I thought maybe I could just CD-burn them for now before I lose 2 years of work (I know I know ). Loaded Nero, burnt a CD image, and.... it worked!! Well okay it rebooted right after making the image, but it worked! So I burnt 6 CDs, and got the most important bits out, but again, I can't gurantee if any are uncorrupted.


So whats the plan? I have a spare 20GB or 40GB HDD laying around unused, I'll probably use that as redundancy and dupe the critical data onto it. Overall I'm pretty bummed . Bummed for having to shell out for a new HDD, and bummed for HDD not lasting as long as everyone else.

Actually this is the fifth time I had to do emergency purchases in as many years. First time was a mobo problem, darn thing would shutdown cold turkey. It was a problem with the mobo chipset, and so I had to shell out for a new mobo, new memory, and new CPU. Second time was a HDD problem, it wouldn't boot up, so I spent weeks trying to RMA the darn thing. Third time was my CRT mon, half the screen would disappear! Fourth time was my graphics card, everything including Windows would appear flowery, and glimmery! It was a nice card, and I didn't want it to goto the trash. So I sold it to a secondhand store. Went to 8 stores, they all tested it, but it wouldn't run, so they turned me down. Tried the ninth store, and a miracle, it booted, and worked perfectly! I took the cash, and walked out as fast as I could! And finally the fifth and last time was my mobo... yet again! That time, I wasn't sure if it was my PSU or my mobo, so I went to a store I trusted, and asked specifically if I could return my PSU for a mobo in case that wasn't the problem. He said okay. I tested it, and I still had the problem, so it was the mobo at fault. Returned to the store, and looked at the list of mobos he had available. I pointed to one I liked, a nicely priced mid-range one, and he said he was outta stock. I pointed the one just below, and he said he was outta stock as well. He was out of stock for all except the most expensive of mobos... how bout that folks ! Since he didn't do refunds, I had no choice. Avoided his damned store ever since.

So yeah, I have a demon piggy-backing my back, cursing my toys everywhere I go! Yarrrr!

first off did you try to run chkdsk on the offending hard drive?

second, is it still under warranty? WD have at LEAST a year warranty and some even longer (I think they're starting to try to compete with Seagate's 5 year warranty)

third, 5GB is about enough space to fit a fresh WinXP install with NO programs at all.

an 80GB drive isn't that big by today's standards and you said you only had about 5gb free anyway...i suggesting getting a higher capacity hard drive and allocating somewhere between 10-15GB for your system partition. there's a thread i started on this in this same subforum regarding the size of system partitions. my C:/ partition is 20GB, and I've filled about 9GB. if you don't isntall a lot of programs you can get away with 8-10, but 15 is probably my recommendation.

I've never had problems with a WD drive, but for your next drive you may want to look to seagate. they have a good reputation and if nothing else, they have a FIVE year warranty (and jusging by your luck, you may need it! )

another thought...it's possible that your hardware failures are not all coincidental and are caused by something like a faulty power supply or insufficient cooling. you may want to monitor temps or look into what kidn of PSU is in your system. overheated parts or malfunctioning PSUs can cause some strange problems for sure.

Yep I tried CHKDSK numerous times. At first it'd report no problems, only fixing my drive after a crash. Later it stopped working completely, as my HDD decides to shut itself down in the middle.

My drive had 3 years warranty, which unfortunately expired recently. But even if it hadn't, I would still need two drives to back everything up, and that wouldn't have been possible here .


As for the amount of space XP requires, yea I suppose technically it could do well with 5GB, but it wasn't so in practice. Even when installed on other partitions, programs still felt the need to leave a little of itself on the 5GB side. In fact it was hell trying to get programs to do what I wanted. Quicktime for example resides on the 75GB side, but would have its huge cache on the 5GB side. iPod & iTunes base installation files would again reside in the Windows folder, sometimes refusing to run when those were deleted. Email folder is huge, and unmovable, taking up the most space available. And if all that isn't enough, SP2, and numerous other regular XP patches suck up whats left .

Thanks for the partition recommendation by the way, but this time I think I'll go for a single partition . Probably not very elegant, but it'll force me to do regular backups. I'll also consider Seagate, they have tailor-made diagnostic tools right? Shops sell more of those anyway compared to WDs. And oh yes, I'll definitely get one with 3-5 years of warranty once again !

Finally, for power or cooling issues... the same thought crossed my mind actually. The temperatures was definitely not a problem though. Back when I built my system, I thought I'd try something different for a change. Instead of smashing my HDD right above my (dead) floppy drive, no doubt roasting itself, I positioned it between two free drive slots. Two brackets were used to fasten the drive, so it'd be 'floating' right in the middle. The two drive covers I modded to fit an 80mm intake fan. The airflow goes over and under the drive, and then passes straight to the CPU. The heated air then gets sucked out to an exhaust fan, and the PSU. Everything cool. Every once in a while, I'd clean the thing, and check for warmth. The HDD is always running super cool, and the CPU is a special version I specifically bought to run in the low fourties, at 30 degree room temperature. I check both BIOS and MBM5 for my CPU and my chipset temps.

Anyways, the first thing I did was to underclock my FSB down to 100MHz, that should both lower the temperatures and drain a little less power than is needed. I can't say for certain at this point whether its my PSU, as its a good one I bought a few years back. But I'm sure it has a part to play in all this, as the new drive does suck in more juice. I'll play around with my hardware, see if any of my rails are doing down. Thanks for the help so far . I'll keep the thread updated.

you definitely sound like you know what you're doing. it's hard to believe tha tsomeone can be that unlucky though (no offense!)

I highly recommend seagate drives. In my opinion they are VERY reliable. even if people will argue their quality, like i said you get the 5 year warranty which is hard to beat!

the seagate diagnostic tools can be downloaded from their website i believe.

there's nothing wrong with partitions as long as you leave yourself a little room to work with. if you're going with a single partition that's fine, but just as an example, i have a 20GB system partition and all of my programs are installed on that partition as well. the rest is data (pictures, videos, dvd burning temp files, word docs, etc)

this does mean that you need to reinstall all of your programs whenever you reformat, but it also means you don't have to worry about backing up all of your data which is more important to me than the programs. (and i have a lot more of it than the programs)

your setup is up to you obviously.

i wish i had more to suggest, but you really seem to have thoroughly covered your bases. goo dluck with however you decide to set things up

-Nicole

Email? Can be changed in the program ..... options->move inbox storage folder
You can also configure all the temporary directories & of course your documents & caching folders
Tweak Ui might help there It's a M$ powertoy.

I suspect you're trying to backup files protected by the OS, or files which are currently being used

Why not get an external USB/FW box, slap in a HD , transfer what you can to it

Update:
As I was poking around, I discovered that my +3.3v line is wacked. Mobo reports it as being at 2.60-2.62v, which is completely unacceptable . Other lines seemed fine. I didn't want to spend any more than I already have, or will, but this was just necessary. If my HDD is getting problems because of it, I don't want any new hardware experiencing problems with it either. So I went out and got myself a good solid 420W PSU from Enermax for $60, a little painful, but its a good long term investment. No more penny pinching from me lol . K so I installed it, and checked my +3.3v lines and... still 2.6v! Mobo is probably reading it wrong then... no matter, I'll store my old PSU long term in case I need it later.

I played Diablo2 (stored on the 75GB side) for a little bit, testing for problems and such, and the start-restart clicking of the HDD appeared yet again. Crash followed soon after. Funny thing though, it doesn't happen when I use and fill my 5GB partition. Lucky, since I was able to burn small chunks of data to CDs. I just can't comprehend how and why a HDD decides to shut itself down because of one side, and not the other.

Downloaded a program named DIY DataRecovery HD Workbench. Full test reveals no problems untill near the end, where it just stalls for hours. Aborting shows me a problem with something called SEEK ERROR RATE under the S.M.A.R.T. table. Googled it, and the news isn't good .

Will need... to go out... and buy... new HDD... so... lazy... ack.


Sounds great. Saw some prices today, certainly competitive compared to Westerns. Thank you .


Oh, I wasn't made aware of that program. Hmm, I suppose I'll reconsider my position then lol.


Nope, pretty sure they're not protected. They're all ZIPs, MP3s, images and a couple other things numbering in the hundreds of thousands. I also have nearly nothing running in the background, so none of them would be used. If both scenarios were the case however, an error message of some sort would probably appear, mine just hangs .

I'm currently running out of options at this point lol, but there is one possibility left where I could back 50GB+ onto CDs, and in 500MB chunks only. Thats like... 100 CDs, which will cost about a third that of a new HDD. So I'm guessin' I'll probably have to bite the bullet, and get a new drive . Was hoping not too, cuz last week I was all giddy for spending close to nothing, and getting massive benefits in return... today I'm spending massive, but getting squat lol!

Oh and I'm not sure about the external thing, I don't plan on doing much that'll take advantage of that configuration. Thanks for the help though .


More updates soon rofl !

My short advice on all this:

The more you use your already failing harddrive, the more likely you are to lose even more files than you already have! They may all be gone soon if you continue using it.

I suggest you stop using that harddrive altogether until you have figured out exactly how you are going to backup your files and you are actually ready to do it. Then and only then do you power on that harddrive again.

From what I read above you need a new HDD anyway, regardless of fact that your WD might be faulty. The (faulty) Western Digital needs to be completly formated, and only then you can see if something left of it.
The 5GB/75GB configuration is definitely bad idea - but it's up to you. My advice: split your HDD in three partitions (like 20/30/30, or something). For example, my HDD is splitted on 5 partitions (don't ask why).

Update:

Today I got off my bum bum, and went and bought myself a new HDD! Just as recommended, I bought a Seagate, and the warranty does indeed last for 5 years for all their drives (unlike WDs which are only for their larger varieties) . I didn't want to buy an 80GB to replace my original though. I have this thing where if I decide to change hardware, it should always be better than the last. So... I looked for a 100GB or 120GB drive. And they were all out! The guy said the price difference between 80s and 120s was very small, which was why it got sold out. I was left with 160s. Hooo kay, I then tried to look for 160s with 8MB cache... and there were none for Seagate! Alternative was Maxtor, but I didn't want anything to do with that acursed brand after several of my earlier drives of the same name died for no reason.

So 160GB, 2MB cache, 5 year warranty... and I'm $64 poorer! Got around to partitioning my drive.... eeee'r I caved earlier as you all saw, and because I had so much space now, I decided to put in 20GB just for Windows (as recommended as well). The rest is for my stuff, I hope this one will last at least for another 3 years . Install went smoothly, but as soon as I got to the desktop, I started getting weird popups. Thought nothing of it, and I went on to install the basics, drivers, MBM5, free AVs, etc... and then, I got hit with a big pan right in the face! IE began popping up contents of a... "morally loose nature". This sucks, so I proceeded to install Nero, and burn all the basics I downloaded onto a CDRW. I then unplugged (internet line), reboot, reformatted, reinstalled, etc.... Not a good start .

After redoing everything, I scanned and was good to go. Plugged wire back, and... everythings looking good .



Now, I'm going to continue installing stuff throughout the night (it's 9:30 right now), and if my eyes obey my thoughts, I'll try plugging back the old HDD for the transfer process afterwards. Else tomorrow is a brand new day . My plan for this little sucker is to zero-fill/low-level format and try to test using DIY DataRecovery HD Workbench again. If it works out fine, I'll see if I can copy stuff to it. If it fails again, I'll attempt to get a replacement from the warehouse, even though I'm a few months off. Once I get a replacement, I'll sell it!!! I'll aim to lose approx $25 with this HDD nightmare .

*rubs lucky rock*

Final update:

Got infected with malware this morning, and the PC came to a crawl. Couldn't browse the net due to something about my sockets being used up... So instead of formatting C: like before, I destroyed both partitions, and reconstructed/reinstalled everything. No problems so far . Up to 90% levels now, and am running Spybot/Adaware to make sure I'm 100% clean of crap.

A few hours ago though, I successfully managed to transfer most of my stuff from the problem drive onto my new one. I'd say 99% of it was saved, but I've yet to test them all. One ZIP in particular contained an important piece of work, and that unfortunately is lost forever.... have to recreate it from scratch ugg! After the transfer, I used the DIY program to see if I could repair the damaged sectors on the busted HDD, yesterday I managed to clean 2-3 baddies, with the following sector making the drive crash. Today I set about bypassing that to clean the subsequent sectors... two failed, two were a success . Then, I rescanned the same section of HDD only to discover 100 new bad sectors! Just to make sure I wasn't seeing things, I increased the search field a touch and..... to my horror saw over a thousand new bad sectors !!!! Useless magnet has gone to hell!

So, just as I stated yesterday, I went about calling the shop where I got the thing from for a replacement. I insisted that the warranty just went past a few months, and that it was imperative that I get a replacement at all costs. She refused, saying it was impossible because 1, I didn't have the warranty card and 2, get this, the warranty was only for 1 year.... 1 year?! Woah. For the first thing, I told her one of her sales people specifically told me that the receipt was all that was needed to get a replacement, and that a warranty card wasn't needed. For the next, the warranty in question was, as the sales guy told me, going to last a good 3 years. I told her this, and the fact that it was also printed behind the receipt. Her response was something to the tune of the shop 'changing policy' in the intervening time, and that there was nothing she could do for me. Then she hung up.

Great, I now have a $100 paperweight. And not only that, I have yet another scumbag shop I need to put on the list. For a city thats supposedly one of the more advanced (in terms of puters) in this part of the world, quality certainly sucks....


Well guys, it's been a real blast . I would like to give my warmest thanks to each and every one of the guys that responded and helped me in this thread, you've been really awesome . I expect the next hardware fault to come shortly, and I suspect it to be my oldest component... the 9800, which I bought only 1.5 years before. So I'll see you all again when it finally kicks the dirt. Thank you .


The end.

hey,

first off, most "shop" warranties don't extend past their 30 day return period unless you specifically purchase extra protection. are you saying that the manufacturer warranty should have been 3 years? if that's the case then you have to go to the manufacturer for a replacement...I'd be VERY surprised for any shop to honor a year long warranty, much less a 3 year warranty. product quality is not their responsibility, and if it's not a best buy or a circuit city, then they probably can't take a hit like that anyway.

just call WD and see what they have to say

Thanks for the suggestion . I checked my SN on their website, and it looks like I'm out of luck. But will try to call them tomorrow and see what happens .

Dunno about the USA, but here in Oz, shops must give minimum 3 months warranty (usually 1 month instant replacement), but will usually accept products back up until a year old. It doesn't cost them anything to get it fixed, as they just send it back to the distributor at the distributors next delivery. Distributors generally just send a replacement.

Occasionally they decide to be bastards, and do their job correctly & RMA it with the manufacturer (aka takes a LONG time)

most shops in the us have a 30 day return period and most of the time on big electronics is only like 15 days (factory built computers and things like that)

after the 30 day return period, all warranties must be taken up with the manufacturer. manufacturer's warranties vary greatly and it's a good idea to pay attention to them when purchasing something.

many products are a year, but some are only 90 days. some will divide parts and labor into separate warranties. when my camcorder broke i had a 90 day labor and 1 year parts warranty on it. all the replacement parts were free, but i had to pay the people to fix it...and anyone that's had a car fixed knows that you get SCREWED on labor charges.

i'd find it very hard to believe that a computer store would back a 3 year warranty...that ball is in the manufacturer's court so to speak.

I think an appropriate term is ... when the devil is using a snowblower on his front porch.

Update:

Calling them is out for now at least, they're not in my country, so charges would be prohibitive. Instead I sent them a colorful email, have to wait till tomorrow to see what they say . If response is canned, I'll call them and give them an earful.

I also confirmed the warrenty on my Seagate in their site... expiry date 05 (May) 2011... oh beautiful numbers .

save the receipt and the warranty card if there is one just to eliminate any doubt whatsoever and as a reminder of exactly what the date of purchase was. five years is a long time to hang onto paperwork so file it in a safe place! not only should you save the paper copy, but with your luck it might be a good idea to scan them and save the files to a floppy or CD and put that in a safe place as well

Yup, done that . Placed receipt in an airtight container. Not going anywhere for a long while. No warranty card however .


Update
Okay I finally received a reply from our friend Western Digital, and luckily it wasn't canned. Guy basically told me I am eligable for a "loyalty discount", where I can "take advantage" and "upgrade" to a higher capacity drive. Full warranty, and at a discounted price. Sounds great right?

Yea, um no. Firstly this is only available for US/Canada folks. I live outside, so I'm what you'd say... "screwed". Secondly, there's no apparent discount, if anything its more expensive. I can purchase drives of the exact same model type/capacity, and of the same brand, for much cheaper in my city... full warranty included. Third, they mentioned upgrading to a bigger drive, making it sound like a deal... not so. As far as I can tell, there is no deal, its just a pitch.

Sent a reply, I don't expect much else from them. I'm moving to another company with better quality products, and longer warranties, said so in my reply . Pity.... the drive was really terrific while it lasted.

As of the last year or two, all HDs are at least 3 years although I to usually purchase Seagate for the 5 year warranty now. But, it's hardly WD's fault if your retailer won't honour the warranty. I'm somewhat surprised however you can't go through WD. Have you actually tried? I mean don't e-mail them but use the RMA procedure on their site. From memory and with a quick check, it appears WD do allow you to RMA directly to them via the site. You can also check the warranty online. Hitachi, Seagate and WD allow you to go through them in most of the world IIRC. Maxtor unfortunately DOES NOT allow you to go through them in the Asia Pacific region (except India) so I strongly recommend people don't get Maxtor in the Asia Pacific region. Of course, Maxtor is part of Seagate now so it's not going to matter eventually but for now...

Another option, you haven't mentioned where you live. If you live in a developed country you should look in to local consumer laws. It's easily possible your vendors actions are in violation of them. Here in New Zealand for example, your story suggests the haven't followed the CGA. Of course, it may not be worth the time and the money to take the company to a disputes tribunal (or whatever) but then again, only you can decide that and it may not be necessary. At the very least, since it's clear the vendor is not going to be helpful, it might be time to start mentioning those laws and see if that gets a better response. If not, you could try mentioning the matter to your local consumers institute and/or watchdog

BTW, it's true that special prices/discounts are rarely worth it for the savy consumer. You must realise that the prices they are offering them are a discount off the RRP. For many computer parts, the price you pay in comparison to the RRP is significantly lower. Even more so for things such as HDs were you nearly always buy OEM variants.

P.S. Can't remember about Samsung.
P.P.S. I find it strange that the shop usually doesn't honour the (longer) warranty in the US. Here in NZ the shop is frequently the first point of call especially for computer items. To be fair, often it means you HAVE to go through the shop and it's rather difficult to deal with the manufacturer (of course, not many manufacturers are directly represented here) so you do have to be a bit careful who you shop with. It does depends on the manufacturer some do deal directly (well their agents) with the customers and usually it's the preferred method in such instances but legally the shop has to honour the warranty. HDs are one item which you are usually able to deal directly with the manufacturer wherever you live although as mentioned, not Maxtor HDs. RAM sometimes but it depends on the manufacturer and frequently, it's better to deal with the shop since the RAM manufacturer will probably tell you to send it back to the US. The distributor/supplier is also legally required to deal with you although for computer parts, it can be difficult to know who the distributor is sometimes. But this isn't unique to NZ either, I would say it's standard in much of the Asia Pacific region although most don't have the legal requirements.

Oh I didn't mean it that way. I divide blame between my vendor first (for lying to me), and WD later (for their lousy product) .


Yep as I mentioned previously, I tried checking my WD serial number to see the warranty status, and also tried RMAing it through their automated process. Warranty has expired, and RMAing it doesn't work because of the expiry. That was when I tried emailing them, but resulted in an undesired outcome.


Thanks , but unfortunately I can't be bothered with laws I have very little knowledge in, for such a small amount of any possible return. Could spend the same amount of time on monetary acquisition, and probably get me several new drives in the process .

Besides, folks here are extremely money driven, to the point where they won't think twice selling back repaired goods (aka no gurantee it'll work for X years) at full price. I'd imagine they receive a good number of legal threats... and seeing as they're still in business, they've probably mastered the art of law bending. I much prefer the art of take-my-business-elsewhere myself.



Thanks again, but I'm going to let this one go. Just can't waste any more time on these nitwits than I already have. Just going to get WD & that vendor where it hurts, in their pockets.