 |
 | Home | Contact Us | FAQ | Search & Site Map | Link to Us |
 | Sign In | Join | Other 45 Sites in Network |
Windows Forum / Windows 98 / Setup / March 2006Scandisk data
Is it possible to access wherever Scandisk stores its information on bad areas of disks to delete that information? I suspect that when I bought a new hard disk a little while ago and transferred all my data to it, the copy program I was using caused a write error to one area of my new disk. Scandisk ever since has reported a error in one location which has never changed since day one. I thought I would try and restore the bad area if it is possible. Thanks Alan How to Cause ScanDisk for Windows to Retest Bad Clusters http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=127055  SignatureRegards Ron Badour, MS MVP for W98 Tips: http://home.satx.rr.com/badour Knowledge Base Info: http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?pr=kbinfo > Is it possible to access wherever Scandisk stores its information on bad > areas of disks to delete that information? I suspect that when I bought a [quoted text clipped - 7 lines] > Thanks > Alan Ron, Thanks for that info. I followed the instructions but unfortunately the PC froze about 1/3rd of the way through the disk scan. The displayed clock and the sector count stopped and the disk activity LED was permanently on. I have some questions to confirm I am doing this correctly. - The article does not mention Win 98SE, is there any problem with this? - I assume I have to run a "Thorough" Scandisk as against the "quick" one for this to work? - I have to run in "Safe" mode as "Normal" has to many restarts. Even "Safe" mode is still generating restarts but does finish - is this OK? - In "Thorough" mode should I tick the two options 'Do not perform write-testing and Do not repair bad sectors in hidden and system files. I didn't when it froze? - The registry entry initial value is not as per the article although accepts the changes OK. Any problem with this? When I ran the Scandisk in "Thorough" mode before without changing the Registry it ran to the end OK so I do not think there is too much of a problem. Thanks again for your help. Alan > How to Cause ScanDisk for Windows to Retest Bad Clusters > http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=127055 [quoted text clipped - 10 lines] > > Thanks > > Alan You seem to have done everything right. You might want to change the registry setting back to what it was so that scandisk at least performs as it did originally. One thing you might want to consider is checking out the hard drive. Determine the brand of drive, go to the maker's web site, download their diagnostic software, load it to a floppy drive and check out the new drive. The restarts are a pain and could be a simple problem or even a Trojan or spyware reporting back to its original source. There are some tips here that might help: See the defrag and scandisk troubleshooters located here: http://home.satx.rr.com/badour/html/how_to.html If you are not using spyware software, here is my standard blurb: Spyware/scumware/adware are causing numerous system problems. I recommend you download and use the following programs and consider removing everything these programs identify. Be aware that there are frequent updates to these programs and you need to check for them before every use including the first time. AdAware: http://www.lavasoftusa.com/software/adaware/ CWShredder: http://www.intermute.com/products/cwshredder.html Spybot: http://www.safer-networking.org/ SignatureRegards Ron Badour, MS MVP for W98 Tips: http://home.satx.rr.com/badour Knowledge Base Info: http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?pr=kbinfo > Ron, > Thanks for that info. I followed the instructions but unfortunately the PC [quoted text clipped - 37 lines] >> > Thanks >> > Alan Ron, Thanks for the information. I am using spyware software and have gone through the options with no major problems. I have book marked your web page to try and cure the restarts but I do believe I have most points covered off. With regard to the disc it is manufactured by Seagate and have now down loaded their Seatools diagnostics. Unfortunately, only the basic test will run, the rest just freeze the PC. I have contacted their help for advice and they suggest trying a new IDE cable or if that makes no difference try the drive in another PC to see if the fault follows it- which is not going to be the easiest thing to do. I can't believe it is the drive so I might just try investing in a new cable. They also mention it could be the motherboard (ASUS A7V8X-X) or the hard drive controller. The motherboard is passing its diagnostics so do you know how to test the hard drive controller? Thanks again for your help. Alan > You seem to have done everything right. You might want to change the > registry setting back to what it was so that scandisk at least performs as [quoted text clipped - 65 lines] > >> > Thanks > >> > Alan Alan, As far as I know, the hard drive controller is tested by the BIOS and if there is a problem, a notification is given. Did you use the old ribbon cable or the one that presumably came with the drive? Does the new drive require an 80 wire ribbon cable and, if so, are you using one? I don't know what to make of the hard drive testing OK on basic but freezing the PC on advanced testing. It seems like Seagate ought to know the answer to that instead of blaming everything else in your PC. SignatureRegards Ron Badour, MS MVP for W98 Tips: http://home.satx.rr.com/badour Knowledge Base Info: http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?pr=kbinfo > Ron, > Thanks for the information. [quoted text clipped - 102 lines] >> >> > Thanks >> >> > Alan Alan, I asked MVP Glen Ventura (aka Glee) to take a look at your situation and his reply to me was: I've been dropping in and reading that thread already. I'd have some questions for him, such as: why does he think the "copy program" he used to transfer the data from the old drive to the new one, caused a write error? It is quite possible that there is actually a bad sector on the drive there. What copy program did he use to transfer the data? The method he is trying, from the KB article you linked in the thread, is not one I have ever tried, and as the article states, it has the potential to cause problems. I don't think it is a good way to go about what he wants. I have an actual bad sector on my IBM drive. It occurred soon after I installed it, and was not found or marked by scandisk, but rather by the internal routines of the hard disk. I am not sure if a surface scandisk even picks it up, although the third-party defragger I use, PerfectDisk, spots it right away. The only ways I know to fix it, if it is in fact fixable, is to image the problem partition and then format it, using the /C switch with format, to retest bad sectors; OR to image all my partitions and then wipe the disk, re-partition and format all with the /C switch. After that, restore whatever images need restoring. I would be concerned that both scandisk and the advanced test of Seatools are freezing after making the Registry change described in the KB article. It doesn't sound like he had a problem with scandisk freezing prior to that. That leads me to believe that either there really is a bad sector, or he only thinks it is frozen because it is taking so long to test the sector. If Seatools is freezing, perhaps have him try Ontrack Data Advisor instead: http://www.ontrack.com/freesoftware/#dataadvisor ************** ************** As you can tell, I (like Glen) suspect that the drive has a problem and you would not be the first person to receive a drive that had problems--I got one that was DOA out of the box. SignatureRegards Ron Badour, MS MVP for W98 Tips: http://home.satx.rr.com/badour Knowledge Base Info: http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?pr=kbinfo > Ron, > Thanks for the information. [quoted text clipped - 102 lines] >> >> > Thanks >> >> > Alan Ron, Thanks again for the ongoing support. The copy program (Disc Wizard) was the one from Seagate and this drive is now my master drive (60g). The original Samsung disc (13g) is now the Slave on the Primary. I am not dual booting, I just use the Samsung as additional storage. The reason why I thought the problem may have occurred when the disc was being copied is that the company I was working in when I copied/installed the drive had some knowledgeable Windows software guys. I mentioned what had happened to the new disc. They suggested at the time to wait and see if any additional errors occur, if it did exchange the drive and if it didn't then it was probably a corruption or the like during data transfer. Re Glen's info on reformatting the bad partition, if I did go down that path, how do you identify the partition? Also when the Scandisk froze it was for over an hour. I didn't wait as long for the Seagate one but it was at least 20 mins. I will gave the data advisor a go once I know I don't have any other major problems. I am still rather curious why the Seagate diagnostics are not working as they should. Before I respond to them, I would like to confirm my logic. I accessed the Seagate utilities at http://www.seagate.com/support/seatools/index.html and downloaded the Seatools desktop version, created the disks and this is the one that locks the PC up on anything other than the basic memory test. (And this is running in Command mode). The Seatools online test doesn't lock up the PC when it runs but again is very selective in what it attempts to do. Selecting the English version gives test options. The File System Check runs for both disks and says minor problems with the Seagate drive. The Samsung being OK. However, when I attempt to run the Drive Self Test, it doesn't find any drives at all. Clicking help says that if no drives are shown it could possibly mean incorrect drivers are installed or Windows has not configured the Drive correctly. Looking at the Device Manager, both drives are there under Disc Drive and are labelled Disc Drive individually as well. Properties for both say no drivers are installed or needed. I have deleted both drives in the Manager and Windows reinstalled no problem but with no difference to the Seagate diagnostics. I have checked the cable for the disks and I am using the one supplied with the motherboard and it is 80-conductor ribbon cable for UltraDMA/66/100/133 IDE Drives with the correct colour coded connectors for the Master and Slave drives. I also download and ran the Seagate utility to check/change the drive access speed. It confirmed the Seagate running at 100 and the Samsung at 66. Obviously something is not as it should be. The motherboard pasts the POST OK and identifies both drives with the correct sizing, although in the case of the Seagate it does not have the correct numbers for the heads/sectors. Seagate literature says that this shouldn't be too much of a problem if the reported drive size is correct. There is no problem with Windows Explorer reading both drives. Have I missed something and should I be checking anything else before going back to Seagate support to ensure the drives and controller have been set up correctly? Alan > Alan, > [quoted text clipped - 159 lines] > >> >> > Thanks > >> >> > Alan Ron, Browsing the Seagate web site again, I see that there example of the Device Manager for the disk drives actually shows the model number of the drive as the entry. Mine just says Disc Drive. Is it just a simple matter of deleting the entire disc drive entry in Safe Mode and letting Windows rebuild it or should I be checking other areas first? Incidentally, the drives on the secondary IDE are shown correctly! > Ron, > Thanks again for the ongoing support. [quoted text clipped - 233 lines] > > >> >> > Thanks > > >> >> > Alan Just to let you know that I ran the Ontrack DataAdvisor. It looks very much like the Seagate software, so much so that it must have come from the same source with all the graphics being near identical. The main difference is that the Ontrack software ran ok. All the tests ran on both drives and the surface scan successfully found some problems on the Seagate. It said the surface scan failed, listed Record 26030976 - 85 I/O failed. Not quite sure what this means. I presume it is the bad sectors. Thanks again for your support. > Ron, > Browsing the Seagate web site again, I see that there example of the Device [quoted text clipped - 275 lines] > > > >> >> > Thanks > > > >> >> > Alan Thanks for the feedback. Assuming that the drive is under warranty, the next stop is Seagate's customer service. SignatureRegards Ron Badour, MS MVP for W98 Tips: http://home.satx.rr.com/badour Knowledge Base Info: http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?pr=kbinfo > Just to let you know that I ran the Ontrack DataAdvisor. It looks very > much [quoted text clipped - 345 lines] >> > > >> >> > Thanks >> > > >> >> > Alan |
Reply to this Message |
 Sign In
 Join
 My Latest Posts My Monitored Threads My Blog My Photo Gallery My Profile My Homepage Start New Thread Enable EMail Alerts Rate this Thread
|
©2008 Advenet LLC Privacy Policy - Terms of Use
This website includes both content owned or controlled by Advenet as well as content owned or controlled by third parties.