This Cant Be Good :(

Topic: This Cant Be Good :( (Read 3449 times) previous topic - next topic

This Cant Be Good :(

December 14, 2004, 04:42:40 AM

My computer started screwing around and working REALLY slow, I restarted in safe mode to run spybot and antivirus to try ands figure out what was going on and this is what it told me

Quote

SMART Failure Prediction Hard Disk 0:WDC WD400EB-00CPFU-(PM)

WARNING: Immediately back-up your data and replace your Hard Disk Drive. A failure is imminent

:disappoin So yeah I guess I need a new HD now? It currently has a 40gb HD in it but I was looking at 80gb HD's on ebay any ideas/suggestions? how hard would it be to replace it, and could I use the discs I burned when I bought my computer to format the new drive?

I was gonna do some christmas shopping tomorrow since I sold my rc plane but now thats gonna have to go to fix this computer:shoothead

Re: This Cant Be Good :(

Reply #1 – December 14, 2004, 05:07:41 AM

http://www.simplisoftware.com/Public/index.php?request=HdTach

download the free version and run the benchmark. When finished (IF it finishes) it'll display a graph. Make sure you don't have anything else running. If the graph has a ton of negative spikes down to 0, you have a few hours to read the data as the drive gets slower and slower, eventually getting unreadable data and then having parts of the harddrive disappear altogether. I don't know how this version graphs the thing though. The earlier versions graphed as it went and was more precise (this one looks like it averages points out).

I had a problem after about a month of owning a 160GB SE Western Digital 2 years ago and the thing got extremely slow really quick once it started showing symptoms. In the end, I got probably 70% of my data, although some was copied over corrupted. When I sent the drive in, it would no longer boot into windows and was missing 50GB, it saw it as slightly over 100GB. I used hdtach a few times to watch the drive's performance get worse (started with a few negative spikes, later in the day the graph was completely red and began to not even finish the benchmark) and monitor how much more I would be able to backup. I don't think I have the screenshot anymore, but it was a nasty graph.

They sent a replacement and I've been using it since.

If the benchmark runs fine and continues to run fine, it may not be the drive. When I talked to my dad a couple months ago, he was talking about a similar error on one of his systems and chose to ignore the thing. The drive's still working fine to this day. I don't know what is setting the self monitor off, but it "may" not be a danger to your data.

Exactly what discs do you have? OEM "recovery discs"? The ones that you pop in and it copies windows back over to the harddrive from a disk image. If its one of these, windows may only partition 40GB of the 80, requiring you to create a second partition once its up and running. There's so many ways they make the things, its hard to tell if they'd work or not. If its just a Windows installation cd, it'll do everything needed during install

Re: This Cant Be Good :(

Reply #2 – December 14, 2004, 05:22:12 AM

The discs I mentioned are ones that the computer told me to burn the first time I started it, so I guess that would make them the "recovery discs" . I was planing on saving all my stuff and reformatting the drive (again...) but a bunch of my stuff isnt there??? internet explorer and windows player work, but msn, AVG and my games wont work.

Re: This Cant Be Good :(

Reply #3 – December 14, 2004, 10:19:01 AM

Ebay is really not the greatest place to get computer hardware (tho you can occasionally find a good deal). If you're looking for a cheaper quicker way to get a hard drive, check out store like best buy, circuit city, compusa, or what ever major electronics reatailer you may have in your area. Chances are you'll be able to find at least an 80 gig drive for around 40-50 buck after a rebate, plus you can purchase an extended warranty for it if you're concerned about failure. As for what brands to use I personally suggest either Seagate or Maxtor, Seagate being my first choice. As for Western Digital, it's hard to get a quality drive from them Unless you spend a fair chunk of change for one of the higher end models. Now as for your old drive there is still a good chance you can get the all of the data off. It doesn't sound like there has been much if any corruption. It is possible that you ought to be able to slave the new hard drive in the computer and using a drive imaging program such as Drive Image or Symantec Ghost (what I use personally and at work for our labs) to clone your old drive to your new one and skip the miserable mess of backing up/ restoring everything on your computer. Anywho, just my :2c: take of it what you will!

Re: This Cant Be Good :(

Reply #4 – December 14, 2004, 12:33:34 PM

Your CDs actually might point to a partition on your existing drive that has an image of all your main data, so when you put in the new drive, this smaller partition with the image of all your data, will not be there. That's the way my recovery CDs became coasters. I had to fight to get them to send me a WinXP CD when my HD went out. I lost the boot sector and it just wouldn't boot as a primary drive. Reformatted it several times, installed windows and still no boot. Works fine as a secondary drive though. I just don't trust it for irreplaceable data.

Re: This Cant Be Good :(

Reply #5 – December 14, 2004, 02:52:13 PM

Quote from: SSX

Your CDs actually might point to a partition on your existing drive that has an image of all your main data, so when you put in the new drive, this smaller partition with the image of all your data, will not be there. That's the way my recovery CDs became coasters. I had to fight to get them to send me a WinXP CD when my HD went out. I lost the boot sector and it just wouldn't boot as a primary drive. Reformatted it several times, installed windows and still no boot. Works fine as a secondary drive though. I just don't trust it for irreplaceable data.

ouch, luckily the older HP we have had the data on I think one cd - with windows 98. Looking at the POST screen and comparing how much space you have available to you, you can tell if there's hidden partitions or not.

Quote from: tbirdscott

The discs I mentioned are ones that the computer told me to burn the first time I started it, so I guess that would make them the "recovery discs" . I was planing on saving all my stuff and reformatting the drive (again...) but a bunch of my stuff isnt there??? internet explorer and windows player work, but msn, AVG and my games wont work.

SSX may be right if thats the case. The things that aren't working, are the files still there? There's still the possibility that say a power surge hit the system causing the hd to behave erratically (typical "surge protectors" only last minutes before they blow and the thing becomes nothing more than a power strip. The only true surge protector is an "on-line" UPS (one that runs off the battery all the time, not one that bypasses it until it detects power failure) or a time the system wasn't shut down properly, causing loss/corruption of data.

Myself, I wouldn't trust a drive such as that and if still under warranty, I'd have it replaced. If you can't, it'd still make a perfectly good secondary drive as long as it doesn't actually fail

Re: This Cant Be Good :(

Reply #6 – December 14, 2004, 04:49:21 PM

Well after spending 40 minuites on the phone being jerked around by HP they tell me that the one year warranty on the computer I bought january 15th expired december 1st

and that I would have to fax them copys of my reciepts and any other proof of purchase

so I said f**k them and hung up. I will go down to future shop and see what I can get for cheep.

I managed to burn my music/video's to disc and upload my pics to my yahoo album but I still have no way of saving my e-books

I dont give a about anything else on there now.

If I do get an 80gb HD could I use the recovery discs (all

just to get my computer up and running till I can afford to buy win xp? (probabally wont be till jan/feb) or should I just pick up another 40gb HD?

I also tried running the HD Tach, it gets about 1/3 through the sequential read test and an error message pops up, the graph shows a flat line below 1MB/s :shakehead

Re: This Cant Be Good :(

Reply #7 – December 14, 2004, 05:02:09 PM

Quote from: tbirdscott

If I do get an 80gb HD could I use the recovery discs (all just to get my computer up and running till I can afford to buy win xp?

Yeah, should work as long as there aren't any extranious partitions on your drive for recovery purposes. Either that or pick up a copy of norton ghost to clone your old drive to the new one, granted there's no corrupted files pertaining to the operating system. Which it's sounding like there is.

Re: This Cant Be Good :(

Reply #8 – December 14, 2004, 07:30:34 PM

Quote from: tbirdscott

I also tried running the HD Tach, it gets about 1/3 through the sequential read test and an error message pops up, the graph shows a flat line below 1MB/s :shakehead

ouch.

If its 8 cd's, thats a lot of data. It'd most likely be all on the cd's. If you look at the manufacture date of the harddrive (printed on the top), you may be able to get it rma'd through WD...but it most likely only has/had a 1 year warranty from that date, being that its an EB model (JB's continued to have 3 years while they dropped all the others to 1 year, minus scsi)

and what about the e-books? What format are they in? Anything can be backed up, they just require different steps

Re: This Cant Be Good :(

Reply #9 – December 14, 2004, 09:08:10 PM

Just checked and the date on the hd is sept 2003

checked around a bit and it looks like about $120 or better for an 80gb hd. Wonder how long this one will hold out?

Re: This Cant Be Good :(

Reply #10 – December 14, 2004, 09:22:23 PM

Quote from: tbirdscott

checked around a bit and it looks like about $120 for a 80gb hd.

That's a little much for that size drive. I would suggest checking out http://www.newegg.com or even see if you have a bestbuy nearby. You should be able to get that same size for a lot less than that. Just as an example check this one out. http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=22-148-015&depa=1

Re: This Cant Be Good :(

Reply #11 – December 15, 2004, 01:09:59 AM

He's in Canada, newegg doesn't ship outside of the US/Puerto Rico, and $120cnd is $97usd. Still a bit expensive considering you can get 200GB for under $100usd here in the US but other people don't have as low of prices as us on technology...especially australians (poor people)

Futureshop left the US in the 90's if you didn't know, they're now only based in Canada

and just so you know, $120 for 160GB from the same company (who's cicero anyways? repackaging maxtor drives?) at futureshop
http://www.futureshop.ca/catalog/proddetail.asp?sku_id=0665000FS10034015&catid=10484&logon=&langid=EN&dept=18

Re: This Cant Be Good :(

Reply #12 – December 25, 2004, 05:18:05 AM

Well it completely ped out on me so after talking to hp again (the first guy I talked to musta been in a bad mood) they shipped me a new seagate 40gb hd for nothin

just had to fax a reciept to them and within a couple hours I was set. Now I'm gonna sell it cause I bought my brothers lap top off of him(P4 this time..), and hes giving me a good deal on it :ies: thanks for the help!