How can I find out whether there are bad clusters on a harddrive?

I used the built-in utilities of Windows XP and see nothing there.

Yet the service man told my daughter, her harddrive had bad clusters which
every now and then gave her a blue screen and said the system has to shut
down.

I have that HD now in my external housing and see nothing bad, but I might
be missing something.

do you Defrag?

Ritter197 wrote:

> How can I find out whether there are bad clusters on a harddrive?
>
> I used the built-in utilities of Windows XP and see nothing there.
>
> Yet the service man told my daughter, her harddrive had bad clusters which
> every now and then gave her a blue screen and said the system has to shut
> down.
>
> I have that HD now in my external housing and see nothing bad, but I might
> be missing something.

Yes, all the time with professional Diskkeeeper Pro software.


"Mae T" <silver_streak@shaw.ca> wrote in message
news:4131250F.1BD58994@shaw.ca...
> do you Defrag?
>
> Ritter197 wrote:
>
> > How can I find out whether there are bad clusters on a harddrive?
> >
> > I used the built-in utilities of Windows XP and see nothing there.
> >
> > Yet the service man told my daughter, her harddrive had bad clusters
which
> > every now and then gave her a blue screen and said the system has to
shut
> > down.
> >
> > I have that HD now in my external housing and see nothing bad, but I
might
> > be missing something.
>

do you Defrag?

Ritter197 wrote:

> How can I find out whether there are bad clusters on a harddrive?
>
> I used the built-in utilities of Windows XP and see nothing there.
>
> Yet the service man told my daughter, her harddrive had bad clusters which
> every now and then gave her a blue screen and said the system has to shut
> down.
>
> I have that HD now in my external housing and see nothing bad, but I might
> be missing something.

Yes, all the time with professional Diskkeeeper Pro software.


"Mae T" <silver_streak@shaw.ca> wrote in message
news:4131250F.1BD58994@shaw.ca...
> do you Defrag?
>
> Ritter197 wrote:
>
> > How can I find out whether there are bad clusters on a harddrive?
> >
> > I used the built-in utilities of Windows XP and see nothing there.
> >
> > Yet the service man told my daughter, her harddrive had bad clusters
which
> > every now and then gave her a blue screen and said the system has to
shut
> > down.
> >
> > I have that HD now in my external housing and see nothing bad, but I
might
> > be missing something.
>

Just two notes here. The Defragger built in to XP is Disk Keeper Lite.
Second, the service man probably made that up if your Disk Keeper
software hasn't identified any bad clusters on the hard drive. Try
using ScanDisk (right click on the "bad" drive and click Properties,
Tools, then ScanDisk. It will tell you if you have bad clusters or not.
I usually see Blue Screens from hardware conflicts or bad memory, not
because of a bad read from the hard drive.

----
Nathan McNulty


Ritter197 wrote:
> Yes, all the time with professional Diskkeeeper Pro software.
>
>
> "Mae T" <silver_streak@shaw.ca> wrote in message
> news:4131250F.1BD58994@shaw.ca...
>
>>do you Defrag?
>>
>>Ritter197 wrote:
>>
>>
>>>How can I find out whether there are bad clusters on a harddrive?
>>>
>>>I used the built-in utilities of Windows XP and see nothing there.
>>>
>>>Yet the service man told my daughter, her harddrive had bad clusters
>
> which
>
>>>every now and then gave her a blue screen and said the system has to
>
> shut
>
>>>down.
>>>
>>>I have that HD now in my external housing and see nothing bad, but I
>
> might
>
>>>be missing something.
>>
>
>

Just two notes here. The Defragger built in to XP is Disk Keeper Lite.
Second, the service man probably made that up if your Disk Keeper
software hasn't identified any bad clusters on the hard drive. Try
using ScanDisk (right click on the "bad" drive and click Properties,
Tools, then ScanDisk. It will tell you if you have bad clusters or not.
I usually see Blue Screens from hardware conflicts or bad memory, not
because of a bad read from the hard drive.

----
Nathan McNulty


Ritter197 wrote:
> Yes, all the time with professional Diskkeeeper Pro software.
>
>
> "Mae T" <silver_streak@shaw.ca> wrote in message
> news:4131250F.1BD58994@shaw.ca...
>
>>do you Defrag?
>>
>>Ritter197 wrote:
>>
>>
>>>How can I find out whether there are bad clusters on a harddrive?
>>>
>>>I used the built-in utilities of Windows XP and see nothing there.
>>>
>>>Yet the service man told my daughter, her harddrive had bad clusters
>
> which
>
>>>every now and then gave her a blue screen and said the system has to
>
> shut
>
>>>down.
>>>
>>>I have that HD now in my external housing and see nothing bad, but I
>
> might
>
>>>be missing something.
>>
>
>

On Fri, 27 Aug 2004 21:11:16 -0400, "Ritter197"

>How can I find out whether there are bad clusters on a harddrive?

Best is to test the HD with an OS-agnostic diagnostic. You cannot
trust the OS with this stuff, especially if NTFS.

If not NTFS, you can use DOS mode Scandisk and surface scan. That
shows a map of cluster space with previously "fixed" bad clusters
visible - plus you can see latency when the HD's firmware tries to
"fix" bad sectors (thus hiding impending failure from you).

But Scandisk can't test NTFS, and ChkDsk /R is even more aggressive in
hiding impending failure from you. No prompts on errors, it "fixes"
automatically - plus, you have two levels of on-the-fly failure-hiding
systems, the HD's own firmware plus NTFS's on-the-fly "fixing".

That being the case, NTFS is more likely to have hidden bad sectors
from you, and so it becomes more important to see what has been going
on - by reading SMART's logs of what has been "fixed" at the HD
firmware level at least. The HD vendor's web site usually has free
tools that gives a "quick" test (just an editorialized summary of
stored SMART logs) plus a longer test that actually tries reading the
HD disk surface, rather than looking only at SMART logs.

OTOH, some 3rd-party utils such as AIDA32 give you more detailed SMART
info; e.g. instead of "normal", an actual error count.

>Yet the service man told my daughter, her harddrive had bad clusters which
>every now and then gave her a blue screen and said the system has to shut
>down.

Bad clusters are like small strokes. You will lose data,
functionality, possibly the whole installation, if you let them bite.

>I have that HD now in my external housing and see nothing bad, but I might
>be missing something.

Those are highly at risk, because:
- wobbly power and cabling
- poor ventillation
- risk of being dropped

If you want to kill a HD, then cook it, spike the power to it, and
spin it up and down a lot.



>--------------- ----- ---- --- -- - - -
Who is General Failure and
why is he reading my disk?
>--------------- ----- ---- --- -- - - -

On Fri, 27 Aug 2004 21:11:16 -0400, "Ritter197"

>How can I find out whether there are bad clusters on a harddrive?

Best is to test the HD with an OS-agnostic diagnostic. You cannot
trust the OS with this stuff, especially if NTFS.

If not NTFS, you can use DOS mode Scandisk and surface scan. That
shows a map of cluster space with previously "fixed" bad clusters
visible - plus you can see latency when the HD's firmware tries to
"fix" bad sectors (thus hiding impending failure from you).

But Scandisk can't test NTFS, and ChkDsk /R is even more aggressive in
hiding impending failure from you. No prompts on errors, it "fixes"
automatically - plus, you have two levels of on-the-fly failure-hiding
systems, the HD's own firmware plus NTFS's on-the-fly "fixing".

That being the case, NTFS is more likely to have hidden bad sectors
from you, and so it becomes more important to see what has been going
on - by reading SMART's logs of what has been "fixed" at the HD
firmware level at least. The HD vendor's web site usually has free
tools that gives a "quick" test (just an editorialized summary of
stored SMART logs) plus a longer test that actually tries reading the
HD disk surface, rather than looking only at SMART logs.

OTOH, some 3rd-party utils such as AIDA32 give you more detailed SMART
info; e.g. instead of "normal", an actual error count.

>Yet the service man told my daughter, her harddrive had bad clusters which
>every now and then gave her a blue screen and said the system has to shut
>down.

Bad clusters are like small strokes. You will lose data,
functionality, possibly the whole installation, if you let them bite.

>I have that HD now in my external housing and see nothing bad, but I might
>be missing something.

Those are highly at risk, because:
- wobbly power and cabling
- poor ventillation
- risk of being dropped

If you want to kill a HD, then cook it, spike the power to it, and
spin it up and down a lot.



>--------------- ----- ---- --- -- - - -
Who is General Failure and
why is he reading my disk?
>--------------- ----- ---- --- -- - - -