WALL_E
Premium
join:2003-05-28
USA
| Bad block in event viewer, what to recommend?
I happened to decide to check Event Viewer while working on a family member's Windows XP laptop. I noticed that in January of this year, there was one instance of a bad block on her hard drive. Since then, there have been about 10 reports of errors on the drive "during a paging operation."
What do I tell the owner in a situation like this? It if were my machine, I would back up my data and purchase a replacement hard drive, but I hate having to tell friends/family members that they need to purchase new equipment. Especially in this case, where I was being asked to simply set up a webcam for them.
On the other hand, my cousin (owner of the laptop) will be traveling to South Korea and wanted the laptop so she could video-Skype with her parents - a hard drive failure while abroad would be much worse, I suppose, than replacing equipment as a precautionary measure.
So, what do you think? Should I recommend replacing the hard drive, or is one bad block not necessarily something to worry to much about. The laptop is an old clunker of a Toshiba with a 40GB Hitachi or IBM TravelStar hard drive.
I appreciate any help/insight into this issue. Thanks!
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One nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. |
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Cabal
Premium
join:2007-01-21
Boston, MA
| You can check the SMART statistics to see just how bad the drive is doing. But yes, now is probably a good time to replace it.
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Interested in open source engine management for your Subaru? |
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Ryan
Premium
join:2001-03-03
Attleboro, MA
| reply to WALL_E
Thats a sign the drive will fail. Usually these events increase as time goes on until complete failure. Sometimes a full checkdisk will mark the sectors as bad and the drive will continue working for years but it all depends. With the price of drives now a days i dont even bother taking the risk and replace them. |
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Anonymous 2u
@bellsouth.net
| reply to WALL_E
Hey Wall,
Go to
»www.passmark.com/products/diskcheckup.htm
& click on the green "Download now"
Make the program run when ever the computer does, that way it will give you plenty of info on the status of that hd in a couple of days.
Good luck with it. |
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sdgthy
@optonline.net | reply to WALL_E
Hard drives these days have spare blocks that mapped in when there is an error. So if the drive has gotten to the point that windows is reporting bad blocks, that means all the spare blocks have been used up and the drive should be replaced. |
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WALL_E
Premium
join:2003-05-28
USA
| reply to WALL_E
Thanks for the advice, everyone.
I let the owner know about the problem and that I *strongly* recommend replacing the drive, to which they declined. That's fine by me - I'm just glad that I gave them the best information (provided by you guys!) on which to base their decision.
Thanks again!
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If all the Christians who have called other Christians “not really a Christian” were to vanish, there’d be no Christians left. -Anonymous |
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