Comm for the intermediate geeks?

[redcirce]

This might be sort of an odd request, but do any of your know of any comms on DW aimed at computer tech geeks that are somewhere between newbies and experts? (or know of any other good resources, DW or not!)

I am the only one of my friends that "knows computer stuff" which means I get asked about (and can fix) basic problems, but since I'm mostly self taught I don't really know where to go when I have issues myself. And I feel bad being one of those people registering for a random website just so I can post to ask someone to "fix" my computer- I'd actually like to learn how to fix/discuss things and would feel less intimidated if I was talking to other novices. Anyone have any suggestions?

Post prompted by: right now I'm having trouble with one of the harddrives in a self build computer. Although I know enough to run tests on the drive, I don't know enough to actually interpret the test results, and most of the resources I'm googling seem to be aimed at those who do actually know more...

Comments

[qem_chibati]

What kind of problems are you having? And what are the results? Maybe I can help.

[redcirce]

I would totally love any insights you might have!

Basically what I'm trying to figure out is if my hard drive is doomed to fail relatively soon, so I can remove it from the machine if so. The background is that I was having some issues so I started testing drives. I have 3 hard drives: 1. a small one that the OS lives on (this drive is fine) 2. An external drive that has definitively failed it's manufacturer's required tests, and is being RMAed, and 3. The internal data drive that I'm worried about. It's from 2007, and was in another machine previously, so I wouldn't be surprised if it was failing.

I ran a SMART test through the program SpeedFan and I got a "read error" message, so I ran chkdsk X:/r. Chkdsk said there were errors and it was able to repair the disk, but also said (if I read right) that there were still 4KB of bad sectors (I have a screenshot, if needed). I ran the SMART test again, and got both a "no error" and "read error" on different tries, with totally different looking results panels each time (I have screenshots of this too). But since I can't read the results panel, I have no idea what, if anything is going on. I also ran 2 tools someone else recommended- Hard Drive Test Pilot, which gave me a error message midway through the scan both times I tried it on the questionable drive but was able to scan the other hard drive fine (and declared it error-free), and Ariolic Disk Scanner- which specifically checks for bad sectors- which passed the questionable drive completely with no bad sectors.

I should say that currently, the drive seems to be working fine, so that's not the problem. I just want confirmation if the drive is good or not so I can swap in a new drive if necessary. My data is backed up, but if the drive is on it's way out I don't want to save anything new on it when I could just switch to a new drive, instead. Did any of that make sense? I know my knowledge of how these things work is a little all over the place.
:/

[qem_chibati]

Short answer: yes, it makes sense. Would recommend replacing as soon as possible and only using drive for thing you don't care about.

Longer comment shortly.

[qem_chibati]

This is an explanation, to help you understand what's going on. It's been a while since ivedone the theory so it's going to be vague.

Ok it's like this. We think of data as being ones and zeros, but on the drive itself it's closer to approximately one, approximately zero.

Those bad sectors refer to spots on the hard rive where the magnets can't change the polarity properly, and your drive now can't tell if this is, approximately one or zero. Your computer has a little bit of leeway due to parity, checksum etc so it can tell where something is wrong and calculate / make an educated guess to fix it, but when multiple sectors are affected it's not a good sign.

If your disk seems to be fine, then running those tools is recommended. (if it's not, they can actually break it completely) but when you start getting variable readings, then it's generally a sign of something Not being able to read things consistently and my experience has lead me to be deeply distrustful of it, especially since I've had a lot of drives fail with little to no warning and your data is the most important thing.

[redcirce]

Thanks so much for the advice and explanation! That makes a lot of sense. I went ahead and removed/replaced the drive. I've heard that any bad sectors at all are a sign of imminent drive failure, but I wasn't sure if that was strictly true or not, and I wasn't sure why some programs would read it as fine and some as not.

(I figure though if chkdsk itself said there were bad sectors, it's probably more likely to be right than a third-party program.)

Coincidentally, there's an electronics recycling event in my city this weekend, so hopefully I can just wipe the drive and turn it in.
Thanks again!

[qem_chibati]

Bad sectors are not necessarily a get rid of everything sign, especially of the disk is only used lightly, definitely not recommended for heavy use like operating system, or something full of data. But they certainly aren't a good sign either.

But inconsistency is a killer.

[syderia]

You could post to create_my_comm. The people there are usually pretty good at at least telling you if the comm you're requesting already exists, and if it doesn't, someone can create it.

[redcirce]

Thanks for the suggestion! I already posted to there for something totally different last week, so maybe I will wait a week and post again...