WD6400AAKS poopin out

[Hazaro]

I knew I should of asked earlier, but now I'm paying the price. The drive is only 5 months old.

http://i73.photobucket.com/alb...dWriteFailed9-9-08.png

I got 7 of these in 7 minutes, I saved 3 other screens, but they all got corrupted and this is the sole survivor.

Not just Firefox, but writing to .png as well.

Leading up to this my computer would freeze up every few minutes for a few seconds.

Since maybe 3 months ago I started having 90% of the desktop icons go white/blank occasionally.

It's picked up in the last week, the stuttering and etc, but now I'm having write errors. Everything I do on the computer takes a few seconds to go though, even simple things as writing text it will stop for a few seconds.

So I am asking...

1) What diagnosis tools can I run, or attempt to fix this?
2) How would I back-up my data?

I am thinking of buying a new drive because you have to send your old one in for RMA correct?

*I've already been recommended to use WD's Data LifeGuard tool, but should I get the DOS or Windows version?

**RAM was my second guess, but my music was still playing while compy froze up, so it was reading from that fine, plus I ran memtest for 8 hours 2 weeks ago and it was fine.

***I'll scavenge what data I can fit on my 180GB available.

Should I try to transfer my data before running the diagnostic tool? It seems to me that it would put stress on the drive, which would reduce the chance of getting the data off afterward.

I am currently on my laptop and the desktop is off, although I am wondering if turning it off was a good idea or not.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Copy anything essential off of that drive, pronto! Then, try doing a "write zeros" (aka soft LLF) to the drive to erase your personal data, and then RMA the sucker.

 

[Hazaro]

So apparently WD has an Advanced RMA program, pretty nifty.

What program should I use to transfer over the data to the new WD6400AAKS?

I remember reading something about not using the WD utility and maybe Acronis was it?

 

[RebateMonger]

Copy as much data as you can before trying to run any repair or diagnostics software. Don't waste any time doing this.

 

[Hazaro]

Well I'm on my laptop currently, the PC is off and I haven't turned it back on yet.

I'll be coping my documents, pictures, music, video over onto 4GB sticks. Then hope copying the programs and everything goes ok.

If I had inquired earlier about those icons "blinking" I wouldn't be in this spot. It happened to my old OS drive as well, a 4 year old 20GB Maxtor drive

That's not normal right? Icons flashing to white with 3 dots inside, then back again...

*Documents, music, pictures are all going on 4GB sticks

Rest of it hopefully will copy over ok.

I still need a program to copy the image from one to the other.

 

[pugh]

give Acronis True Image 11 a try and also google Imgburn .

 

[Hazaro]

I swapped SATA port and got another cable, ran the diagnostic and came up with this.

Thing is... it doesn't tell me HOW many bad sectors I have...

http://i73.photobucket.com/alb...zaro22/WDHDDResult.jpg

Replacement is already on it's way, but would it be possible to fix the damaged sectors then copy over an image of the drive?

 

[RebateMonger]

What's the question again?

The drive is dying. Get what data from it that you can and get a new drive. Making a clone of a physically damaged drive may be more trouble than it's worth (if the cloning software will even complete the cloning.

 

[Hazaro]

Originally posted by: RebateMonger
What's the question again?

The drive is dying. Get what data from it that you can and get a new drive. Making a clone of a physically damaged drive may be more trouble than it's worth (if the cloning software will even complete the cloning.

This is true, however, a huge majority of the data is still intact and I LOATHE reinstalling anything.

Would it be worth a shot?

 

[Syntax Error]

Well, assuming you could clone everything over with no problems, you shouldn't have to reinstall anything.

If that doesn't work, well, that's pretty much indicative of a dying drive, and you'd have to trade off between losing your data and installing everything over again on a different hard disk or backing up your data PRONTO and reinstalling anything anyways.

 

[Hazaro]

Yeah, once the drive comes in I will attempt to repair the damaged sectors, then try and copy an image over.

 

[taltamir]

it will be a bad idea to try and clone, if the drive is dying its likely to cause errors in the clone and that would mean your new system will be borken.

Also, don't mess with it, don't run it unnecessarily, don't run revery software, don't copy useless data (clone).

The drive is very likely gonna fail halfway through the backup process, so start by copying your most important files first, then go from there. Then RMA it.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Norton Ghost 2003 has an option to make a clone and ignore bad sectors. I believe it is "-fro". I've used it before to (mostly) recover my data off of a failing HD. It's risky, the drive could lock up or fail partway through the clone process. Cloning puts a lot of stress on a drive.

 

[taltamir]

yea but with a failing drive, its less about the bad sectors and more about OMFG it broke half way and i didn't get to my important documents!

BTW, HDD recovery firms say that the first step they try is putting a drive out of a computer (make sure it would not be shorting the electronics, put it on a piece of paper upside down) and putting a large FAN on it, the fan cools it and that often time is enough to get the data off of it.

 

[Hazaro]

http://i38.tinypic.com/23msn7s.png

That's what started acting up before the pauses, before the error messages.

Anyway, I got my important stuff off and I wanted to try to image it anyway.

So again I'm gonna ask for suggestions to TRY and copy my drive over to a new WD6400AAKS, thanks.

 

[taltamir]

well, now that the important stuff is off... PLAYTIME!

 

[Hazaro]

Copied it over, but the icon thing happened again, it passed the Short Diagnostic, gonna run the long one over night...

Is this normal? It changes back after a few seconds.
http://i38.tinypic.com/23msn7s.png

 

[Jeff7181]

I don't see why this is an issue at all... anything you can't afford to lose is already backed up on a regular schedule, right? RIGHT?

 

[taltamir]

my guess is corrupt OS files.. the clone copied over corrupt files....
do a clean reformat