CHKDSK freezing at 10%

[OzzieGT]

So I have had some system stability issues lately. I did a virus scan to no avail. Windows error reporting has told me that it has had problems accessing the hard drive. But whenever I try doing a chkdsk on boot, it freezes at 10% of the first step (verifying files). The HDD light will stay on but I won't hear any activity. It made it through step 1 once when I ran it while Windows was running, but then froze again during step 2.

I found some bad sectors on the drive a couple months ago, and was able to recover, but it looks like I might be screwed this time. I've already been able to back up my important data to DVD.

Any suggestions? Will knoppix or some other cd-bootable diagnostics help?

 

[OzzieGT]

So I let chkdsk sit for a while and now I have the following blue screen: c000021a unknown hard error

any suggestions?

 

[birdpup]

Read through this thread, Hard Drive, Partition, Data Recovery and Diagnostic Resources and use the diagnostic utility supplied by your hard drive manufacturer to test your drive to see if any errors result. If any errors result, then see if your drive is still under warranty so you can RMA it with the error number.

 

[OzzieGT]

Thanks for the tip. It's an OEM Seagate that is over 3 years old...I don't even know what the original warranty was...any way to find out?

 

[DaveSimmons]

5-year warranties are recent, so you're out of luck.

 

[OzzieGT]

Yeah I just punched my info in on their website. I'm up sh*t creek without a paddle. 😛

Seatools is finding the bad sectors though, so I might be ok for a little bit.

 

[OzzieGT]

So all the bad sectors were marked, fortunately none of them were in critical files. Everything is fine now...I think it's time for a new drive though.

 

[birdpup]

Yes, when bad sectors occur it is generally time for a new drive. Overheating and power fluctuations are known to damage hard drives, check to ensure neither of those is a problem for your next drive. For instance, consider rigging an additional case fan to blow air over the hard drives to cool them easier. Also consider a high quality PSU or battery backup with low voltage (brownout) regulation. Another consideration is a plan for backing up your data, for which external drives seem to be well suited for the home environment.