D:/ Partition corrupted??

[Coherence]

I'm not sure what caused the problem. It could have been a Wipe File that went bad, it could have been some extremely large and fragmented files that got messed up during a failed defrag, I don't know.

My current situation:
One hard drive with two partitions. C:/ with Windows XP Pro with a few utilities (Nero, Norton), and D:/ with productivity software and games.

C:/ is ok. No issues so far, had no problem defragging it.

D:/ on the other hand is totally hosed. Running chkdsk showed a few errors, which were corrected (supposedly), and each disk scan since has been ok. Defrag programs are choking on it, however.

I planned on removing everything from the partition and reformatting. When I try to reformat from Explorer, Windows tells me "Windows cannot format this drive. Quit any disk utilities or other programs that are using this drive, and make sure that no window is displaying the contents of the drive. Then try formatting again."

I've removed as many programs (using Add/Remove Programs or Uninstall) from the partition as I could. Only two things remain on the drive:

- Sims 2: uninstall will not run from Control Panel, nor from the program folder/start menu.

- Spybot Search & Destroy: uninstall supposedly worked, but SDHelper.dll was not removed, nor can I delete it from the drive. When I try to delete the file, I get a "Cannot delete SD Helper: Access is denied. Make sure the disk is not full or write protected and that the file is not currently in use" message. SDHelper is not showing up in my system processes, however, so I can't stop the "in use" state, nor can I find where it is being loaded in msconfig.

Any advice you guys may have is greatly appreciated. Any way to save my D:/ partition without having to completely reformat the physical drive and reinstall Windows will make life much easier.

 

[dunkster]

You'll have to be sure you know what's running from your D: partition. Use your own knowledge of what's been installed on D:, plus information from Task Manager to identify what processes are still running and terminate those processes. Be certain you don't terminate critical Windows processes or processes from programs on C:.

Process Explorer (Google for it) is a very handy utility to identify which processes apply to which programs. If you're uncertain about any process, just Google the process name for more info from sites such as LIUtilities.

After terminating all processes originating from D:, disable those processes to prevent them starting up again. Windows Help will show you how to disable processes.

When all processes originating from D: are disabled, Windows should allow formatting the D: partition.

I would use the disk utility from the maker of your HD to test HD integrity, to identitfy and lock out any possible bad read-write blocks on your D: partition before attempting format.

Hope this helps!

 

[Bozo Galora]

SD helper is a process, and any running process will hobble a defrag
You should be able to defrag in safe mode as nothing is started.

I would boot into safe mode, and try to delete the dll, then go into registry and search and delete any entry with SPY in it.
You might have a trojan piggy backing on the antivirus

so, you might try a run of HiJackThis 1.99 in safe mode also
Did you download the sims game, or do you have the CD (cough)

Have you tried format with win 98 boot floppy in A drive???
From DOS, nothing is running either

 

[Coherence]

Well, before reading any replies, I did go into safe mode and reformatted the drive from there. Near the end, however, I got a BSOD. So, I went back into safe mode and checked the partition, and it was accessible and empty. Then I did a disk scan, and also got a BSOD.

After that, I went into full XP, and ran a disk scan, and it shows 15MB in bad sectors on the drive. No BSOD that time, however.

The bad sectors appear to be scattered in the first half of the partition (which I suppose is to be expected, since that's about all I had used on the drive.

I have since installed only one program on that partiition, along with about 3.62GB of files (TiVo files, each just under 700MB). Surprisingly, with only these few things on the drive, when running a new defrag analysis, it was 55% fragmented. You'd think with a fresh empty drive and nothing deleted in between to create fragmented files added afterwards that it would be in perfect shape. I then backed up the video files, just in case the defrag program were to choke again, and defragged. Still 3% fragmented, but that's probably due to the bad sectors.

Speaking of the bad sectors, the defrag program seemed to write over the red "unmoveable" sectors, anyway. I wonder what that may have done to the files, if anything.

In the end, I think I may just back up as much as I can onto optical discs and get a new hard drive. Based on previous experience, when a drive starts getting bad sectors, it tends to go downhill rather quickly from there.

 

[ribbon13]

I would consider backing up all data, and delparting the whole drive. Then test it. If nothing else you can always get a new drive and RMA the one you have.

 

[Coherence]

Originally posted by: ribbon13
I would consider backing up all data, and delparting the whole drive. Then test it. If nothing else you can always get a new drive and RMA the one you have.

If by that you mean to remove the partition and make it one big C: drive, I'd probably have to buy something like PartitionMagic for that, as it was originally partitioned by Windows Setup during the initial build.

The thing is, this is exactly why I partitioned the drive the way I did in the first place. One partition was intended for the OS only (and related utilities), and the other was for programs, games, and personal data (backed up). This way, if the program partition died (as happened), I'd still have the OS able to run so I wouldn't be dead in the water. Conversely, if the OS died, my data would still be intact on the other partition.

Actually, I think I may get two new hard drives. I'll use the second for my video files, since they are HUGE, and I'll be less likely to have issues with them sharing a drive with other stuff.

 

[ribbon13]

I mean boot with windows setup, delete both partitions and format it as one big one... Why would you need partition magic?