Event ID 51: IO_WARNING_PAGING_FAILURE - Resolved

[Cooky]

I'm getting the following warning on a regular basis, roughly every hour:
An error was detected on device \Device\Harddisk2\D during a paging operation.

What does this mean?
Do I have a HDD or IDE controller that's going bad?

There are two hard drives in my PC, how do I find out which one's \Device\Harddisk2\D?

 

[bankster55]

Could be a bad sector on the HDD, HDD regenerator will find them all - if present
Heres the trial vers
note the limitation
this thing really works (tho anything in the HDD can fail - bearing, servo, controller chip, heads etc.
http://www.softpedia.com/get/System/Hard-Disk-Utils/HDD-Regenerator.shtml

Takes a long time - run it overnight
Note here I only had to go 45GB because all bad sectors were at start of HDD
(Thank you power company for all that interrupted service)

FWIW "paging" has nothing to do with pagefile

Edit: Just noticed today they came out with a new version - 2011
Looks like it will be a lot faster
http://www.dposoft.net/#b_hddhid
(read "more info")

You might want to do a quick memtest86+ 4.10 (just run one set of sequences thru) to get that possibility out of the way.
http://www.memtest.org/

That you say does it every hour reminds me of another thread from way back that turned out to be due to external drive enclosure, or firewire useage. What is your exact 2 HDD setup?
This has been and still is a very common error code, can be a ah heck.
Your HDD might also be full even tho it does not show (recycler/restore/pagefile) - how much is free on each?

 

[RebateMonger]

HardDisk2 is very likely a secondary or external disk. The C: disk is usually HardDisk0. Don't worry about the "\D" part at the end. I've never seen a good explanation of exactly what that means.

In the Device Manager, under "Disk Drives", you can select one of the disk drives, examine its Properties, and populate the "Volumes" tab area and you'll see the first item, "Disk: Disk 0 or Disk: Disk 1 or Disk: Disk 2" etc.

 

[JackMDS]

Also keep an updated image (backup) of this drive.

At time that is how EOL of Drive is starting.

 

[Cooky]

thank you all for replying.
I checked out the drive in device manager, and RebateMonger was right on...it's indeed the USB external hard drive.

I'm surprised though...that Seagate drive is only one year old.
I suppose I'll run some diagnosis software to produce proof that it's becoming faulty to get RMA issued.

 

[bankster55]

Woah!
You now say its an EXTERNAL USB drive.
Your original post said "there are 2 HDD IN my PC"
But you have one IN and one OUT
USB drive bays and other USB devices (printers) in general can go into hibernation on a regular basis. Also firewire. Like I said in my previous post and asked for your config

Heres the definitive thread on your problem
http://www.hardwareanalysis.com/content/topic/12946/?o=480
Note about halfway down the JoeAdmire post which describes the hourly flakeout exactly like yours
Read the entire thread and you will see every possibility explained, but after a while it all becomes USB

 

[Steltek]

I'd download the Seatools diagnostic suite from the Seagate website to test the drive. I also second the recommendation that you immediately back up any vital data from the drive in the event it is in the early stages of failing. When they finally go, they'll usually just go all at once and it'll be too late at that point to save anything important.

Also, make sure to check the USB cable where it plugs into the external drive to make sure it is remaining connected. My sister has a Seagate external drive she has problems with, too -- the USB connector in the external case she has isn't a standard connector and isn't engineered very well at all to boot. It will often disconnect at even the slightest nudge.

If the drive tests out as being OK, there is also something else you can try.

The default power management settings on most Windows-based PCs turn off USB devices (including USB hard drives) after a certain amount of time to save power. If the system tries to access a USB hard drive which has been turned off in this manner Windows may throw this error because the drive can't spin up quickly enough to be seen as available.

To see if this is the case, either totally disable power management for a while or go in to device manager and check the option which prevents the PC from shutting down that particular USB device to save power. If the problem disappears, you'll know this was what it was.

 

[Cooky]

Apologize for not having mentioned the USB external drive...I have two internal drives, and one external.

I went to the Device Manager, but there was no option to not power off the device for the hard drive.
Checked USB cable, reseated it, and made sure it's not loose.

I also installed the SeaTools, but I can't even run the software...when I launch it, it gives an error when scanning for supported drives: Could not find any recognizable digits. Int32 StringToInt(System.String, Int32, Int32, Int32*)
Not sure what it means (will google in a sec), but it definitely doesn't look good.

I moved the cable from the USB expansion card to an integrated port on the mobo...just to rule out it's not the usb controller messing up.
Will see if the disk warning stops now.

 

[Steltek]

Apologize for not having mentioned the USB external drive...I have two internal drives, and one external.

I went to the Device Manager, but there was no option to not power off the device for the hard drive.
Checked USB cable, reseated it, and made sure it's not loose.

I also installed the SeaTools, but I can't even run the software...when I launch it, it gives an error when scanning for supported drives: Could not find any recognizable digits. Int32 StringToInt(System.String, Int32, Int32, Int32*)
Not sure what it means (will google in a sec), but it definitely doesn't look good.

I moved the cable from the USB expansion card to an integrated port on the mobo...just to rule out it's not the usb controller messing up.
Will see if the disk warning stops now.

Each USB root hub in device manager has a power managment tab when you select its properties. If you know which port your USB drive is plugged in to, you can disable power managment on that port only. You can also turn off the suspend feature for all the USB ports from Power Options in control panel - for the current plan, click "change plan settings", then click on "change advanced power settings" to get to the USB suspend options.

Concerning Seatools, the error you are getting probably means Seatools didn't install properly (the installer they use pretty much sucks). Make sure to right-click on the installer and choose to Run as Administrator. Also, did you restart your system after you installed it? I dimly recall that during the installation, it has to install a C++ runtime library and sometimes this doesn't work right for some reason or another. You may have to uninstall it, restart, and try to reinstall again.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Yeah, you need the MSVC 8 runtime libs installed for Seagate software to run.

 

[Cooky]

Since I couldn't get SeaTools to work on my PC, I installed it on a laptop, and it was able to detect the drive and run all the tests.
I ran all four possible tests (short/long self & short/long generic), and they all passed.

I moved the external HDD back to my PC, to a different USB port, and was still getting the error.
Does this mean I'm having an issue w/ my USB controller?
My USB mouse is functioning properly.

I'll try to locate the USB controller that the drive is plugged in, and disable power save option and see if that makes a difference...

 

[RebateMonger]

I moved the external HDD back to my PC, to a different USB port, and was still getting the error.

Does this mean I'm having an issue w/ my USB controller?

Did you try leaving the external HDD hooked to your laptop for a few hours, looking for those hourly errors?

It's not clear to me what the general cause of your error is. The only time I've seen that error on a USB drive, I tossed the drive. It wasn't worth the troubleshooting time in my case.

 

[bankster55]

To 100% rule out the most obvious - USB in SELECTIVE suspend - because you have REGULAR ALMOST TO THE MINUTE hourly errors
Thats power settings/bios setting related
So, you have to:

Just unplug anything connected to your PC that is USB (or any wireless module for like a mouse or keyboard)
That includes printers, hubs, mouse, KB, eSATA enclosures, flashdrives, cardreaders etc
Everything
Something (prob external enclosure or hub) is doing its green thing to save power. When you have a stack of USB devices connected if only one is not compliant, it wrecks all the others. And thats why you should also always enable legacy USB option in bios if there, besides 2.0 (or 3.0)
So once you get a bare system and it works error-free, you can start adding back in one device at a time.

Note that your drives (since you have now determined they are not bad) not waking up in time or when needed, is the end result error symptom , not the cause.

An oddball screensaver can also affect turn on, wake up from suspend
Shut that down also.

Until you do the above, you cant move on to the next possibility
Right?

And you also ignored Stelteks good info
http://maximumpcguides.com/windows-7/disable-usb-selective-suspending-in-windows-7/
http://www.tek-tips.com/viewthread.cfm?qid=1580050&page=9
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20100108194915AAsbpTc
http://www.vistax64.com/tutorials/63567-power-options-sleep-mode-problems.html

Edit: My suspicion is that since everyone of these event 51's that have a drive listed in the error is always with a "/D" at the end even tho that has no connection to any drive letter, that it possibly means disconnect(ed)

 

[Cooky]

I disabled power management on the USB hub/port that the external HDD plugs in, and was still getting the error.

Finally found a place within the drive management software (Seagate Manager, not SeaTools), where I can completely disable the power-saving mode.
I have not had any errors since I disabled it a few days ago.

It's really strange...I've had the drive for almost a year now.
Why would it all of a sudden give me error when it goes into power-saving mode?