Failing storage hard drive questions (testing and data)

[Nvidiaguy07]

The drive that i use only for storage is failing on my PC (at least i think). I noticed it starting to crap out a few weeks ago when it was behaving strangely, and now i cant even transfer a file off of it, watch a movie on it without it crashing or the movie freezing.

My first question is how to test the drive. I usually use UBCD and do the drive fitness test (even though the normal test takes forever). Is there a better way to test - and possibly a way inside windows to test it - considering that its not the drive the OS is on?

Secondly, i have a lot of videos and games installed on that hard drive - should i even attempt to recover them - or is it not worth it because they might be corrupt in some way. Not a big deal if i have to, but im just wondering. More of just a general question - when a hard drive fails, and you can still see a whole large file and play it, is there a chance that its damaged in some way?

 

[mfenn]

The drive that i use only for storage is failing on my PC (at least i think). I noticed it starting to crap out a few weeks ago when it was behaving strangely, and now i cant even transfer a file off of it, watch a movie on it without it crashing or the movie freezing.

My first question is how to test the drive. I usually use UBCD and do the drive fitness test (even though the normal test takes forever). Is there a better way to test - and possibly a way inside windows to test it - considering that its not the drive the OS is on?

Each drive manufacturer has their own testing tools that are the best way to check out a drive. Who made your drive?

Secondly, i have a lot of videos and games installed on that hard drive - should i even attempt to recover them - or is it not worth it because they might be corrupt in some way. Not a big deal if i have to, but im just wondering. More of just a general question - when a hard drive fails, and you can still see a whole large file and play it, is there a chance that its damaged in some way?

Depends on how much you care about the data I suppose. There's nothing wrong with trying to copy the data off the drive. I recommend using a command-line tool like robocopy because Explorer will crash when trying to access flaky drives.

Just because you can see the file in the file system doesn't mean that all the data within a file is still valid though. There can easily be a few corrupt sectors within a file that you wouldn't know about until you read it (e.g. played the whole video file).

 

[Nvidiaguy07]

Each drive manufacturer has their own testing tools that are the best way to check out a drive. Who made your drive?

Pretty sure all my drives are WD. I thought the drive fitness test was good for all? what should i use on my wd then?

Depends on how much you care about the data I suppose. There's nothing wrong with trying to copy the data off the drive. I recommend using a command-line tool like robocopy because Explorer will crash when trying to access flaky drives.

Just because you can see the file in the file system doesn't mean that all the data within a file is still valid though. There can easily be a few corrupt sectors within a file that you wouldn't know about until you read it (e.g. played the whole video file).

yea thats what i meant - i wont know until later

Well no big deal, its mostly games installed through steam, and TV shows i downloaded.

EDIT: how is this for a replacement? http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148844
150 seems cheap for 3TB, and ive never bought anything but WD before.

 

[mfenn]

Pretty sure all my drives are WD. I thought the drive fitness test was good for all? what should i use on my wd then?

There are generic ATA testing tools, but they don't probe the manufacturer specific routines nor do they provide a health report suitable for warranty RMA purposes. For WD drives, you will want to run WD Data Lifeguard Diagnostics.

 

[Nvidiaguy07]

There are generic ATA testing tools, but they don't probe the manufacturer specific routines nor do they provide a health report suitable for warranty RMA purposes. For WD drives, you will want to run WD Data Lifeguard Diagnostics.

yea the drive failed immediately, so its defrinitely bad. I ran it on my other drives too.

I ran the long tests on a few drives, and they passed that, but one time i started the program it failed the SMART status. It was only once, and now when i boot up its fine - but should i worry about it?

 

[mfenn]

yea the drive failed immediately, so its defrinitely bad. I ran it on my other drives too.

I ran the long tests on a few drives, and they passed that, but one time i started the program it failed the SMART status. It was only once, and now when i boot up its fine - but should i worry about it?

SMART records the worst value for each metric and the checker should look at those values. If you can't reproduce the problem, I'd expect that it was just a program glitch and not an actual error.

 

[stlcardinals]

Take a look at Spinrite, http://www.grc.com/sr/spinrite.htm

I've used it to resurrect a couple of drives that wouldn't boot into Windows and would not be fixed by other means.

 

[somethingsketchy]

Take a look at Spinrite, http://www.grc.com/sr/spinrite.htm

I've used it to resurrect a couple of drives that wouldn't boot into Windows and would not be fixed by other means.

+1 to this recommendation. This has saved many a hard drives for software engineers' workstations. Saved even a few server hard drives until replacements came in from Dell.

 

[mfenn]

Take a look at Spinrite, http://www.grc.com/sr/spinrite.htm

I've used it to resurrect a couple of drives that wouldn't boot into Windows and would not be fixed by other means.

Spinrite should only be used to recover data, you definitely don't want to be relying on an already marginal drive.