Hard Drive Problems!

[gatewaysrule]

Hey guys,
Yesterday I turned on my machine and all of a sudden a CHKDSK thing went on for my new WD SE 160GB hard drive. It said it found an error reading a sector or something with the drive. I was like...okay! So, I reboot the computer with the WD Data LifeGuard floppy disk in and done a quick test on the hard drive to see if it came back with any errors. It didn't, so I let the computer bootup back into windows. After that, I went into My Computer, right clicked on my hard drive, chose properties, and done a error-check on my hard drive. So, the computer reboot and went back into CHKDSK and was there for like 2 hours. The same sector said it couldn't be read. Okay, after that, it got back into Windows, and I checked the hard drive in Windows XP. I used to be using around 68GB of hard drive space, and all of a sudden, it jumped up to 90GB!! Also, when I am downloading stuff like off the internet, this little pop-up thing comes up in the task-bar saying there was an error reading the hard drive and that my data be wrriten to it know may be lost. What should I do??
Thanks guys!
Matt Mummert

 

[bendixG15]

I had a similiar problem and it turned out to be a bad memory stick.
I suggest you run memtest86 on each stick at a time to rule out that
possibility.
If nothing comes up, then do a long test on the drive.
Assuming you are not overclocking or running memory out of spec, check BIOS settings.
good luck

 

[tdowning]

I just want to add that when a Hard drive is failing, often the drive knows as much already. there is some error correction built into the encoding schemes used to turn data into Flux reversal patterns, (read up on it at www.grc.com ) have some error detection, and the HDD if it detects an error will try to re-read the sector. If a Scandisk through test, in dos, or other sector by sector test halts for an extended period of time it may mean that the drive is dying.

 

[bobandan]

voice of experience....
get an rma now!