HD error in Event Viewer: Device has a bad block

[Muse]

I'm rebuilding a computer today and before reformating the HD I'm checking a few last things. In Event Viewer in XP Pro I see dozens of messages that the HD has a bad block. Is this reason for concern? It's a 60 GB drive, the only one. Won't Windows, when formatting, make allowances for errors? I guess it's not a good sign, but I'll be flying out of here tomorrow, and figure I just have to use what they have. TIA for info.

 

[Denithor]

Use the manufacturer's software to do a zero write fill on the disk. If there are any bad sectors it will mark them as not useable and the rest of the drive should work ok. It's not a great solution (best would be new drive - because that one is old and starting to fail) but it should work for a while at least. I would definitely warn the users about backing up important stuff regularly - don't keep unbacked photos etc on the drive or they may lose everything if/when the drive fails.

 

[COPOHawk]

That is never a good sign. You may be able to extend the life of the drive by following Denithor's advice...but you need to get a new drive ASAP. This error indicates a paging error and my experience with this has been that it signals a failing drive. The drive could last two days or a few months...but it will fail.

If this were an external USB hard drive...I would say don't worry...but paging errors with internal hard drives or cd/dvd drives indicate bad hardware.

You should be able to use cloning software like Acronis or Ghost to duplicate the drive...if the damage isn't in the area of the drive where the FAT or OS data is located.

Start making regular backups...if you aren't already doing so.

 

[BlueAcolyte]

I thought that if anything found a bad sector, it would mark it and hard drives came with some spares in case... The fact that you are actually seeing this error means the drive is dying. So yea, back up.

 

[Muse]

Originally posted by: Denithor
Use the manufacturer's software to do a zero write fill on the disk. If there are any bad sectors it will mark them as not useable and the rest of the drive should work ok. It's not a great solution (best would be new drive - because that one is old and starting to fail) but it should work for a while at least. I would definitely warn the users about backing up important stuff regularly - don't keep unbacked photos etc on the drive or they may lose everything if/when the drive fails.

Thanks. In the process of doing a complete wipe of the 60 GB HD, I copied all their data that I figured they might want onto the 40 GB HD in my iRiver H140 MP3 player that I brought for that purpose. I still have that data. What I will do now is copy it to one of my HDs. It might even fit on one DVD. So, they will have that in the event of a failure. They aren't into doing personal backups! She doesn't even have a 2nd HD in the system, and I don't think they even have any writable DVDs!

 

[Muse]

Originally posted by: BlueAcolyte
I thought that if anything found a bad sector, it would mark it and hard drives came with some spares in case... The fact that you are actually seeing this error means the drive is dying. So yea, back up.

I'll see what I can do. I don't think they are up to replacing their drive, but their kids or kids' spouses might be. I'll work on it.