Help, I'm getting error checks on HD every time I reboot

[Whitestar]

I have four partitions: C, D, E, and F. C and D are on my Velociraptor 150GB. E and F are on my WD Caviar 500GB. F is the one that is always error checked every time I reboot. And this just recently started to happen. I haven't installed anything new. And I have checked the SATA cables.

I tried to error check them (E and F) from Windows, but a message popped up saying that the process could not be executed. And then they (E and F) disappear from My Computer. And sometimes (though rarely) they just disappear from My Computer without me doing anything in particular.

Could it be some really bad sectors that the regular error checking in Windows can't fix? Should I use another disk fixing tool? In that case, which one?

Or is this a sign that a HD crash is imminent? The last time this happened I did a backup of all the files, because I thougt the HD was gonna crash soon. Never found out though, because I bought a new HD before anything happened.


OS: WinXP with SP3

 

[jkresh]

sounds like your caviar might be dying, you should backup everything and run a tool that can check the smart status of the drive (western digital has there own tool which can run a full diagnostic)

 

[Whitestar]

Surprisingly the problem seems to have been fixed.

I did the smart status and the HD passed it. Then I did an extended check of the HD with the Data Lifeguard Diagnostic tool from WD. No errors found.

Since the normal error check from Windows (My Computer) didn't work, I tried to do it from the command prompt instead. And funny enough this worked. Both E and F were processed and all errors fixed. So now I don't have to go through an error check at reboot anymore.

I used this command: chkdsk e: /F /R
and also for partition f: chkdsk f: /F /R

I think that the errors on the HD might have been caused by me using the reset button to reboot too many times in a row. I used the reset button because the computer freezed.

 

[betaflame]

which brings up the point that the computer freezing is a bad thing. What are the symptoms?

 

[Russwinters]

Make sure SMART is enabled in your bios and run speedfan, which is a freeware for fan controlling but has a easily readable smart readout.


if you can, post a screenshot here and i can look at the smart log and tell you what i see.

 

[jimhsu]

"When the operating system begins to detect bad sectors, in most cases, it means that the surface of the hard disk is failing and the drive has run out of spare sectors with which to remap the failed sector."

Basically I wouldn't trust any drive that has bad sectors visible to the filesystem, even if they are fixed.