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    Hitachi Errors

    Discussion in 'Hardware Components and Aftermarket Upgrades' started by slowdive, Mar 16, 2009.

  1. slowdive

    slowdive Notebook Consultant

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    Hi.
    Today i started to hear some strange sound from my hitachi (like popcorns) and decided to run HDTune to check for errors.
    I got one error:

    [​IMG]

    Should i be concern? It's the 2nd hitachi that has problems before 1 year of use...
    How to locate? I have 3 partitions (C, D, E), and i don't feel confortable saving my work to a HD with errors. I think it's on E but i'm not sure.
    How to fix? Running windows Error Checking Tool didn't solve anything.

    Thanks.
     
    slowdive, Mar 16, 2009
    #1
  2. K-TRON

    K-TRON Hi, I'm Jimmy Diesel ^_^

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    Let us know if the windows error checking fixes the damaged sector.
    It is not really a problem until the drive needs to access a file from that part of the disc.
    If the bad sector is in the E partition, use partition magic or gpart to resize the partition, so that the bad sector is not in the usable space. This will ensure that the drive performs normally afterwards.

    K-TRON
     
    K-TRON, Mar 16, 2009
    #2
  3. t30power

    t30power Notebook Deity

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    In my experience with bad sectors you could use Hitachi DFT tool to write zeros to the drive so the bad sectors are not used by the laptop, I think the capacity of the drive decreases depending on the damaged blocks. Although I would try to replace the drive because another errors might pop up
     
    t30power, Mar 16, 2009
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  4. slowdive

    slowdive Notebook Consultant

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    Thanks for the help.
    Before reading your solutions i tried HDD Regenerator.
    Fixed 54 of the 55 bad sectors.
    Windows still reported there were still some problems, but less.
    With HDD Regenerator i could locate the bad sectors exact place and i was lucky because it was in the end of the HD.
    So, i created a 2GB partition around the bad sectors, saving the rest of E partition.
    I just lost 2GB of my HD, no big deal...
    I will now monitor often my HD and if i get more bad sectors i will replace my wonderful (not!) Hitachi.
     
    slowdive, Mar 17, 2009
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  5. K-TRON

    K-TRON Hi, I'm Jimmy Diesel ^_^

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    I am glad you isolated the problem. These corrupt sectors usually occur over time, as the system gets moved around. All it takes is one good bump and bad sectors will appear regardless of the manufacturer of the drive.
    I have a 40gb 5400rpm Hitachi which came with my inspiron 8500. The drive had a corrupt sector for years. I never even isolated it, as long as I had less than 28gb of data on the drive I never had a problem. Needless to say the drive is still running fine 3 years after I found a corrupt sector

    K-TRON
     
    K-TRON, Mar 17, 2009
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  6. porksoda

    porksoda Notebook Enthusiast

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    if the drive is less than a year old it has warranty why not RMA it!?!?!?
     
    porksoda, Mar 18, 2009
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  7. slowdive

    slowdive Notebook Consultant

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    Because the laptop is more than 2 years, and this is a drive provided by asus (and not some drive i bought 1 year ago) to replace another faulty hitachi drive.
    Even if it was under warranty they would replace for another hitachi... No thanks! 2 is enough!

    Anyway, this is a very bad drive since day 1.
    So this is a very good motive to get a decent drive.
    i just order WD Scorpio 7200 rpm, 16 MB cache :)
     
    slowdive, Mar 19, 2009
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  8. K-TRON

    K-TRON Hi, I'm Jimmy Diesel ^_^

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    honestly you should still RMA your hitachi drive. You can get a new one, if all you need to send to asus is the drive, than sell the hitachi you get back from them, and that will cut the cost of your new Wd

    K-TRON
     
    K-TRON, Mar 19, 2009
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  9. slowdive

    slowdive Notebook Consultant

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    No, i can't get a new one because it's not under the warranty like asus confirmed to me. If i send it to asus, just the cost of transportation, is enough to buy two WD :)
     
    slowdive, Mar 19, 2009
    #9