Disk Events (Problems)

Discussing the computer in my sig:

I wiped my hard disk clean a few days ago for a number of reasons. I had a number of strange disk I/O related errors over the course of the past 8 months (e.g. Windows XP running out of file handles, usually after using my tv-tuner). Also, I wanted to try Vista x64 and to upgrade Ubuntu to 8.04, both.

Anyway, not all is peachy.

1) Vista x64 is recording a ton of Bad Events in the event log. I'm getting two discussed on this Microsoft page: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/154690 First, Event ID 11 was occurring every minute or so, causing 30 second hangs in applications. Disabling DMA and write caching "solves" that problem. Then Event ID 15 still occurs, perhaps because DMA and write caching are disabled. I'm not sure. Just now I noticed an instance of Error ID 14: shadow copies aborted because of an IO failure.

2) On more than one boot of the system, the BIOS loading bar stuck approximately 2/3 of the way across for a couple minutes before appearing not to find a hard drive attached to the computer.

3) The Ubuntu 8.04 (alternative) installer failed to install grub on my second attempt to install the OS, without explanation.

I'm thinking that either the hard drive is not connected correctly, or the hard drive is about to die, or both. Any thoughts?

Thanks in advance.

 

no disrespect is meant by linking​

The hdd is almost certainly dying. For confirmation, get a hdd health utility (all of the major hdd manufacturers provide them on their websites). I've no doubt that it will confirm the imminent death of your unfortunate hdd.

 

if you got a freind with a 2.5" hd enclosure, he can test it from his comp using a hd error checking program: that would be the best way diagnose its condition...

 

You might right. We can't rule out the possibility of a bad cable or poorly grounded installation though. For some reason, I couldn't get a "fail" out of a S.M.A.R.T. test. I tried updating the firmware of the HM250JI from 6 to 8, as I read online that it solved someone else's problems. However, it doesn't seem to have solved mine.

My S.M.A.R.T. stats reset when I updated the firmware, but not before I exported them to a file. Can you make anything out of these? Thanks again.

Code:

DiskCheckup Version:            DiskCheckup V2.1 Build: 1001
SmartDisk DLL Version:          SmartDisk DLL SDK v1.0 Build: 1013
Time of export:                 15:12:46 04-May-2008
Device ID:                      0
Device Capacity:                238472 MB
Serial Number:                  MINE
Model Number:                   SAMSUNG HM250JI
Firmware Revision:              HS100-06
Partitions:
    C:                          79999 MB
IDE Registers:
    Features:                   0x0
    Sector Count:               0x1
    Sector Number:              0x1
    Cylinder Low:               0x0
    Cylinder High:              0x0
    Drive Head:                 0xA0
    Command:                    0xEC
ID Sector:
    Cylinders:                  16383
    Heads:                      16
    Sectors per track:          63
    Cur Cyls:                   16383
    Cur Heads:                  16
    Cur Sectors/Track:          63
    Bytes per track:            34902
    Sectors per track:          63
    Bytes per sector:           554
    Gen Config:                 1114
    Buffer Type:                3
    Buffer Size:                16384
    Vendor Unique:              0 0 0
    More Vendor Unique:         0x8010
    ECC Size:                   4
    Double Word IO:             0
    Capabilities:               12032
    PIO Timing:                 512
    DMA Timing:                 512
    BS:                         7
    Current Sector Capacity:    16514064
    Total Addressable Sectors:  268435455
    Mult. Sector Stuff:         272
    Single Word DMA:            0
    Multi Word DMA:             7

SMART ATTRIBUTES:
 ID	Description                         	Raw Value 	Status    	Value     	Worst     	Threshold 	TEC                 
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
  1	Raw Read Error Rate                 	0         	OK        	100       	100       	51        	N.A.                
  3	Spin Up Time                        	2625ms    	OK        	252       	252       	25        	N.A.                
  4	Start/Stop Count                    	834       	OK        	100       	100       	0         	N.A.                
  5	Reallocated Sector Count            	0         	OK        	252       	252       	10        	N.A.                
  7	Seek Error Rate                     	0         	OK        	252       	252       	51        	N.A.                
  8	Seek Time Performance               	0         	OK        	252       	252       	15        	N.A.                
  9	Power On Time                       	5403      	OK        	91        	91        	0         	N.A.                
  A	Spin Retry Count                    	0         	OK        	252       	252       	51        	N.A.                
  C	Power Cycle Count                   	472       	OK        	100       	100       	0         	N.A.                
 BF	Gsense Error Rate                   	16484     	OK        	99        	99        	0         	N.A.                
 C0	Power off Retract Count             	148       	OK        	100       	100       	0         	N.A.                
 C2	Temperature                         	49 C      	OK        	91        	52        	0         	N.A.                
 C3	Hardware ECC Recovered              	24121     	OK        	100       	1         	0         	N.A.                
 C4	Reallocation Event Count            	0         	OK        	252       	252       	0         	N.A.                
 C5	Current Pending Sector Count        	0         	OK        	252       	252       	0         	N.A.                
 C6	Uncorrectable Sector Count          	0         	OK        	252       	252       	0         	N.A.                
 C7	UltraDMA CRC Error Count            	4727      	OK        	200       	200       	0         	N.A.                
 C8	Write Error Count                   	0         	OK        	100       	100       	0         	N.A.                
 C9	Off Track Errors                    	0         	OK        	252       	252       	0         	N.A.                
 DF	Load/Unload cycle count             	37471     	OK        	63        	63        	0         	N.A.                
 E1	Load Cycle Count                    	19990     	OK        	99        	99        	0         	N.A.                

 

Try HDTune`s disk test for health and errors.

 

Thanks for the tip eleron. Again, no errors detected. The only error indicators I've been able to obtain are from the Windows event log. Aside from than those, 30 second pauses and data corruption are apparent, but not detectable with any software I've found.

By the way, the errors still occur when the disk write cache is disabled. Furthermore, it seems like they still occur when DMA is disabled, but the errors no longer appear in the event log. :-/

Anyway, I think it is time to go to the seller with my problems and see what they want to do about it... Thanks again everyone.

P.S. I did just get a Raw Read Error in S.M.A.R.T. -_-

--

Update: Oddly enough, reseting the BIOS/CMOS seems to have done the trick. The hard drive seems to be behaving better than ever.

--

Update 2: Eventually it reverted. Sager support was kind enough to replace the drive, but only after I replaced it myself with a Seagate Momentus 5400.4, proving that the drive was the problem. Perhaps they would have done it anyway if I had pushed harder. Anyway, nice "free" upgrade for my PS3 for my trouble.