Possible HDD Dying *help*

I have a Sager 8790, and I'm thinking that the secondary HDD is dying. I defragmented it and still no luck. I've been noticing that the second HDD according to MobMeter has been running 10C more than the primary (55 - a max of 65C).

I downloaded a .iso file from Hitachi's support site and burned it. Upon boot, I tried firing up the disk, it did start, recognized the CD-ROM as the primary drive, then froze when looking for HDD's.

I'm not sure where to go right now. I'm thinking that the drive is toast, and the warranty is up. Taking it out and buying a new one is a possibility, but I'm eyeballing the NP5791 really bad and don't want this laptop to start nickel-and-diming me.

Any suggestions on how to check this HDD?

Thanks,
Boogie

 

Personally, I have a Hitachi Travelstar drive that occasionally acts like it is trying to give up the ghost and I have repaired it a couple of times using a utility on the Ultimate Boot CD called MHDD. The UBCD is a good thing to have around in general. It's free and you can download the ISO from one of the mirrors listed here http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/download.html

Pop it in, boot from it, and choose Hard Drive Tools.

There is actually a Hitachi drive scanner on the disc, which I have had mixed results in. I've had it lock up on me the way yours did as well. In that situation, I run MHDD. It can do a low level scan and repair on the drive. This has worked for me in the past. If that stalls as well, and you're determined as I was to keep your drive, you can use this program to find the specific sector that the program stalls on, then boot it back up again and tell it to wipe that specific sector, then scan again till it hits another. I painstakingly did this about 30 times and recovered my HDD without having to reinstall my OS or any programs or losing any data. It will try recondition sectors that it gets sluggish read times out of and it will test bad sectors to make sure they're really bad and not just in need of that reconditioning process.

There are several other HDD diagnostic tools on the CD that may work for you as well. I'd start with the Hitachi specific one, then work my way through the list of automated scanners and use MHDD as the last resort.

 

download HDDlife, and see the health of your HDD.

 

Never thought about UBCD, I use it at work. I didn't remember it having any Hitachi HDD scanners. I will have to look into that.

I'll Google HDDlife, and post the results here.

I also did some 'cover my a$$' research, it appears that I bought the drive from newegg.com with a 2-year warranty and it expires on 10/11.

So, I think I have an out however I go.

 

Well, HDD isn't too damn helpful for me.

I open the program, tell it too select the second drive, and the program starts to lock up.

I managed to grab this screenshot from the program before it crashes:

http://www.aww-kittah-aww.com/up/public/pview/11129/untitled.JPG

The 2nd drive doesn't show the temperature, or any other info although the first drive shows all kinds of information concerning the SMART info and so on and so forth.

I'm looking around for a blank CD-R to burn the UBCD....

I notice the computer runs really nicely (when the 2nd drive is disabled)

 

start > run, type
eventvwr.msc
<enter>

Right click application and choose CLEAR ALL EVENTS, do not save the log
Right click system and choose CLEAR ALL EVENTS, do not save the log

Reboot. Work with computer until error recurs. reboot

start > run, type
eventvwr.msc
<enter>

Look under systems and applications for items with red Xs that happened at the SAME time as your problem...list them here.

I do not want a list of errors, I want to see what the errors are--and ONLY those errors that are showing at the SAME time as your problem. If you skipped the part about erasing the old errors, please do not show me errors from 6 months ago. They will not help me diagnose the issue.

Now, DOUBLE CLICK the event(s) and you will be presented with a dialogue box. On each dialogue box is a COPY button that looks like two pages of paper. Click that. Now, right click in the ADD REPLAY box, and choose PASTE from the context menu.

Specifically, I am curious about anything that refers to BAD BLOCKS

 

I cleaned the logs, and simply tried deleting a .gif file from the root of the "bad" drive.

Got these:

The error message that Windows threw me was:

 

start > run, type
cmd
<enter>

type
chkdsk d: /r
<enter>

(substitute the correct volume/drive letter that is normal for this drive)

Say yes to checking disk on restart, or yes to unmounting.

Take a long walk

If you unmounted your drive in above step, reboot.

Next, update your RAID drivers by visiting the sager site

Check drive again.

 

Will try this when I get home. Will ports results after testing.

Any early guesses as to what it may be? Note: the drives are NOT RAID'ed, they are separate HDD's, one for OS and Programs, one (problem child) for portable storage for non-important files.

 

corrupt file system possible

even though they are not raided, the sata drivers are still required for best performance--it seems to think those you have are out of date