HDD CRC failrure woes! Help!!

[nonny]

Ok before I start my PC is an old P4 1.8Ghz machine that is ATA IDE only, no SATA unfortunately.

Ok so my second "beast" HDD is giving me grief after one year of faithful service as my main repository for music and video. Its a Seagate Barracuda 250GB ATA variety which I also have in my xboxes and none have ever gone belly up on me before.

What happening is copying large files such as DVDrips are now failing with CRC redunancy errors, same with xvids and other stuff. I've run a full checkdisk scan on it and that has passed, I've swapped it to the other controller on the motherboard and also tried swapping the IDE cable itself and then re-formatted it.... but nope, its just started doing it again now.

Any advice? I think I have expired all possible causes except the HDD itself and if I remove this one from my system I am left with only 40GB on my main system... though my next partial remedy is to swap this one for the one in my xbox (now I have a 360 its not being used).

Is there any software for checking HDD at a low level thats worth grabbing though? I dont really want to have to bin such a large HDD..

[marcus]

I generally just use checkdisk from DOS - chkdsk /r - which locates bad sectors, and fixes readable information. Is SMART enabled on the drive, if so, has it reported potential errors at all?

[nonny]

Ok forgive me but whats SMART... :/

I ran the checkdisk from XP properties page with the deep scan and resolve bad sectors etc... which ran for several hours and completed with no issues.

[kernow]

chkdisk, heh aint used that awful tool in years,

try it in another pc to see if its CRC erroring the same, if seagate offer a low level checking tool on their website, try that too, if not, kiss it goodbye and backup the data. simple.

[nonny]

Yeh I have backed up the data already onto an external HDD (phew!) but I dont really want to kiss it goodbye... too painful but if I have no choice then, ouch.

[kernow]

do you have any other problems, could be dodgy RAM, doubt it, but thats involved in the checksumming process too.

smart = system monitoring and report tool i believe, if enabled it monitors/reports for hard disk failure and warns you early.

[nonny]

No I dont have any other programs which is why I am reaching out for help here... never had this happen before so I dont really know how to remedy it or even whether it can be fixed?

[kernow]

you have another pc?

back it up (you did already) format it, and use it as a main drive for a few days, see if it gives you any hassle. or if you dont , put it in a mates pc, copy gigs of files to it or make random ones, and see if it does the same. if it does, its the drive itself, and you can either try sending it back if its still in warranty, or chucking it.

[djjimbob]

You should run Ontrack EasyRecovery on that disk ASAP. And save all data you can onto an external.

{priracy suggestion removed}

Worked very well for me the other day when my work HD packed up and couldn't even be recognized in windows.

[vertigo]

I ran the checkdisk from XP properties page with the deep scan and resolve bad sectors etc... which ran for several hours and completed with no issues.

But did you enable the option to check for and mark bad sectors? How many hours is several btw? A 250GB drive may well run for about a day if it's doing a full scan.

[nonny]

But did you enable the option to check for and mark bad sectors? How many hours is several btw? A 250GB drive may well run for about a day if it's doing a full scan.

Yes I did, it took approx 12-13 hours to execute which I ran overnight... came back complete with no errors reported.

[nonny]

Update on this.

I think (finger crossed) its fixed now... To anyone looking for a decent utlity disc I downloading a torrent of Hirens 7.8 recovery disc which basically has around 100 misc. apps on there.

I also downloaded Seagates own DiscWizard and SeaTools apps which showed up multiple bad sectors that XP didnt recognise. In the end I had to zero fill the entire drive which took about 1.5 days and then reformatted it and rewrote the master boot record.

It seems to have worked, passes all tests now but I am still a bit weary of it all.

Thanks for all the help guys.