CHKDSK error

[karachidude]

hey guys,

i made myself a new PC recectly,its a dual core,i got a new 1GB RAM,MotherBoard and everythin.

I also got a 500BG WD internal hardrive,its the only one i m using.My system was actin kind of funny,slowed down(took 25 minutes to copy a 300mb file to another partition),than started BSODing on me,it restarts at the welcome screen,I reinstalled twice etc etc,it just keeps happening for apparently no reason.The oddest thing here was that when i try to reinstall,XP shows me that the partition i m using for windows is "UNpartitioned or RAW" ..lol..this happened twice while reinstalling.

I ran CHKDSK /R and this is the error i get "The volume appears to contain one or more unrecoverable errors".what does this mean,my hdd is brand new,i just got it a week back,tore the wrapping myself.

What software i use to confirm if theres a problem with my hdd,or a app that might help me correct the errors.

have any idea leme know :)

Edit: its a not a software problem afaik,cause the combination i use,i hav bin usin for some time without problem

[Night Owl]

It sounds to me that your hard drive has some bad blocks. Whenever I get a new hard drive, I always do a full format (not a quick format) to ensure that bad blocks are locked out.

EDIT: Does your hard drive manufacturer have a diagnostic utility you could download?

[karachidude]

hey mate.ok that means if i do a full format not the quick one,will the errors go away.i have made two partiotions on the hdd one is 20gb for windows and the other is 450,should i format the 450 while staying logged in on windows and than do a reinstall for windows and format the 20gb partition there

about the Diagnostic tool,i dont know mate,its a western digital caviar green one,lemme check if i can find something on thier web

[Night Owl]

Note: A full format takes hours and hours with a large partition.

Well, if you do have some bad blocks, the full format will lock them out and then try to use other blocks that are kept in reserve for just such a problem. But if you have too many bad blocks, I don't know if the full format will fail or just end up giving you a smaller partition.

Can you boot from a Windows XP CD and full format your hard drive then without Windows in use? How to partition and format a hard disk by using Windows XP Setup program: Do not choose the "(Quick)" formatting choices shown in step 2.

Have you considered exchanging this hard drive since it's brand new?

[Night Owl]

about the Diagnostic tool,i dont know mate,its a western digital caviar green one,lemme check if i can find something on thier web

I found it here: http://support.wdc.com/product/download.asp?groupid=608&lang=en

[karachidude]

about the Diagnostic tool,i dont know mate,its a western digital caviar green one,lemme check if i can find something on thier web

I found it here: http://support.wdc.com/product/download.asp?groupid=608&lang=en

thanks mate,doin this scan right know.if the problem persists after this,i wll do the full format usin XP as u have mentioned,i will get back to u :)

excghanging the hdd is not a option,until i prove to the vendor that its faulty,ofcourse i wll use this option if nothin else solves the problem

[LeetPirate]

Quick, return that green edition hdd for a caviar blue or black. The green ones have tons of problems and the specs are misleading, they make you think the hdd has variable rpm but it's really stuck at a constant slow 5400 rpm so it perform file operations super slow. The performance is worse if they use higher density platters. The major bottleneck in computers right now is the transfer of data from the hdd to the cpu so using a slow hdd is not advisable for your main hdd. Believe me you are only saving 1 or 2 watts of energy and it isn't worth it because stuff takes longer to get done and you end up spending more time with your pc working. If a brand new hdd cannot work from a quick format then it's probably physically damaged or requires a firmware update. You better carry your entire pc to show that vendor that the hdd is busted.

On a related note, some of the manufacturers have recently released single platter 500GB hdd. I would stay away from those right now and stick with the 250GB or 320GB per platter because the 500GB per platter drives perform better on paper than in real life right now.

i have another question i wanna ask,the hdd is 500gb,but the amount of space windows show,is 19.5gb on the sys partition and 446gb on the other one.i was wondering where the hell the rest on the 34gbs went,i know some space is reserved,but 34 gbs on a 500 hdd,is it normal.

That amount of space you lost is hdd tax, lol. When they say 500GB they count it in multiples of 1000 instead of 1024 so you never really get the amount you expect.

[Night Owl]

i have another question i wanna ask,the hdd is 500gb,but the amount of space windows show,is 19.5gb on the sys partition and 446gb on the other one.i was wondering where the hell the rest on the 34gbs went,i know some space is reserved,but 34 gbs on a 500 hdd,is it normal.

That amount of space you lost is hdd tax, lol. When they say 500GB they count it in multiples of 1000 instead of 1024 so you never really get the amount you expect.

Sorry, I don't know how I missed this. Did I miss page 0 or something? :unsure:

Anyway, all HD manufactures are basically liars and work in base 10 (i.e. 1 KB = 1,000 bytes), but our computers work in base 2 (1 KB = 2^10 bytes = 1,024 bytes). Just take the "lie" that the HD manufacturer quotes and divide it by 1.073741824 (i.e. (1024 * 1024 * 1024) / (1000 * 1000 * 1000)).

So 500 GB / 1.073741824 = 465.6 real GB or GiB. So adding your 19.5 real GB + 446 real GB = 465.5 real GB.

Answer: No, you didn't lose any hard drive space. But I lost the original question! :blink:

[karachidude]

i have another question i wanna ask,the hdd is 500gb,but the amount of space windows show,is 19.5gb on the sys partition and 446gb on the other one.i was wondering where the hell the rest on the 34gbs went,i know some space is reserved,but 34 gbs on a 500 hdd,is it normal.

That amount of space you lost is hdd tax, lol. When they say 500GB they count it in multiples of 1000 instead of 1024 so you never really get the amount you expect.

Sorry, I don't know how I missed this. Did I miss page 0 or something? :unsure:

Answer: No, you didn't lose any hard drive space. But I lost the original question! :blink:

hehe..no mate..i saw leet online an hour ago,and thought i ask him this question i had in mind in PM,he always knows this stuff.thanks for the explaination night owl,know i understand :D

[karachidude]

Quick, return that green edition hdd for a caviar blue or black. The green ones have tons of problems and the specs are misleading, they make you think the hdd has variable rpm but it's really stuck at a constant slow 5400 rpm so it perform file operations super slow. The performance is worse if they use higher density platters. The major bottleneck in computers right now is the transfer of data from the hdd to the cpu so using a slow hdd is not advisable for your main hdd. Believe me you are only saving 1 or 2 watts of energy and it isn't worth it because stuff takes longer to get done and you end up spending more time with your pc working. If a brand new hdd cannot work from a quick format then it's probably physically damaged or requires a firmware update. You better carry your entire pc to show that vendor that the hdd is busted.

On a related note, some of the manufacturers have recently released single platter 500GB hdd. I would stay away from those right now and stick with the 250GB or 320GB per platter because the 500GB per platter drives perform better on paper than in real life right now.

i have another question i wanna ask,the hdd is 500gb,but the amount of space windows show,is 19.5gb on the sys partition and 446gb on the other one.i was wondering where the hell the rest on the 34gbs went,i know some space is reserved,but 34 gbs on a 500 hdd,is it normal.

That amount of space you lost is hdd tax, lol. When they say 500GB they count it in multiples of 1000 instead of 1024 so you never really get the amount you expect.

thanks for the answer leet,i will try to exchange this one for a blue one atleast,i should have posted here earlier before buyin the rig to get advice,but i was super excited that i had money,and i just went and bought these things :D

[mara-]

If diagnostic detects bad block, do not repair it! Go to vendor, show them that tool detected bad block. Take a screen shot of detected bad black, and keep it safe. WD Diagnostic tool just hides bad block and marks it as bad and Windows will not use it. Vendor could just do this and return it to you as "repaired". But, I think that there are some scanners that can detect that hidden bad block. It would be also good if you could get better HDD like LeetPirate suggested.

Cheers ;)

[karachidude]

If diagnostic detects bad block, do not repair it! Go to vendor, show them that tool detected bad block. Take a screen shot of detected bad black, and keep it safe. WD Diagnostic tool just hides bad block and marks it as bad and Windows will not use it. Vendor could just do this and return it to you as "repaired". But, I think that there are some scanners that can detect that hidden bad block. It would be also good if you could get better HDD like LeetPirate suggested.

Cheers ;)

i wll do that,thanks mara :)

[HX1]

You know.. now I finally understand why.. my 320 GB EHD only has 298.06 usable.. and my 500 has 465.. LOL..

[mara-]

You know.. now I finally understand why.. my 320 GB EHD only has 298.06 usable.. and my 500 has 465.. LOL..

Well, what a coincidence. I have two hard drives with same storage capacity as you. 55GB in total is "missing".

Cheers ;)

[karachidude]

guys thanks for the help..yes the hardisk was faulty and i got a replacement for it today .But couldnt get them to exchange the green one for the blue one,cause they say 10-15 days of warranty have already been used,so they cant exchange,but all is well,this one i checked is bad sector free :D

thanks for the help,

cheers :D