Hard drive failure imminent !?

[Coffee is good :)]

My mom's bf had me do a tune up on his computer. I believe I did an excellent job and didn't do anything to cause additional problems.

- the computer worked great for him until just a few days ago. All of a sudden it decided to get hellishly slow. SLOWER than before I gave it a tune up.
. I checked the Task Manager and the CPU was barely being used. Only thing I could thing of was that the hard drive is going bad or Windows is rotted.

-> I had to do a hard shutdown because it ended up freezing. I booted into the recovery partition and it had PC Doctor 5, which I used to diagnose the hardware (UBCD4Win wouldn't get past the initial shell loader screen). It said it failed the hard drive test, but passed the memory and CPU test.

-> I decided to do a recovery (reinstall Win XP and keep data). It automatically decided to run chkdsk. It found bad clusters and apparently repaired them.

Booted up and the computer seemed ok. I decided to take it home to give it another tune up.

I started it up and got Boot Disk Failure message.
- Right now I've got it connected to my computer via USB to IDE cable and am running tests. It's a Seagate so I did Seatools and I also did WD diagnostics. Passed both.

Now I'm running HD Tune error scan. It's at roughly 40% w/o errors. I ran the quick test in the beginning and got 1 damaged block.

The hard drive is probably from around 2003/4 and has about 20,000 power on hours.

Should I replace the drive? Will more bad clusters come?
- I tried backing up the recovery partition with EASUS Todo Backup, but got a file error message. Tried Unstoppable Copier and it got extremely slow and was detecting errors.

 

[Coffee is good :)]

 

[Morrison5891]

Looks like its time to replace the drive

 

[vdub12]

Those are critical SMART errors. I would change the drive.

You have already imaged it right?

You can get more info on SMART errors from the SMART wiki.

 

[Coffee is good :)]

Those are critical SMART errors. I would change the drive.

You have already imaged it right?

You can get more info on SMART errors from the SMART wiki.

I do have the data backed up. I tried copying the recover partition because I wanna do a clean install, but nothing will let me because of "file errors".

That Wiki is only so helpful. It doesn't tell me how bad 99 Reallocated Sectors Count is :/ It's too general

 

[RahmTech]

Bad Drive

You have already gotten the answer you need and I agree. Replace it.

There is nothing worse than taking a what seems to be perfectly working computer home with you to have it boot with an error such as yours.

I feel for you and hope that your moms bf understands.

 

[vdub12]

I do have the data backed up. I tried copying the recover partition because I wanna do a clean install, but nothing will let me because of "file errors".

That Wiki is only so helpful. It doesn't tell me how bad 99 Reallocated Sectors Count is :/ It's too general

A relocated sector count is never good the value is a mute point. I would change the drive. There is no way I would run a drive that is having SMART warnings. Next thing you know it will fail and you will have to start all over. Its best to just sell the customer a drive and be done with it. If they don't want to replace the drive then let them find a pizza tech that will load windows on the failing drive for them. I would not personally do the job because i do not want an unsatisfied customer when they come back in a weak with a broken computer again.

If you turn the job down and they have a pizza tech do it then I bet you they will be back to you in a weak wanting you to fix it right when it fails again.

 

[MobileTechie]

I do have the data backed up. I tried copying the recover partition because I wanna do a clean install, but nothing will let me because of "file errors".

That Wiki is only so helpful. It doesn't tell me how bad 99 Reallocated Sectors Count is :/ It's too general

Um it's not 99 it's 51. You're reading the wrong column and it uses hex

 

[iisjman07]

-> I had to do a hard shutdown because it ended up freezing. I booted into the recovery partition and it had PC Doctor 5, which I used to diagnose the hardware (UBCD4Win wouldn't get past the initial shell loader screen). It said it failed the hard drive test, but passed the memory and CPU test.

-> I decided to do a recovery (reinstall Win XP and keep data). It automatically decided to run chkdsk. It found bad clusters and apparently repaired them.

So you knew it was a bad harddrive, but decided to reinstall windows on top of it?

 

[Coffee is good :)]

So you knew it was a bad harddrive, but decided to reinstall windows on top of it?

I wasn't sure if that was exactly what the problem was. This is the 1st time I've ever ran into a failing hard drive.

 

[iptech]

I wasn't sure if that was exactly what the problem was. This is the 1st time I've ever ran into a failing hard drive.

You need to work alongside an experienced tech for some time before you consider branching out on your own. Rudementary failings like this could cost you big-time.

 

[iisjman07]

This is the 1st time I've ever ran into a failing hard drive.

How long have you been doing computer repair? Please don't sense any tone, it's just I see tonnes of failed hard drives

 

[TLE]

You need to work alongside an experienced tech for some time before you consider branching out on your own. Rudementary failings like this could cost you big-time.

+1

Before starting a Tune up, the first thing you should check is the SMART status of the drive. No point putting the hard drive through the rigors of Malware checks, and defragmentation as it's only going to make the issue worse and reduce the chances of recovering any data.

 

[stevenamills]

im·mi·nent/ˈimənənt/
Adjective: About to happen

Always!

(Sorry, couldn't resist)

 

[Coffee is good :)]

This is what chkdsk showed

,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

 

[iptech]

This is what chkdsk showed

Why do you keep running chkdsk across that drive? That hard drive is failing, the more times you spin it up the ever greater chance you will lose everything on it, chkdsk will never fix permanently it no matter how many times you run it.

Please don't do this job on other people's computers until you fully understand what you are doing and why you are doing it.

 

[Coffee is good :)]

Why do you keep running chkdsk across that drive? That hard drive is failing, the more times you spin it up the ever greater chance you will lose everything on it, chkdsk will never fix permanently it no matter how many times you run it.

Please don't do this job on other people's computers until you fully understand what you are doing and why you are doing it.

That was from earlier!!! I've already replaced the hard drive and reinstalled Windows. I was able to recover their data and put it on the new drive. Everything turned out great

 

[AustinB]

This is one of the reasons I give a small disclaimer before doing a tune-up on a fairly/very old PC. Two days later the HDD can start dying. It's usually much easier on you if you've warned them in advance.

And I'd start backing up their data much earlier in the process than it sounds like you did. All that extra use of the drive can be dangerous.