Linux is telling me my hard drive is failing, but Windows doesn't see any major problems.
I have not lost any info or had any software problems.
I used HDD tune for the windows h.d. info.
The reallocated sector count is a little disturbing though.
The drive is considered the middle lower end of hard drives in terms of reliability.
(05) Reallocated Sector Count 79 79 24 32901304 Ok
HD Tune: FUJITSU MJA2250BH G2 Benchmark
Transfer Rate Minimum : 1.6 MB/sec
Transfer Rate Maximum : 84.7 MB/sec
Transfer Rate Average : 62.9 MB/sec
Access Time : 18.8 ms
Burst Rate : 117.0 MB/sec
CPU Usage : 3.0%
I suppose you have S.M.A.R.T error log warning on Linux, so some parameters could be differ on systems that to give warning or on Windows, this type of warnings turned off, but it is at all - so will be suggest to archive you disk
Hi Andy,
Adamanteus is right: don't hesitate to backup your disk. Urgent.
Gunther
Hi Magnum,
Windows does not provide built-in hard disk diagnostic tools like Linux. The reallocated sector count warning can be serious.
I have run the following H.D. diagnostic programs.
Fujitsu
HDDTune
Seagates Sea Tools
S.M.A.R.T. has not been tripped.
All came up negative.
I am still monitoring.
It has been my experience that with modern hard drives, the diagnostics are of little use, when they start to fail, its already too late and sector remapping simply does not matter. Over time I have had the odd disk fail and even though I have tried to back them up as soon as they show problems, most of the data is already trashed or at least has serious holes in it that cannot be recovered.
You extend disk life by keeping the whole assembly cool and that means a 5 inch fan in front of your disk stack. I routinely build 4 disk computers for redundancy but stick them in from of a large fan at the front of the case and i have rarely ever had a problem since. Most of my disks run near cold and reduced thermal cycling means far greater life for a hard disk.
Hutch,
You are a pretty smart fellow.
You have learned that heat decreases time before failure and lower temperatures slows down the reaction, whether it be bacterial growth or equipment failure.
Up to 6 months ago, I had limited experience with laptops.
But I did notice that the charger for them stayed hot as well as the bottom of the laptop.
So I added this to keep the temp down.
Andy
Quote from: Magnum on March 09, 2013, 02:10:11 AM
Linux is telling me my hard drive is failing, but Windows doesn't see any major problems.
I have not lost any info or had any software problems.
I used HDD tune for the windows h.d. info.
The reallocated sector count is a little disturbing though.
The drive is considered the middle lower end of hard drives in terms of reliability.
(05) Reallocated Sector Count 79 79 24 32901304 Ok
HD Tune: FUJITSU MJA2250BH G2 Benchmark
Transfer Rate Minimum : 1.6 MB/sec
Transfer Rate Maximum : 84.7 MB/sec
Transfer Rate Average : 62.9 MB/sec
Access Time : 18.8 ms
Burst Rate : 117.0 MB/sec
CPU Usage : 3.0%
Backup the hard disk to another disk of equal or larger size.
Open a command window and give it the following command... (I'm assuming drive C: ... substitute drive letters as appropriate)....
chkdsk /f /r /x C:If there are any problems on the disk, this will find them.
Sector re-mapping is not a problem. In fact 79 is pretty typical for a brand new drive.
If the drive starts showing any bad sectors, then it has run out of spare sectors and it's past time for a new drive.
The hard drive is NOT showing any bad sectors.
So, what I consider is, do I trust Linux or Windows who has has been around for little while longer than Linux.
Linux has many versions.
I will leave it at that.
Quote from: Magnum on March 09, 2013, 02:34:28 PM
The hard drive is NOT showing any bad sectors.
So, what I consider is, do I trust Linux or Windows who has has been around for little while longer than Linux.
Linux has many versions.
I will leave it at that.
Have you run the factory diagnostic for the drive?
It's entirely possible there are problems other than bad sectors. A poor power connection or bad data cable is going to trigger some warnings as might temperature or a failing drive motor.
i have wondered about how the RTC memory is used differently between linux and windows
and how the OS's "fix" the issues when switching at boot-time
perhaps there is a "flag" bit set in there that makes linux think there has been an error
I don't know if this is related, but I have been getting a message on every bootup about some LXE cable is loose or disconnected.
Since I wasn't have any problems, I just ignored it.
I took out the hard drive and reseated it and haven't seen the message again.
I ran every HP diagnostics they had, everything was ok except the extensive H.D. test.
It stops at 20%, tried it several times.
Compared to desktop systems, laptops are a whole new ball of wax.
it sounds like you fixed the LXE problem
as for the 20%.....
laptops have a "broader" bunch of power settings to conserve battery life
perhaps one of these settings is interfering with the test
Quote from: Magnum on March 10, 2013, 01:39:34 AM
I ran every HP diagnostics they had, everything was ok except the extensive H.D. test.
It stops at 20%, tried it several times.
What's the error message?
Unuseable sectors?
Seek errors?
Read/Write errors?
If so, you need a new disk drive.
Laptops are indeed a whole different ball of wax... for one thing they get bashed around and dropped which simply isn't good for the hard disk (or the rest of it for that matter).
There was no error message with the first short test and nothing with the second longer test.
Chkdsk did not show any problems.
I replaced CentOS with Linux Mint and it shows no problem with the hard disk.
??
I seem to remember some program that would show all the clusters with markings as to which ones were in use, bad, or not in use.
Andy,
You are trying to mix the technology of two different operating systems without knowing enough about both of them. Its a Windows laptop so use Windows software to perform your testing. You would need to know a lot more to evaluated the workings as each Linux distro and it may not be any use to you. As others have mentioned to you, back up your important data, defrag the disk, make sure there are no errors on it by using CHKDSK then use it.
Keep track of the sector remapping count and if it starts to go up, get another disk.
On a good day one should make a backup, coz on a bad day it could be too late for it... ;)
You should always backup your precious data, always.
BTW, Linux is very good for hardware diagnostics. Take a look at Knoppix (http://www.knopper.net/knoppix/) and/or grml (http://grml.org/). But you must know which tools to use and how to use them properly.
Greenhorn
Quote from: Greenhorn on March 10, 2013, 10:03:22 AM
BTW, Linux is very good for hardware diagnostics. Take a look at Knoppix (http://www.knopper.net/knoppix/) and/or grml (http://grml.org/). But you must know which tools to use and how to use them properly.
Greenhorn
Wise spoken. Furthermore, one could use nearly any life CD of any distribution to do the hardware diagnostics. It's not limited to Knoppix or grml.
Gunther
I wasn't criticizing Linux.
As a matter of fact, I just installed Linux Mint on a second partition.
Because of it's speed advantage over Windows, it may become my primary O.S.
Andy