Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage (More info?)

I have a maxtor 250GB drive that has gotten a few bad blocks. I'm
wondering if it is better to reformat it or get a replacement from maxtor.

Does reformatting usually get rid bad blocks? For what it's worth, the
drive has not developed any more new bad blocks since they were first
discovered 3 weeks ago, and the drive is about 95% full. I'm guessing
it won't develop new bad blocks. Any thoughts?

Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage (More info?)

MooGoo wrote:
>
> I have a maxtor 250GB drive that has gotten a few bad blocks. I'm
> wondering if it is better to reformat it or get a replacement from maxtor.

IFF you can get an error code from Maxtor PowerMax and the drive is
still under warranty, then you should consider getting a replacement.

> Does reformatting usually get rid bad blocks? For what it's worth, the
> drive has not developed any more new bad blocks since they were first
> discovered 3 weeks ago, and the drive is about 95% full. I'm guessing
> it won't develop new bad blocks. Any thoughts?

A drive should internally (transparent to the user or OS) remap bad
sectors. Once the number of spare sectors is exhausted, then the
presence of bad sectors is noticeable.

If you run smartctl on the drive, you can get a better idea of what's
going on with the drive internally:
http://sourceforge.net/project/sho [...] p_id=64297

If it's your first drive, you'd run:
smartctl -a /dev/hda

In my experience, once a drive starts developing bad sectors, more bad
sectors are likely to follow. YMMV.


-WD

Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage (More info?)

On Tue, 22 Jun 2004 17:25:17 -0400, MooGoo <dontspamme@nospam.com> wrote:

~
~I have a maxtor 250GB drive that has gotten a few bad blocks. I'm
~wondering if it is better to reformat it or get a replacement from maxtor.
~
~Does reformatting usually get rid bad blocks? For what it's worth, the
~drive has not developed any more new bad blocks since they were first
~discovered 3 weeks ago, and the drive is about 95% full. I'm guessing
~it won't develop new bad blocks. Any thoughts?
~
~
In my experience once a drive starts getting bad blocks it will continue to get
worse until you start getting them in the partition table or the part of the
drive where the file system and directory are stored. At that point reading the
drive becomes problematic. Formatting or repartitioning the drive will not fix
this problem. Burn the contents onto CDROM or back it up to other media while
you can still read it. Better buy several spindles of blanks. At 700MB each
you'll need ~350 of them to backup that drive.

250GB drives have not been on the market all that long. Is this drive still
under warranty? Maybe Maxtor will replace it.

For years now I have disdained putting the eggs all in one basket approach of
using these drives of unusual size. I know three or four 80GB drives will cost
more but you won't have the pain of loosing 250GB of data or the prospect of
burning hundreds of backup CDROMS.

Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage (More info?)

> I have a maxtor 250GB drive that has gotten a few bad blocks. I'm
> wondering if it is better to reformat it or get a replacement from maxtor.

I just had one of these go bad on me too. Last Maxtor drive I will ever
buy since this is the second Maxtor that I have had fail in the last 5 years.
Since the data on it was sensitive, I took a hammer and screwdriver to it
and bent the platters.

> Does reformatting usually get rid bad blocks? For what it's worth, the
> drive has not developed any more new bad blocks since they were first
> discovered 3 weeks ago, and the drive is about 95% full. I'm guessing
> it won't develop new bad blocks. Any thoughts?

I reformatted it twice. The third time I tried, it would not even format
(Windows 2000 format would not complete the format). It continued
getting more and more bad blocks before I chunked it. This was over
a period of 2 months.

Lynn

Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage (More info?)

"Will Dormann" <wdormann@yahoo.com.invalid> wrote in message news:xE3Cc.5455$Il1.5285@fe1.columbus.rr.com
> MooGoo wrote:
> >
> > I have a maxtor 250GB drive that has gotten a few bad blocks. I'm
> > wondering if it is better to reformat it or get a replacement from maxtor.
>
> IFF you can get an error code from Maxtor PowerMax and the drive is
> still under warranty, then you should consider getting a replacement.
>
> > Does reformatting usually get rid bad blocks? For what it's worth, the
> > drive has not developed any more new bad blocks since they were first
> > discovered 3 weeks ago, and the drive is about 95% full. I'm guessing
> > it won't develop new bad blocks. Any thoughts?
>
> A drive should internally (transparent to the user or OS) remap bad sectors.

Clueless. Another mindless cockatoo.
It should internally (transparently) remap 'about_to_become, i.e. recoverable
read error' bad sectors. Bad sectors (unrecoverable read error 'bad' sectors)
are never remapped on reads.
They will be remapped on writes and only after they have been administered
internally as an unrecoverable read error bad sector on earlier reads.
These are the ones you *will* see at all times, at least once, whether spare
sectors are available or not.

> Once the number of spare sectors is exhausted, then the presence of bad
> sectors is noticeable.

Any detailed drive manual will tell you different.
And since you are a regular here, you should know better by now, Dormann.

>
> If you run smartctl on the drive, you can get a better idea of what's
> going on with the drive internally:
> http://sourceforge.net/project/sho [...] p_id=64297
>
> If it's your first drive, you'd run:
> smartctl -a /dev/hda
>
> In my experience, once a drive starts developing bad sectors, more bad
> sectors are likely to follow.

Of course they will. That is what the bloody system is designed for, isn't it?

> YMMV.
>
>
> -WD

Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage (More info?)

<ttl> wrote in message news:4leid0h95vvc3913mlt1nrvgi7lofcdi3s@4ax.com
> On Tue, 22 Jun 2004 17:25:17 -0400, MooGoo <dontspamme@nospam.com> wrote:
>
> >
> > I have a maxtor 250GB drive that has gotten a few bad blocks. I'm
> > wondering if it is better to reformat it or get a replacement from maxtor.
> >
> > Does reformatting usually get rid bad blocks? For what it's worth, the
> > drive has not developed any more new bad blocks since they were first
> > discovered 3 weeks ago, and the drive is about 95% full. I'm guessing
> > it won't develop new bad blocks. Any thoughts?
> >
> >
> In my experience once a drive starts getting bad blocks it will continue to
> get worse until you start getting them in the partition table or the part of
> the drive where the file system and directory are stored.

> At that point reading the drive becomes problematic.

The problem becoming most notable.

> Formatting or repartitioning the drive will not fix this problem.

Actually, that will take care of the bad blocks in the partition tables and
directories as these will be written over and the bad blocks remapped.
It doesn't take care of the other blocks in the data areas as these are
left alone. They may be read in the verifying stage and show up there.

> Burn the contents onto CDROM or back it up to other media
> while you can still read it. Better buy several spindles of blanks.
> At 700MB each you'll need ~350 of them to backup that drive.
>
> 250GB drives have not been on the market all that long. Is this drive still
> under warranty? Maybe Maxtor will replace it.
>
> For years now I have disdained putting the eggs all in one basket approach of
> using these drives of unusual size. I know three or four 80GB drives will cost
> more but you won't have the pain of loosing 250GB of data or the prospect of
> burning hundreds of backup CDROMS.

Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage (More info?)

On Wed, 23 Jun 2004 21:07:51 +0200, "Folkert Rienstra" <see_reply-to@myweb.nl>
wrote:

~<ttl> wrote in message news:4leid0h95vvc3913mlt1nrvgi7lofcdi3s@4ax.com
~
~> Formatting or repartitioning the drive will not fix this problem.
~
~Actually, that will take care of the bad blocks in the partition tables and
~directories as these will be written over and the bad blocks remapped.
~It doesn't take care of the other blocks in the data areas as these are
~left alone. They may be read in the verifying stage and show up there.
~
A bad choice of words on my part. Reformatting will mask the symptoms by
remapping the bad blocks. I have done this in the past and thought everything
was ok until more bad blocks appeared. I should have said that reformatting
will mask the symptoms but does not fix the underlying problem.

Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage (More info?)

ttl wrote:
>
> On Tue, 22 Jun 2004 17:25:17 -0400, MooGoo <dontspamme@nospam.com> wrote:
>
> ~
> ~I have a maxtor 250GB drive that has gotten a few bad blocks. I'm
> ~wondering if it is better to reformat it or get a replacement from maxtor.
> ~
> ~Does reformatting usually get rid bad blocks? For what it's worth, the
> ~drive has not developed any more new bad blocks since they were first
> ~discovered 3 weeks ago, and the drive is about 95% full. I'm guessing
> ~it won't develop new bad blocks. Any thoughts?
> ~
> ~
> In my experience once a drive starts getting bad blocks it will continue to get
> worse until you start getting them in the partition table or the part of the
> drive where the file system and directory are stored. At that point reading the
> drive becomes problematic. Formatting or repartitioning the drive will not fix
> this problem. Burn the contents onto CDROM or back it up to other media while
> you can still read it. Better buy several spindles of blanks. At 700MB each
> you'll need ~350 of them to backup that drive.
>
> 250GB drives have not been on the market all that long. Is this drive still
> under warranty? Maybe Maxtor will replace it.
>
> For years now I have disdained putting the eggs all in one basket approach of
> using these drives of unusual size. I know three or four 80GB drives will cost
> more but you won't have the pain of loosing 250GB of data or the prospect of
> burning hundreds of backup CDROMS.


Hello,

"Burning hundreds of backup CDROMS," makes no sense, in my opinion. Why
use relatively-small CD's (650MB-700MB), at all, when DVD's (4.7GB) are
readily available, today?


Cordially,
John Turco <jtur@concentric.net>

Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage (More info?)

On 24 Jun 2004 05:50:03 EDT, John Turco <jtur@concentric.net> wrote:
~Hello,
~
~"Burning hundreds of backup CDROMS," makes no sense, in my opinion. Why
~use relatively-small CD's (650MB-700MB), at all, when DVD's (4.7GB) are
~readily available, today?
~
This is an option if the user has a DVD-R, DVD+R. Recordable DVD has not
penetrated the market as deeply as recordable CD. Using recordable DVD reduces
the number of discs to ~53. Still a lot of recording.

Best to burn to disk as the data volume grows. Entrusting the data to a disk
drive is to invite loss of data.

Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage (More info?)

<ttl> wrote in message news:7aakd0d0hubs3oqdtga7egmb6p47bbn3om@4ax.com
> On Wed, 23 Jun 2004 21:07:51 +0200, "Folkert Rienstra" <see_reply-to@myweb.nl> wrote:
> > <ttl> wrote in message news:4leid0h95vvc3913mlt1nrvgi7lofcdi3s@4ax.com
> >
> > > Formatting or repartitioning the drive will not fix this problem.
> >
> > Actually, that will take care of the bad blocks in the partition tables and
> > directories as these will be written over and the bad blocks remapped.
> > It doesn't take care of the other blocks in the data areas as these are
> > left alone. They may be read in the verifying stage and show up there.
> >
> A bad choice of words on my part. Reformatting will mask the symptoms by
> remapping the bad blocks. I have done this in the past and thought everything
> was ok until more bad blocks appeared. I should have said that reformatting
> will mask the symptoms but does not fix the underlying problem.

Right, it doesn't fix a bad power supply (or bad supply of power) or a drive
overheating.

Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage (More info?)

"John Turco" <jtur@concentric.net> wrote in message news:40DAA431.6CEE02DD@concentric.net
> ttl wrote:
> >
> > On Tue, 22 Jun 2004 17:25:17 -0400, MooGoo <dontspamme@nospam.com> wrote:
> >
> > ~
> > ~I have a maxtor 250GB drive that has gotten a few bad blocks. I'm
> > ~wondering if it is better to reformat it or get a replacement from maxtor.
> > ~
> > ~Does reformatting usually get rid bad blocks? For what it's worth, the
> > ~drive has not developed any more new bad blocks since they were first
> > ~discovered 3 weeks ago, and the drive is about 95% full. I'm guessing
> > ~it won't develop new bad blocks. Any thoughts?
> > ~
> > ~
> > In my experience once a drive starts getting bad blocks it will continue to get
> > worse until you start getting them in the partition table or the part of the
> > drive where the file system and directory are stored. At that point reading the
> > drive becomes problematic. Formatting or repartitioning the drive will not fix
> > this problem. Burn the contents onto CDROM or back it up to other media while
> > you can still read it. Better buy several spindles of blanks. At 700MB each
> > you'll need ~350 of them to backup that drive.
> >
> > 250GB drives have not been on the market all that long. Is this drive still
> > under warranty? Maybe Maxtor will replace it.
> >
> > For years now I have disdained putting the eggs all in one basket approach of
> > using these drives of unusual size. I know three or four 80GB drives will cost
> > more but you won't have the pain of loosing 250GB of data or the prospect of
> > burning hundreds of backup CDROMS.
>
>
> Hello,
>
> "Burning hundreds of backup CDROMS," makes no sense, in my opinion. Why
> use relatively-small CD's (650MB-700MB), at all, when DVD's (4.7GB) are
> readily available, today?

That reduces that to only dozens of DVD. Still doesn't make sense.

>
>
> Cordially,
> John Turco <jtur@concentric.net>

Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage (More info?)

ttl wrote:
>
> On 24 Jun 2004 05:50:03 EDT, John Turco <jtur@concentric.net> wrote:
> ~Hello,
> ~
> ~"Burning hundreds of backup CDROMS," makes no sense, in my opinion. Why
> ~use relatively-small CD's (650MB-700MB), at all, when DVD's (4.7GB) are
> ~readily available, today?
> ~
> This is an option if the user has a DVD-R, DVD+R.

Hello,

DVD-RAM is best, for computer data storage, actually.

>Recordable DVD has not
> penetrated the market as deeply as recordable CD.

True, but, DVD has become quite affordable, within the past year or so.

>Using recordable DVD reduces
> the number of discs to ~53. Still a lot of recording.

Agreed! Compression could lower that number, further; yet, not enough to
make it very practical, probably. (Too time-consuming, as well.)

> Best to burn to disk as the data volume grows. Entrusting the data to a disk
> drive is to invite loss of data.

Optical discs, themselves, have been known to be somewhat unreliable,
occasionally. A backup strategy, involving both DVD's and HDD's, would
appear to be the safest one.


Cordially,
John Turco <jtur@concentric.net>

Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage (More info?)

Folkert Rienstra wrote:
>
> "John Turco" <jtur@concentric.net> wrote in message news:40DAA431.6CEE02DD@concentric.net
> > ttl wrote:
> > >
> > > On Tue, 22 Jun 2004 17:25:17 -0400, MooGoo <dontspamme@nospam.com> wrote:
> > >
> > > ~
> > > ~I have a maxtor 250GB drive that has gotten a few bad blocks. I'm
> > > ~wondering if it is better to reformat it or get a replacement from maxtor.
> > > ~
> > > ~Does reformatting usually get rid bad blocks? For what it's worth, the
> > > ~drive has not developed any more new bad blocks since they were first
> > > ~discovered 3 weeks ago, and the drive is about 95% full. I'm guessing
> > > ~it won't develop new bad blocks. Any thoughts?
> > > ~
> > > ~
> > > In my experience once a drive starts getting bad blocks it will continue to get
> > > worse until you start getting them in the partition table or the part of the
> > > drive where the file system and directory are stored. At that point reading the
> > > drive becomes problematic. Formatting or repartitioning the drive will not fix
> > > this problem. Burn the contents onto CDROM or back it up to other media while
> > > you can still read it. Better buy several spindles of blanks. At 700MB each
> > > you'll need ~350 of them to backup that drive.
> > >
> > > 250GB drives have not been on the market all that long. Is this drive still
> > > under warranty? Maybe Maxtor will replace it.
> > >
> > > For years now I have disdained putting the eggs all in one basket approach of
> > > using these drives of unusual size. I know three or four 80GB drives will cost
> > > more but you won't have the pain of loosing 250GB of data or the prospect of
> > > burning hundreds of backup CDROMS.
> >
> >
> > Hello,
> >
> > "Burning hundreds of backup CDROMS," makes no sense, in my opinion. Why
> > use relatively-small CD's (650MB-700MB), at all, when DVD's (4.7GB) are
> > readily available, today?
>
> That reduces that to only dozens of DVD. Still doesn't make sense.
>
> >
> >
> > Cordially,
> > John Turco <jtur@concentric.net>


Hello, Folkert:

Good point! <g> Regardless, DVD is still a vast improvement over CD, in
backing-up smaller hard drives...would you not concur?


Cordially,
John Turco <jtur@concentric.net>