Bad Clusters

[Rob290482]

Once again my PC is fucking me about, could be my own fault though trying to overclock it too much.

My problem is my hard drive has recently became quite a bit louder than it originally was (Seagate Baracudda 80Gb SATA) It use to be almost silent, but now i can hear it churning away when it is in use (doesnt sound like grinding or anything unusual, just louder)

However, i set my PC to do a disk Check on restart. it found loads of 'bad clusters' in this SATA drive and none in my other drives (2 PATA drives (120, 160GB)) also after or before finding these bad clusters it found loads of currupted files that it fixed.

does this mean my hard drive if dying on me? i have just had to get a new PSU as my olds one was only giving about 9-9.5v on the +12v rail (tested via a digital multimeter) the new one gives a constant 12.12 regardless of what i do :thumbs

If the drive is dying what SATA drive it the best to go for. I need either an 80G or about 200G depending on if i decide to get rid of my PATA drives and just use SATA

Cant afford a Raptor though at the moment would or are Seagate drives any good? had a few bad ones in the past, but they seem decent for the price

Also i heard that i could have too much RAM. can you ever have too much RAM. i have got 3 x 512mb Crucial DDR PC3200 (400mhz) running in Dual Channel

Thanks again for any help

Rob

[neo2810]

I'll try answer all your questions:

First of all, bad clusters corrected in Chkdsk don't mean your HDD is dying, it's probably just windows not deleting things properly (leaving bits of unassociated files which take up a full cluster thereby wasting it), BUT saying that, it COULD also indicate a bad drive write, which may indeed be the drive slowly failing. The drive running louder than it was is cause for concern though, and if you can afford it, I would buy a new drive now and transfer anything of importance over to it. Bin the old drive (or flamethrower it if you have sensitive files )

As for a new drive, go for 200Gb, the price diff between that and 80Gb does not warrent going lower. I always buy Maxtor... Never had any die on me, always run quiet and quick. I would swear by them. As a second choice, I would say Seagate probably have the edge (but obviously you aren't in agreement )...

Memory, you can never have too much as long as you stay within the boundries of your mobo capability. Check how much your motherboard can handle, run it's model number on Crucial's website to get all the compatible chips available, and then load it up :thumbs

Hope this helps...u Kan Always Raise My Appearance

[BertRoot]

Had a seagate fail in the past fortnight and their customer service is good and don't forget you have a five year warranty on the beasts. Go and check the serial number on the seagate site to see if you can get a free one back. Will save you buying a new one. I sent my drive to them last Wednesday and they posted my replacement back on Monday morning which in my eyes is pretty good service. Not received it by this morning but it is coming from Holland.

I have had a lot more issues with Maxtor than Seagate. Had two of each and all the maxtors failed quicker than my current seagates. Maxtor will send you a drive to copy your stuff onto in the result of a drive nearing failure which is nice whereas seagate only offer this service in the states.

I wasn't aware that dual channel worked if you had three sticks of RAM but am open to suggestion.

[neo2810]

I wasn't aware that dual channel worked if you had three sticks of RAM but am open to suggestion.

It doesn't... It only works on 2 or 4 chips and they have to be paired in slots 1-3 or 2-4 if you have 2... Although Rob THINKS he's running Dual Channel, if he checks the BIOS he'll see he's not. :whistle

Rob, I suggest you remove 1 of the chips, and pop the other 2 in slots 1-3 (or whatever your manual tells you for Dual Chan) and you'll find a memory boost despite the lower total. You'll be utilising the full BUS speeds and should get a performance improvement of about 25%... Here's a test someone did recently:

I opened an old assembly file(156mg) from my archive. This assembly(never used) has quite a few components(575/275 unique) and quite a few in-context relationships(I always break these when I'm finished).


Results: "save"


Dual Channel 2 x 512 = 2 min 45 sec
Single Channel 3 x 512 = 3 min 5 sec

Interesting, isn't it. Also, in Dual Channel Mode, the computer boots about 10 seconds faster and surfs the web much faster.

[Rob290482]

thanks for all that info.

Firstly 'bertroot' doesnt Seagate send out a 'factory repaired' drive to you. i am sure on the site it says this. anyway oif my drive is broken, then a factory repaired unit is better than a broken unit

Secondly thanks 'neo2810' for telling me about the dual channel info. my boot screen says running in dual channel mode, but as you said it probably isnt as i have noticed better speeds with only 2 modules in rather than the 3. also 2 of my modules arer very similar in appearance (identical in make and speed etc...) but the other has dimms on both sides. are any better for dual mode or will i be best at sticking with the 2 that look similar (all 3 are the same in speed and size etc..)

finally is there any tools i can use to check if my drive is broken or breaking?

Thanks again