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HDD 'died' cyclic redundancy error

M

msg

Jan 1, 1970
0
Eeyore said:
Yes. If only a modern OS would let you do that !

Indeed (notably 'modern' OSes from large multinationals). However, I
do have some pretty useful low-level scsi tools on Unix (SVR4, BSD)
but I cannot down systems to shuffle bus assignments for drive
testing so I appreciate the usefulness of the old Norton tool
and with scsi, one is not hampered by BIOS geometry restrictions
and translations and the tool will work with any drive size
permissible within the standards.

With Diskedit, one can search for a string across the entire drive;
many times this has permitted me to locate and edit a Unix password
file at the sector level, to gain access to and recover a system
lost to its administrator.

Regards,

Michael
 
J

James Sweet

Jan 1, 1970
0
Eeyore said:
Made by whom ?

Graham

Well you can get a Seagate 300 GB for $89.90 shipped from a couple places
listed on pricewatch, but that's not really relevant here anyway since the
data is the item of discussion, not the failed drive it currently resides
on.
 
E

Eeyore

Jan 1, 1970
0
msg said:
Indeed (notably 'modern' OSes from large multinationals). However, I
do have some pretty useful low-level scsi tools on Unix (SVR4, BSD)
but I cannot down systems to shuffle bus assignments for drive
testing so I appreciate the usefulness of the old Norton tool
and with scsi, one is not hampered by BIOS geometry restrictions
and translations and the tool will work with any drive size
permissible within the standards.

With Diskedit, one can search for a string across the entire drive;
many times this has permitted me to locate and edit a Unix password
file at the sector level, to gain access to and recover a system
lost to its administrator.

***HOT*** !

Graham
 
S

Spurious Response

Jan 1, 1970
0
Yes. And that is a good or bad thing in exactly what way ?

Keyed more toward installing. Knoppix is keyed heavily toward good auto
detect routines for hardware, and a great driver compliment. So it
nearly always gets you into the gui, and if the drive lives, you'll see
it. Burn a disc or two of it's contents and make a doorstop out of it.
 
E

Eeyore

Jan 1, 1970
0
Spurious said:
Western Digital, Seagate, Maxtor...

All of which are brands history has noted for premature failure.

There's only one brand of HDD I learned to trust and that was Quantum.

Graham
 
M

Morse

Jan 1, 1970
0
Eeyore said:
I'm keen to explore Linux but my results to date haven't been very
promising. It seems to me that the much-touted 'live' CDs require a fairly
modern PC to run.

Don't give up, Linux is very rewarding and worth the effort! I run Kubuntu
on a PIII 500MHz desktop with 384MB RAM and it gives me no problems. I also
have Linux on a Duron 1300MHz desktop with 384MB RAM, an HP Omnibook 6100
laptop (PIII 1GHz, 384MB RAM) and a Duron 1600 with 1GB RAM I use as a
server. None are what I'd describe as fairly modern!


I've successfully run other distros on old hardware as well. The only
problems I've encountered have been graphics related, i.e. the card or
monitor being incorrectly identified resulting in a sync output
incompatible with the monitor and a blank screen, or issues with
PCI/interrupt routing. Both have been very easily fixed though- one thing
Linux doesn't lack is documentation, FAQs and howtos!

However, while Linux generally runs on just about anything, (sometimes with
a bit of tweaking), like just about all modern OSes it does like a lot of
RAM. You can just about get away with running X on 128MB but I wouldn't
recommend less than 256MB. Laptops can be tricky (wireless LAN etc) but
still not too much bother if you can find open source drivers for some of
the 'funny' hardware they often have.

Morse
 
M

Michael A. Terrell

Jan 1, 1970
0
Eeyore said:
Never seen this before.

A HDD of mine (IBM Deskstar 20GB IC35L020AVER07-0) 'died' when I restarted
Windows (XP btw FWIW). Windows shut down OK seemingly but wouldn't restart.


They aren't called "Deathstars" just to be cute.


--
Service to my country? Been there, Done that, and I've got my DD214 to
prove it.
Member of DAV #85.

Michael A. Terrell
Central Florida
 
C

clifto

Jan 1, 1970
0
Eeyore said:
All of which are brands history has noted for premature failure.

There's only one brand of HDD I learned to trust and that was Quantum.

Never tried one after their eighties problems with severe sticktion.
Loved their fix, too; make the motors pull harder to break the heads
loose.
 
M

Michael A. Terrell

Jan 1, 1970
0
CJT said:
Heck, they aren't even called "IBM" any more.


Well, even IBM had SOME standards. They ran their hard drive
division into the toilet, then liquidated what was left, to another
company. :(


--
Service to my country? Been there, Done that, and I've got my DD214 to
prove it.
Member of DAV #85.

Michael A. Terrell
Central Florida
 
F

Franc Zabkar

Jan 1, 1970
0
Never seen this before.

A HDD of mine (IBM Deskstar 20GB IC35L020AVER07-0) 'died' when I restarted
Windows (XP btw FWIW). Windows shut down OK seemingly but wouldn't restart.

It totally 'locked up' the PC with no error message. Never seen anything quite
like that before so it took me a little while to pinpoint it. The BIOS found the
drive OK btw.

Anyway, I got things sorted and then re-attached it as a secondary drive.

Trying to look at it, Windows Explorer 'froze' for a bit but it did load a drive
icon eventually. However Windows Explorer was of no further help.

I then used XP's command.com and got the cryptic message 'cyclic redundancy
error'.

I don't use Windows XP, but I know that its command interpreter is
actually cmd.exe.

As for the CRC error, I don't understand why invoking a file on the
[good?] master drive would be a problem, unless the slave was hanging
up the IDE channel. To eliminate this possibility, I'd move the
Deskstar to the secondary IDE channel, on its own, configured as
master.
Any ideas what's up ? Is the drive destined for silicon hell or is it
recoverable ? I'm wondering if the system area's data's been trashed for
example.

Graham

AIUI, when a 512 byte sector is written to a HD, the HD's controller
calculates a CRC for that sector and writes it to the HD. When the
data is retrieved from the HD, the controller recomputes a new CRC and
checks to see that it matches the one that was recorded with the
original data.

I'd use the manufacturer's diagnostic utility to do a sector by sector
scan of the HD.

IBM/Hitachi Drive Fitness Test:
http://www.hgst.com/hdd/support/download.htm

Or you could try Scandisk with a thorough surface scan.

- Franc Zabkar
 
M

Michael A. Terrell

Jan 1, 1970
0
Eeyore said:
Nah. It's well beyond that period.


So, its 'bloody' junk?


--
Service to my country? Been there, Done that, and I've got my DD214 to
prove it.
Member of DAV #85.

Michael A. Terrell
Central Florida
 
S

Spurious Response

Jan 1, 1970
0
All of which are brands history has noted for premature failure.
Could you make any more of a nebulous remark? For one thing all drives
eventually fail. "Premature failure" is about as off the wall as it
gets.
There's only one brand of HDD I learned to trust and that was Quantum.

Which has just as poor a record.

You need to look at the numbers. Seagate has made millions of drives.
Quantum? Not nearly so many. So seagate could have ten times more
drives fail in a given period and still have the same record as quantum
with their single failure for each ten.
 
S

Spurious Response

Jan 1, 1970
0
Heck, they aren't even called "IBM" any more.


All IBM drives are STILL called IBM drives.

ALL NEW drives made in said IBM facilities are now called Hitachi
drives, since Hitachi bought IBM's HD manufacturing arm and related
technologies.
 
C

Clint Sharp

Jan 1, 1970
0
Eeyore said:
I've never previously 'lost' or needed to 're-install' an installation of
Windows you see. Short of total mechanical/electrical failure I'd like to
maintain that record.
Get a copy of Spinrite. It works for errors like the one you have. There
are other tools which are for filesystem corruption and lost
files/partitions but it sounds like you have something a little 'lower
level' than that.
 
C

Clint Sharp

Jan 1, 1970
0
Franc Zabkar said:
I don't use Windows XP, but I know that its command interpreter is
actually cmd.exe.
Umm, actually, XP has command.com as well.
 
S

Spurious Response

Jan 1, 1970
0
Well, even IBM had SOME standards. They ran their hard drive
division into the toilet,

Bullshit. Maybe from a sales POV. IBM is (was) at the pinnacle of HD
storage technology. They were the leaders which WD and Seagate followed.
IBM was the leader in MR Head technology, and had the record for lineal
density on horizontal method MR technology. They also have their own
perpendicular recording mode work that was top notch. Do you really
think Hitachi would have wanted to buy a dog?
then liquidated what was left, to another
company. :(

Nice try. Do you even know how much they got for it?
 
M

Michael Kennedy

Jan 1, 1970
0
Clint Sharp said:
Umm, actually, XP has command.com as well.

Oddly cmd.exe and command.com behave slightly differently under xp, but they
both do the same thing.
 
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