will a zero solve bad HD blocks?

E

Elliotjnewman

Registered
I have been having problems with my HD for a few months now and it seems to be getting worse. I have ran a few tests and the results are telling me that I have some bad blocks. I am thinking about zero - ing the drive and starting again, will this solve the problem of bad blocks or will I have to replace it?
 
Should solve the problem, the bad blocks won't be used after a reformat.
 
It of course also depends on why the drive _has_ bad blocks in the first place. Worst case: The drive is slowly dying and will have more and more bad blocks until one day, it'll just not work any longer. Best case: It'll just work as normal after reformatting it.
 
well I am prepared to get a new drive becuase I have a bad feeling about this one, its just a last ditch attempt at saving it really, and a bonus if all is well without having to replace it...
 
The good news is that hard drives are so relatively cheap these days, it's not as painful as it used to be. In fact, I now use a separate hard drive for each client (mostly video) so I never have to bring anything back from tape or disc archive (unless the hard drive goes bad).

I've got a small stack of questionable hard drives (like yours) that may or may not be bad, but I'm not taking any chances. I keep them around in case I need an emergency chunk of storage or something.
 
After erasing a drive or volume with the write zeros option you should not have any bad data blocks unless all of the spare data blocks on the drive have already been used. So if you erase with write zeros and still have bad blocks, run, don't walk to the nearest HD supplier.

Another excellent indication of drive health is to check the S.M.A.R.T. status for the drive. Open Disk Utility and select the drive, not the volume, then look at the lower right of the window. If the S.M.A.R.T. status is anything other than Verified you need a new drive -- quick. TechTool Pro will give you a report of 17 discreet S.M.A.R.T. values for each drive on your system.
 
Well its been quite hard to diagnose the problem. If you do a search on these forums you will come across various threads detailing the problems I have been having, at first I thought it was bad ram, as all my disk utility was saying my drive was fine. Then I tried the TechTool Pro and and it reported I had 2 bad blocks, which, correct me if Im wrong, can cause problems if those blocks are located where the disk needs to access important system files...

2 Bad blocks found
Surface Scan <Failed! (-4)>

So after seeing this I am preparing to buy a new drive, but first, as I said before I will try a zero and reinstall to see if this helps. I havent had the time to do this as its such a big job, hopefully I will perform it in the next couple of weeks, unfortunately I did not keep the installers to lots of my programs so I will have to sort this out in the meantime!
 
huh! just after that post I had to restart! I think its getting worse! I get this really harsh sounding scratch from the drive and crunches and then the spinning pizza wheel of death! which I have to then hold down the power button. Id say it happens now everytime I start the computer, after some time 1 or 2 hours it crunches and scratches and then the spinning wheel!

How hard is it to fit a new internal drive? Whats the best type of drive to go for? I have looked into scsi drives but I think I will stick to ata, less hassle, I do a bit of video work but not that often...

Kind of ironic, I run linux and win 2K at work and the windows box is more stable than my mac and my linux! although hopefully this will change soon :)
 
It does sound as if your drive is ready for paperweight status. Real soon now. Swapping the HD is not rocket science but the work involved is a direct function of what kind of Mac you have. Desktop G4s, 5s, and 3s are the easiest, PowerBooks and iBooks somwhat more difficult, with eMacs and iMacs being the most difficult because the drives are hard to get to. The procedure is pictured in the User Manual for your computer.

Go with ATA drives, cheaper, easier, and probably just as fast. Some people have their favorite brand of drive, but personally I don't think there is that much difference. If you have an older machine you are probably limited to a 128 GB volume size so keep that in mind.
 
ok thanks for the input perfessor101 I will keep that in mind. I own a mdd G4 desktop so hopefully this will be easy...

I have been looking at a few places online to get a new drive. IBM seem to have quite a variety...

As I said earlier I will see what a zero and re-install does and let you all know the outcome, but any input on where to go to buy a new drive would be great, bearing in mind I am in the UK.
 
There are several good reliable online dealers, but not all of them speak Macintosh. The first two places I always look are Smalldog Electronics and Other World Computing. Both speak fluent Macintosh, have excellent guarantees and return policies, and competitive prices. Whether they ship to the UK or not I don't know. Surely there are reliable dealers on your side of the pond that someone around here can recommend.
 
I forgot to say this but since you are installing on a MDD, the installation is a piece of cake. You have plenty of room to keep your original drive until it completely gives up the ghost, but if you do, put it on the ATA 66 bus and your new drive on the ATA 100 bus (the users manual will show you the difference and how t get to each of them) and set the jumpers for Cable Select which is the preferred setting for an MDD model rather than Master and/or Slave.
 
thankyou for the input perfessor101, I will keep all that info in mind.

I was thinking the other night, I have my hard drive set to always spin, never sleep (I hate the lag you get when it warms up to access something or open something)

Does this damage it?
 
I've have my main drive set to never sleep since OS X came out and haven't had any problems.

The routine maintenance runs in the early AM hours, but doesn't run if the drive is sleeping.
 
Elliotjnewman said:
I was thinking the other night, I have my hard drive set to always spin, never sleep (I hate the lag you get when it warms up to access something or open something)

Does this damage it?
Click to expand...
Gee I hope not, I usually set mine to never spin down because like you I hate the startup lag. An argument can be made that constantly running will shorten the lifespan of a drive, but it seems to me that in reality, I seldom have a drive long enough to be concerned over the MTBF (mean time between failure). So the only one I spin down is on my laptop and that is to save battery life not the drive.

It is not necessary to have the drives spinning for the cron tasks, scheduled backups, etc. to execute, just as long as the System is not sleeping. The system will spin up the drives when they are needed.
 
From your drive's perspective it is better for it to always be spinning because most of the strain and wear comes from bringing it up to speed after. Additionally there are some thermal strains involved if it is constantly heating up and the cooling down. Spinning the drive down is most important from an energy conservation standpoint.
 
As for drive brands, there is one that I'd stay away from, though it's from past performance and they may have fixed the problems. The IBM 75 gxp drives are/were bad, and since then I won't buy an IBM drive. I still run two of them and they haven't given me problems in about a year, but I have had to completely wipe both of them twice each. Luckily it was at seperate times so I was able to back up.
 
dave17lax thanks for the advice, there are quite a few IBMs on the market.

Interesting about the hard drive having less wear and tear if its constantly spinning, the only problem I have with it is the fans are always wizzing so its quite noisy.

I am preparing to backup all my data tonight so I will let you know the outcome.

E.
 
Ok, here is an update:

After spending a good amount of time backing up my data I inserted the OSX install cd and started up with it. I opened disk utility and erased the hard drive. I then restarted and chose under the options to zero all data. This process got about half way through and halted! and, again the spinning wheel poped up and I had to power down.

I will give it another go tonight and see what happens, but after this I think I will just go out and buy a new hard drive...
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top