padren Posted March 24, 2010 Posted March 24, 2010 I just bought a new Hard Drive, a Western Digital Caviar Green 500GB so I could install Win7 on it without messing up my XP install until I am fully migrated. When I try to install Win7, it tells me it can't on that drive because the drive has problems and might fail soon... then it lets me and gets most of the way - only to crash out due to a missing file or something like that. I'm trying to figure out whether I was just unlucky enough to get a dud drive, or if something else is out of whack and causing the drive not to behave properly. I downloaded a SMART HD app and it generated this report: DiskCheckup Version: DiskCheckup V2.1 Build: 1004 SmartDisk DLL Version: SmartDisk DLL SDK v1.0 Build: 1017 Time of export: 21:51:37 23-Mar-2010 Device ID: 1 Device Capacity: 476937 MB Serial Number: WD-WCAV92805748 Model Number: WDC WD5000AAVS-00N7B0 SMART ATTRIBUTES: ID Description Raw Value Status Value Worst Threshold TEC --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 Raw Read Error Rate 2947 FAIL 42 1 51 N.A. 3 Spin Up Time 3700ms OK 146 145 21 N.A. 4 Start/Stop Count 47 OK 100 100 0 N.A. 5 Reallocated Sector Count 717 FAIL 110 110 140 N.A. 7 Seek Error Rate 0 OK 200 200 0 N.A. 9 Power On Time 7 OK 100 100 0 N.A. A Spin Retry Count 0 OK 100 253 0 N.A. B Calibration Retry Count 0 OK 100 253 0 N.A. C Power Cycle Count 45 OK 100 100 0 N.A. C0 Power off Retract Count 43 OK 200 200 0 N.A. C1 Load/Unload Cycle Count 73 OK 200 200 0 N.A. C2 Temperature 36 C OK 107 105 0 N.A. C4 Reallocation Event Count 311 OK 1 1 0 N.A. C5 Current Pending Sector Count 541 OK 194 186 0 N.A. C6 Uncorrectable Sector Count 0 OK 100 253 0 N.A. C7 UltraDMA CRC Error Count 0 OK 200 200 0 N.A. C8 Write Error Count 0 OK 100 253 0 N.A. Those two FAIL statements give me the impression it's a bad disk, but I honestly have no idea how to read these things and read some other people posting freaked out SMART results only to get back "oh it's fine don't worry" anyway. I just bought it today so I figure the odds of getting a bad disk out of the box are pretty low - hence I want to be sure. Any suggestions? I've tried 4 times and I still can't install Win7.
Pangloss Posted March 24, 2010 Posted March 24, 2010 Bad drives do happen sometimes, and it does sound like a bad drive scenario. I'm not familiar with that program, but one suggestion I could make is to boot off the Windows XP drive and go all the way to the desktop, then see if the new (blank) drive appears with a drive letter in Windows Explorer. If it does, see if you can reformat it, and be sure and UNCHECK the box for quick format. That will ensure that it attempts to format each sector, which will throw a bunch of errors if the disk is bad. If all goes well, you might want to consider writing a bunch of data to it, possibly even filling it up completely, just to see what happens. Listen for re-writes (write... pause... click... write... pause... click...). Watch for extended copy times. Stuff like that. There's also a built-in drive checker in Windows, and I'm pretty sure it was there in XP. Right-click on the drive in Windows Explorer and get Properties on it, then go to the Tools tab and look for the Error Checking tool. If none of that stuff produces an error then I'm not sure what the problem is but at least you'd know it's not a bad drive.
StringJunky Posted March 24, 2010 Posted March 24, 2010 Here's the Western Digital Diagnostic software link: http://www.hddoctor.net/hard-drive-diagnostic-softwarewestern-digital-data-lifeguard-diagnostics/
padren Posted March 24, 2010 Author Posted March 24, 2010 Here's the Western Digital Diagnostic software link: http://www.hddoctor.net/hard-drive-diagnostic-softwarewestern-digital-data-lifeguard-diagnostics/ Thanks for the link - I ran the program and it cut itself short because it had already encountered too many bad sectors... so it seems the drive is bad. Hopefully I can replace it and get back on track
StringJunky Posted March 24, 2010 Posted March 24, 2010 Glad you diagnosed it quickly. I faffed about with a new one with similar symptoms and I got an error code that indicated mechanical shock..probably been dropped or banged somewhere. FYI in future it's always best to get the specific diagnostic tool for that make of HD..they all produce one. It's funny, but I've just been warned against the WD Green HD because I was told they were rubbish...problems! If you can, ask if you can spend a bit more and exchange for a WD Blue which was highly recommended by a couple of geeks for reliability...I'm sure they'll do it for you. I think you only get what you pay for.
padren Posted March 30, 2010 Author Posted March 30, 2010 Btw, just as a followup - I went with a 320Gb Caviar Blue, instead of green and it works perfectly. Thanks for the help both of you, I really thought the odds were low I'd pick up a defective brand new drive, so I could have been looking in the wrong places for a while.
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