PDA

View Full Version : Bad clusters


JY24
09-10-2004, 08:29 AM
I was looking for a txt file I wrote up a long time ago, so I loaded up Find Files (Win98SE btw) and did a search on the entire harddrive for some text I remembered from it.

Took a while, but it finally found it. No problem. I promptly rebooted since it was that time of the month. :D

Boot process sticks halfway into it, and i'm getting the message "This disk drive may have developed bad clusters, press any key to run scandisk..." or something along those lines. First of all i'm thinking, how the heck does it know there are bad sectors without scanning it first? /shrug
I run it, and it takes about 8 hours to complete. Halfway through, it finds 2 bad clusters.

From looking around, most places say bad sectors 'develop' on a drive either do to power spikes or a failing drive. Since I run a 2 hour back-up UPS and it has been years since the power went out that long, that can't be the issue. I downloaded the drive diagnostic for my HD and ran it, but it found no problems.

Anyone else know what could cause these clusters to just spontaneously go bad? Any outside means other than physical damage? Only thing i've been able to find is an issue with fast Win98 and IDE harddrives shutdowns from windowsupdate, but I already have that patch installed for that..

TLS2000
09-10-2004, 10:21 AM
The drive could be failing. Diagnostic tools don't always find problems, even if problems do exist. S.M.A.R.T. is not perfect

My advice: As soon as you find bad clusters on your hard drive, make sure you have a backup of your files, and replace it.

Unrelated: What's the VA on that UPS? I'm running at 750VA and I only get about 12 minutes until I have to shut down the system.