Missing some files

Shinova · Post by **Shinova** » 2006-11-10 04:45pm

All of a sudden one of my directories on one of my hard drives is inaccessible. The remaining disk space on that drive is the same, and I can still see the directory but I just can't access it.

I'm about to do a defrag on that drive, but before I do that are there any other things I should do first?

rhoenix · Post by **rhoenix** » 2006-11-10 05:08pm

My suggestion would be to perform a disk scan / Scandisk first, before the defrag. You may have a few too many bad sectors. How old is the drive?

Shinova · Post by **Shinova** » 2006-11-10 05:10pm

rhoenix wrote:My suggestion would be to perform a disk scan / Scandisk first, before the defrag. You may have a few too many bad sectors. How old is the drive?

The drive is about 2.5 years old.

You suggested scandisk, and I was thinking the same thing a few minutes ago and I did that..... and it said it was unable to complete the scan.

I hope it's not something really bad.

PS: It's a 120 GB, and I think it's a Maxtor. It's got NTFS, and I use XP pro.

rhoenix · Post by **rhoenix** » 2006-11-10 05:23pm

Shinova wrote:The drive is about 2.5 years old.

You suggested scandisk, and I was thinking the same thing a few minutes ago and I did that..... and it said it was unable to complete the scan.

I hope it's not something really bad.

PS: It's a 120 GB, and I think it's a Maxtor. It's got NTFS, and I use XP pro.

Hmm...at this point, I would suggest rebooting, and then immediately starting the full surface scandisk. If it asks you to schedule it the next time your computer starts up, say yes, and then reboot again. See if this helps.

Shinova · Post by **Shinova** » 2006-11-10 05:33pm

That first time I did scandisk, it was a basic scan and it couldn't finish it.

But then I tried a basic scan again but marked automatically fix errors and yay!! The files are back!!

But just to be safe, I'm going to do a full check, and see what comes up.

rhoenix · Post by **rhoenix** » 2006-11-10 05:36pm

Shinova wrote:That first time I did scandisk, it was a basic scan and it couldn't finish it.

But then I tried a basic scan again but marked automatically fix errors and yay!! The files are back!!

But just to be safe, I'm going to do a full check, and see what comes up.

Good idea - in general, hard disks have extra "sectors," and when one is marked bad by scandisk, the hard drive quietly uses a spare. However, a hard drive only has so many "spare sectors," and when you begin seeing bad sectors appear on a scan, it's generally time for a new hard drive, and quickly.

Shinova · Post by **Shinova** » 2006-11-10 10:55pm

I'm going to get a 300 GB one next monday. Any brand recommendations?

The one I'm aiming for is 70$ with coupon and is a Maxtor. Is Maxtor a good brand?

rhoenix · Post by **rhoenix** » 2006-11-11 01:42pm

I'd actually like to disagree, though only based on personal and anecdotal evidence. Every single Maxtor drive I've bought failed after about 2.5 years, whereas the Western Digital or Seagate drives all lasted at least 4 years with the same use. Your experience may vary of course, but I mostly stick with the above.

Enigma · Post by **Enigma** » 2006-11-11 02:30pm

rhoenix wrote:I'd actually like to disagree, though only based on personal and anecdotal evidence. Every single Maxtor drive I've bought failed after about 2.5 years, whereas the Western Digital or Seagate drives all lasted at least 4 years with the same use. Your experience may vary of course, but I mostly stick with the above.

Actually, I've had great experiences with Maxtor. Our first computer back in '96 had a Maxtor HD and it lasted about 5 or 6 years before dying. A year or two before it's death, we installed another Maxtor HD and currently still works after 6 to 7 years.

Einhander Sn0m4n · Post by **Einhander Sn0m4n** » 2006-11-11 02:56pm

Enigma wrote:
rhoenix wrote:I'd actually like to disagree, though only based on personal and anecdotal evidence. Every single Maxtor drive I've bought failed after about 2.5 years, whereas the Western Digital or Seagate drives all lasted at least 4 years with the same use. Your experience may vary of course, but I mostly stick with the above.

Actually, I've had great experiences with Maxtor. Our first computer back in '96 had a Maxtor HD and it lasted about 5 or 6 years before dying. A year or two before it's death, we installed another Maxtor HD and currently still works after 6 to 7 years.

I've had the same experience with Maxtors and horrible ones with WD drives, especially around '00 to '04.

Uraniun235 · Post by **Uraniun235** » 2006-11-11 04:39pm

rhoenix wrote:I'd actually like to disagree, though only based on personal and anecdotal evidence.

rhoenix · Post by **rhoenix** » 2006-11-11 07:39pm

Uraniun235 wrote:

I specified that it was personal experience speaking, and I also granted that others' experience may vary.

EDIT: Fixed quote tags.

Uraniun235 · Post by **Uraniun235** » 2006-11-11 07:52pm

rhoenix wrote:
Uraniun235 wrote:
I specified that it was personal experience speaking, and I also granted that others' experience may vary.

EDIT: Fixed quote tags.

Destructionator XIII wrote:All the big names are good brands. Failure rate is about the same across the board.

rhoenix wrote:I'd actually like to disagree

Your disagreement was on retarded grounds.

rhoenix · Post by **rhoenix** » 2006-11-11 07:56pm

Uraniun235 wrote:Your disagreement was on retarded grounds.

Very well. Point conceded.

Post by **Beowulf** » 2006-11-11 07:58pm

rhoenix wrote:I'd actually like to disagree, though only based on personal and anecdotal evidence. Every single Maxtor drive I've bought failed after about 2.5 years, whereas the Western Digital or Seagate drives all lasted at least 4 years with the same use. Your experience may vary of course, but I mostly stick with the above.

If you're going to be disagreeing based off anecdotal evidence, my friend's lost 5 Western Digital drives since he moved to a RAID array. That was at the beginning of this year. He's spent more time with the computer off in case another drive fails while his array is degraded than with it on.

rhoenix · Post by **rhoenix** » 2006-11-11 08:07pm

Beowulf wrote:
rhoenix wrote:I'd actually like to disagree, though only based on personal and anecdotal evidence. Every single Maxtor drive I've bought failed after about 2.5 years, whereas the Western Digital or Seagate drives all lasted at least 4 years with the same use. Your experience may vary of course, but I mostly stick with the above.
If you're going to be disagreeing based off anecdotal evidence, my friend's lost 5 Western Digital drives since he moved to a RAID array. That was at the beginning of this year. He's spent more time with the computer off in case another drive fails while his array is degraded than with it on.

I do understand your point, and I did concede that anecdotal evidence is highly subjective, particularly in this case. However, I am curious - what type of RAID array is/was your friend running? RAID 5?

EDIT: clarified question.

Post by **Beowulf** » 2006-11-11 08:09pm

RAID 10

rhoenix · Post by **rhoenix** » 2006-11-11 08:11pm

Beowulf wrote:RAID 10

Aha - if you wouldn't mind another question, how long did the RAID array run before one of the drives burned out?

Shinova · Post by **Shinova** » 2006-11-13 04:18pm

Okay, another of my folders disappeared. It's not as important as the first one that disappeared, but I would prefer to have it back.

I ran the scandisk thing again, a full scan, and it finished but the folder's not back. I'm gonna try some recovery tool, but is there one that you guys would recommend?

PS: I got a 400GB Seagate next to me, but I wanna try to get that folder back before I do all the formatting and copying stuff.