DFW Computer Integration

Repairing Your Failing Hard Drive

This is actually not possible.  But for the sake of discussion…

This topic comes up from time to time and I think I may have even written about it years ago in another blog, but that blog is history, since I sold The Computer Wizard in Plano, TX.  The blog went the way of the dodo when the business was transferred in 2010. I recently had this topic come up in conversation where a client decided to repair a failing hard drive to avoid replacing the computer. This is ALWAYS a bad idea.  Any drive with bad sectors will create more bad sectors. Always.  There are utilities that will lock out bad sectors. This is only a band aid. More bad sectors will be created by a failing drive and you WILL LOSE DATA.

These symptoms can be signs of a failing hard drive:

• Your computer is starting to run a little slower.
• The spinning circle of confusion is spinning for a lot longer than it used to. (the blue circle in Windows that lets you know something is going on, but not what you intended)
• Your computer frequently becomes unresponsive.
• Applications may fail to load.
• Music may stop or “stutter” while playing.
• The same with videos.
• Your computer may not want to wake up from sleep mode or the screensaver.

All of these are possible signs of a failing hard drive.  Other things can cause this as well, but a bad hard drive is the classic symptom.

How do you find out?

1. Open up your SMC (System Management Console). (Right-click on Computer and select Manage)
2. In the subsequent list select Event Viewer – expand it. **
3. Select Windows Logs
4. Select System and wait for the data to load.
5. The log display can be sorted.  You will see several columns of information.
6. The log is arranged in columns:  Level / Date and Time / Source / Event ID, etc.
7. Click on the column header for Source – this sorts the results by the source of the event. Wait for the list to re-sort itself.  This can take as much as a full minute.
8. Scroll down to the section starting with “D“
9. You are looking for any entries for Disk.  If there are any warnings or errors (Red or Yellow icons) you have a failing hard drive.
10. Scroll down to the “N” section.
11. You are looking for the Ntfs listings.  Any yellow or red icons indicate the file system itself has errors.
12. This is a sign of a drive with bad blocks or sectors.  This means you are in danger of losing data stored in these areas.

There are utilities that purport to “repair” hard drives.  What they do is analyze the drive for bad blocks and exclude those blocks so you cannot write or read data in them.  In theory, this lets you use your computer without data loss.  This is a fallacy.  Once a drive begins to accumulate bad blocks, it will continue to do so.  Controller errors are fatal as well.  This means the hardware that spins the platters and operates the heads inside your hard drive is behaving erratically. I do not recommend the DIY approach to hard drive repair.  It simply does not work.  Never attempt to repair a failing hard drive.  All this does is give you a false sense of security.  Once a drive starts to fail, it WILL GET WORSE.  Just running the analysis scan and “repair” function puts undue stress on the drive.  As soon as you detect drive failure, transfer all data off the failing drive IMMEDIATELY. It is very simply NOT POSSIBLE to repair a bad hard drive.  you can tell it to stop using the bad blocks, but all that does is delay the inevitable.  Bad blocks indicate a defect in the platter.  It’s as simple as that.  Where there is one bad block, there will be more.  The problem will get progressively worse over time. This is your opportunity for a hard drive upgrade.  It’s a good time to make the investment in an SSD – or just a faster conventional drive. I recommend Samsung or Hynix SSD drives and Western Digital Black conventional drives.  These are all I use personally and what we have recommended to our clients. **  In the unlikely situation that your Event Viewer won’t load, here’s how to resolve that problem. Reboot in Safe Mode Click Start > type Command in the search box, right click on Command Prompt and click on Run as administrator. After the Command Prompt window opens, type the following commands and press enter after each one: net stop winmgmt [ENTER] You will be prompted to Press Y to stop the WMI Instrumentation service.  Do so. cd C:\Windows\System32\LogFiles\WMI [ENTER] rename RtBackup RtBackup2 [ENTER] exit [ENTER] Reboot the computer and see if Event Viewer opens properly.