The device, \Device\Harddisk0\D, has a bad block.
I just noticed that my Event Viewer on my Windows box is filled with the following error notifications:
The device, \Device\Harddisk0\D, has a bad block.
Everything I know and that I have read about this message tells me that this is a very early sign of a dying drive. That machine has been consistently getting blue-screens lately, and the last 3 days in a row I found it frozen upon coming home. The Event Viewer logs usually trail till 5am on any given day it froze. This is around the time the scheduled virus scans and backup scripts kick in.
Good news is that this box has 2 drives, and the second one is relatively new. Also my data from the system drive is pretty consistently backed up to the secondary data drive. I just moved most of the important stuff over to the second drive, and I’m going to run low level check-disk and then ghost the Windows partition.
Then I will watch it carefully, save everything meaningful on the second drive, and let it run itself into the ground. Hopefully I can get a month or two out of this drive before it dies completely.
Did you ever get that error? Were you able to fix it? How long did it take from when you noticed it till your drive died? Let me know.
Related Posts:
March 6th, 2007 at 10:59 am (3224) [Quote]
I don’t think I ever moved Windows. I take the opportunity to reload and remove the “Window rot”. I guess you could always try to Ghost it . . .
Posted usingMarch 6th, 2007 at 11:21 am (3226) [Quote]
Yeah, I should probably wipe it clean and start over… I just don’t feel like reinstalling everything.
There was a time when reinstalling windows felt exciting - a new beginning, and all that shit. Now it just feels like work.
I think I’m gonna get one of those external USB drives. I saw dell selling 270 GB LaCie for $100 yesterday which seemed like a decent deal. Then I can back up both drives nightly (80G + 160G).
Posted usingMarch 6th, 2007 at 11:40 am (3227) [Quote]
I tend to fix errors with the “add system to cart” feature. Takes about 5-7 days to work, but has a very good success ratio.
Which reminds me, I was pondering picking up a refurbished system strickly for travel. Any Dell laptop models to stay away from in your opinion? (I’ve only ever had Inspirons)
Posted usingMarch 6th, 2007 at 12:01 pm (3228) [Quote]
“Add system to cart method” is awesome, but a bit expensive.
Dell’s are pretty much all the same. For travel I would go with the smallest most compact model. I think both their Inspiron and Latitude lines offer the compact versions.
If you can, get one of those with dual core CPU. It is always nice to have some parallel capabilities, and it does help performance.
Personally, I want to buy a MacBook cause my current laptop is ancient. Then, eventually I will need to start thinking about a new gaming PC at which point my current desktop will be probably reformatted and promoted to a Ubuntu server.
Posted usingMarch 6th, 2007 at 12:13 pm (3229) [Quote]
Dual Core CPU, check. I’m gonna try to keep it to the Inspiron and the XP platform to keep it as problem free as possible given it’s a travel ‘puter.
I hope you get your MacBook soon. I have yet to figure out the weird mac mouse so I now I’ll never go there. … It suddenly dawns on me that I’m so not one of your techy friends and wouldn’t even venture to use the word ‘ghost’ as a verb.
Posted usingMarch 6th, 2007 at 12:18 pm (3230) [Quote]
That’s okay . . . I use Google as a verb as well!
Posted usingMarch 6th, 2007 at 12:30 pm (3231) [Quote]
Yes, I forgot to say to stay away from Vista. From what I heard it is sluggish, and still buggy. XP will still be the dominant OS for the next 3 or 4 years. After that, Vista might start overtaking market share but XP will remain significant for many years to come.
Oh, and it’s just standard verbing of the nouns - you ghost the drive in the same way as you google the web, blog your thoughts, or email a file.
We’re talking about Norton Ghost - a backup software which kinda looks like this when it is running:
It essentially makes backup of the whole drive or partition so that you can restore it later.
Posted usingMarch 6th, 2007 at 1:11 pm (3234) [Quote]
and access - it used to be something you gained, now its something you do
Posted usingMarch 21st, 2007 at 6:02 pm (3389) [Quote]
hey..i have som problems with a bad block…can you take my e-mail address and add it into your msn ?….maby you can help me !,,,Please
Posted using