Bad clusters on one partition

Rod Speed wrote:

SgtMinor wrote

02befree wrote


I have a 200GB WD that is divided into 5 partitions. One of them
has 4kb in bad clusters according to CHKDSK. Is it worth trying to
run SpinRite or HDD Regenerator to fix this? Does that mean the
other partitions are OK?..... A little advice here would be
appreciated. The WD Diag utitlily gave it a SMART fail in the Raw
Read Write category.


It is ALWAYS worth running Spinrite.


Nope.

Wrong. The OP asked about using it which implied he had a copy.
In that case it's ALWAYS worth using as it does no harm.



The "bad clusters" may not be bad at all, but merely no longer directly in the path of the r/w
heads.


Not even possible with servo drives.

You don't know what you're talking about.



Spinrite will fix that.


Nope.

I speak from experience.



That's why you paid the big money for the program.


Nope, he got scammed. So did you.

Having recovered data from several bad disks, and having removed
so-called "bad sectors" from others, I don't feel scammed in the
least. I have owned and used various versions of SpinRite for
over 15 years and I don't know of anything that can revive hard
drives the way it can.

In comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage SgtMinor wrote:
Arno Wagner wrote:
In comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage SgtMinor wrote:

02befree wrote:


I have a 200GB WD that is divided into 5 partitions. One of them has 4kb in
bad clusters according to CHKDSK. Is it worth trying to run SpinRite or HDD
Regenerator to fix this? Does that mean the other partitions are OK?.....
A little advice here would be appreciated. The WD Diag utitlily gave it a
SMART fail in the Raw Read Write category.




It is ALWAYS worth running Spinrite. The "bad clusters" may not
be bad at all, but merely no longer directly in the path of the
r/w heads. Spinrite will fix that. That's why you paid the big
money for the program.


With todays ECC on disks, SpinRite is essentially worthless.
It was different a long time ago.

Arno


If your lost data is worthless you should not worry about
retrieving it.

My data is not worthless, but what SpinRite does is. I can run a
long SMART self-test with much the same result, but without the
cost.

Arno

In comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage SgtMinor wrote:
Rod Speed wrote:

SgtMinor wrote

02befree wrote


I have a 200GB WD that is divided into 5 partitions. One of them
has 4kb in bad clusters according to CHKDSK. Is it worth trying to
run SpinRite or HDD Regenerator to fix this? Does that mean the
other partitions are OK?..... A little advice here would be
appreciated. The WD Diag utitlily gave it a SMART fail in the Raw
Read Write category.


It is ALWAYS worth running Spinrite.


Nope.

Wrong. The OP asked about using it which implied he had a copy.
In that case it's ALWAYS worth using as it does no harm.

Depends. It causes disk-load. And it costs time. It may also
give false hope....

Arno

SgtMinor wrote:



The "bad clusters" may not be bad at all, but merely no longer directly
in the path of the r/w heads.


Not even possible with servo drives.

You don't know what you're talking about.




Can you explain what you mean about not being in the path of the r/w heads?

"SgtMinor" wrote in message
Arno Wagner wrote:
In comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage SgtMinor wrote:
02befree wrote:

I have a 200GB WD that is divided into 5 partitions. One of them has 4kb in
bad clusters according to CHKDSK. Is it worth trying to run SpinRite or HDD
Regenerator to fix this? Does that mean the other partitions are OK?.....
A little advice here would be appreciated. The WD Diag utitlily gave it a
SMART fail in the Raw Read Write category.


It is ALWAYS worth running Spinrite.
The "bad clusters" may not be bad at all,

but merely no longer directly in the path of the r/w heads.

Rotflol.
That is a rather colourful way of saying that the OS won't use them anymore.

Spinrite will fix that.

No it won't. (it may fix the filesystem though).

That's why you paid the big money for the program.

Utterly clueless.



With todays ECC on disks,

Too bad it hasn't got anything to do with ECC, babblebot.

SpinRite is essentially worthless.

No it's not, although the previous version was rather useless on SCSI.

It was different a long time ago.

When it had a different function.


Arno


If your lost data is worthless you should not worry about retrieving it.

"SgtMinor" wrote in message
Rod Speed wrote:
SgtMinor wrote
02befree wrote

I have a 200GB WD that is divided into 5 partitions. One of them
has 4kb in bad clusters according to CHKDSK. Is it worth trying to
run SpinRite or HDD Regenerator to fix this? Does that mean the
other partitions are OK? A little advice here would be appreciated.
The WD Diag utitlily gave it a SMART fail in the Raw Read Write
category.

It is ALWAYS worth running Spinrite.

Nope.

Wrong. The OP asked about using it which implied he had a copy.
In that case it's ALWAYS worth using as it does no harm.

Nonsense, you should never use it on a drive that has only hours to live.
You will kill it almost instantly.



The "bad clusters" may not be bad at all, but merely no longer directly in the path of the r/w
heads.


Not even possible with servo drives.

You don't know what you're talking about.

Sure, but you do, right.



Spinrite will fix that.

Nope.

I speak from experience.

Bwahaha.



That's why you paid the big money for the program.


Nope, he got scammed. So did you.

Having recovered data from several bad disks, and having removed
so-called "bad sectors" from others, I don't feel scammed in the least.
I have owned and used various versions of SpinRite for over 15 years

and I don't know of anything that can revive hard drives the way it can.

There actually is another obscure program that claims to do the same, the
one mentioned above.

craigm wrote:
SgtMinor wrote:



The "bad clusters" may not be bad at all, but merely no longer directly
in the path of the r/w heads.


Not even possible with servo drives.

You don't know what you're talking about.



Can you explain what you mean about not being in the path of the r/w heads?

Steve Gibson, the creator of Spinrite, explains that over time the
heads can drift from the position they had when the data was first
written to the sector. As a result the now mis-aligned heads can
no longer access that data and thus the sector may be marked as
"bad." The DynaStat component of SpinRite jolts the heads across
the platter in an attempt to locate those heads back over the
place the data was written. It then reads that data and rewrites
it. Here's how it's explained in the SpinRite documentation:

"During this exhaustive rereading, DynaStat employs its second
recovery strategy of deliberately wiggling the drive's heads. By
successively approaching the troubled sector from different
distances and directions, the heads arrive at the sector's track
at different velocities, which in turn produce small but
significant displacements in the head's resting position. This
allows DynaStat to compensate for the long-term alignment drift
that occurs in non-servo based drives, and the positioner
hysterysis that occurs in servo-based designs.
Thus the drive's heads are given every opportunity to land in the
best possible location to correctly read the sector. This approach
is also extremely effective at recovering data from misaligned
diskettes – which SpinRite 3.1 is proving to be extremely
effective upon."

You can hear the clattering sounds from the hard drive when
SpinRite does its thing. It's a great program and I highly
recommend it to people who are trying to extract valuable data
from "bad" sectors.

See "SpinRite's Technology" on this page:
http://www.grc.com/srdocs.htm

In article ews.net,
Folkert Rienstra wrote:
"SgtMinor" wrote in message
Arno Wagner wrote:
In comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage SgtMinor wrote:
02befree wrote:

I have a 200GB WD that is divided into 5 partitions. One of them has 4kb in
bad clusters according to CHKDSK. Is it worth trying to run SpinRite or HDD
Regenerator to fix this? Does that mean the other partitions are OK?.....
A little advice here would be appreciated. The WD Diag utitlily gave it a
SMART fail in the Raw Read Write category.


It is ALWAYS worth running Spinrite.
The "bad clusters" may not be bad at all,

but merely no longer directly in the path of the r/w heads.

Rotflol.
That is a rather colourful way of saying that the OS won't use them anymore.

Spinrite will fix that.

No it won't. (it may fix the filesystem though).

That's why you paid the big money for the program.

Utterly clueless.



With todays ECC on disks,

Too bad it hasn't got anything to do with ECC, babblebot.

SpinRite is essentially worthless.

No it's not, although the previous version was rather useless on SCSI.



What does spinrite claim to do?
--
a d y k e s @ p a n i x . c o m
Harrison for Congress in NY 13CD www.harrison06.com
Don't blame me. I voted for Gore. A Proud signature since 2001

Al Dykes wrote:

In article ews.net,
Folkert Rienstra wrote:

"SgtMinor" wrote in message

Arno Wagner wrote:

In comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage SgtMinor wrote:

02befree wrote:

I have a 200GB WD that is divided into 5 partitions. One of them has 4kb in
bad clusters according to CHKDSK. Is it worth trying to run SpinRite or HDD
Regenerator to fix this? Does that mean the other partitions are OK?.....
A little advice here would be appreciated. The WD Diag utitlily gave it a
SMART fail in the Raw Read Write category.


It is ALWAYS worth running Spinrite.
The "bad clusters" may not be bad at all,

but merely no longer directly in the path of the r/w heads.

Rotflol.
That is a rather colourful way of saying that the OS won't use them anymore.


Spinrite will fix that.

No it won't. (it may fix the filesystem though).


That's why you paid the big money for the program.

Utterly clueless.


With todays ECC on disks,

Too bad it hasn't got anything to do with ECC, babblebot.


SpinRite is essentially worthless.

No it's not, although the previous version was rather useless on SCSI.




What does spinrite claim to do?

A four-page brochure explains it all:
http://www.grc.com/files/sr5_lit.pdf

SgtMinor wrote:

craigm wrote:
SgtMinor wrote:



The "bad clusters" may not be bad at all, but merely no longer directly
in the path of the r/w heads.


Not even possible with servo drives.

You don't know what you're talking about.



Can you explain what you mean about not being in the path of the r/w
heads?

Steve Gibson, the creator of Spinrite, explains that over time the
heads can drift from the position they had when the data was first
written to the sector. As a result the now mis-aligned heads can
no longer access that data and thus the sector may be marked as
"bad." The DynaStat component of SpinRite jolts the heads across
the platter in an attempt to locate those heads back over the
place the data was written. It then reads that data and rewrites
it. Here's how it's explained in the SpinRite documentation:

"During this exhaustive rereading, DynaStat employs its second
recovery strategy of deliberately wiggling the drive's heads. By
successively approaching the troubled sector from different
distances and directions, the heads arrive at the sector's track
at different velocities, which in turn produce small but
significant displacements in the head's resting position. This
allows DynaStat to compensate for the long-term alignment drift
that occurs in non-servo based drives, and the positioner
hysterysis that occurs in servo-based designs.
Thus the drive's heads are given every opportunity to land in the
best possible location to correctly read the sector. This approach
is also extremely effective at recovering data from misaligned
diskettes – which SpinRite 3.1 is proving to be extremely
effective upon."

You can hear the clattering sounds from the hard drive when
SpinRite does its thing. It's a great program and I highly
recommend it to people who are trying to extract valuable data
from "bad" sectors.

See "SpinRite's Technology" on this page:
http://www.grc.com/srdocs.htm


OK, I thought that was what you would say.

For non embedded servo drive, the heads could drift over time and
temperature. This is due to the stack up of mechanical drifts and
temperature coefficients of the materials.

However, as an issue with disk drives, drives produced in the last 15+ years
have used embedded servo. The servo information is on the same track as the
data. (Data sectors are placed between the servo bursts.)

To have the sector written on the disk to _not_ be under the path of the
head means that it was not written in the correct position or the heads are
in the wrong position when reading.

The cause of this is mechanical vibration during the read or write process.
There is also some small offset due to noise in the system.

All modern drives have error recovery mechanisms that use retries to read
the data. Many of these retries apply offsets to the servo system to deal
with mispositioned data.

Given this, the only benefit from SpinRite or other data recovery programs
is the fact that it makes additional attempts to read the data from a given
sector. A drive may make 50 or 100 attempts to read a sector before it
gives up. (This depends upon the recovery algorithm specific to the drive.)
Each subsequent read attempt by SpinRite invokes another set of attempts by
the drive.

In other words, all the talk of seeking away and returning by the recovery
program are just meaningless.

There was a time when hard drives used stepper motors to position the heads.
Controllers at the time also had limited error recovery. In that timeframe,
recovery programs may have useful. But for today's hard drives, it is
really in the hands of the drive.

On the other hand, floppies still use stepper motors and the SpinRite
recovery techniques can be useful.