Uncreative Labs

Joined: 27 Jan 2007 Posts: 274 Location: USA

oh and the worst drives i have are ibm deathstar, i mean deskstar and the quantum bigfoot. the quantum bigfoots can go out in as little as a 3 weeks, and im talking light usage.

Joined: 22 Apr 2007 Posts: 264 Location: Ohio/USA

I just don't see the point of using a drive for anything other then testing a system if its getting bad sectors.

Joined: 27 Jan 2007 Posts: 274 Location: USA

as long as you dont have anything important on the drive than i dont see a problem

Joined: 19 Apr 2006 Posts: 261 Location: WisConSin

All the 10 & 20mb drives I own have bad sectors and I still use them, but they came that way from the factory, I guess that negates the issue.

I have no issue using drives with bad sectors so long as they aren't creating new bad sectors.

Usually when I have had a modern drive die it wouldn't even fire up correctly let alone be readable in any way.

Joined: 28 Feb 2006 Posts: 127 Location: LI, NY

386er wrote:

oh and the worst drives i have are ibm deathstar, i mean deskstar and the quantum bigfoot. the quantum bigfoots can go out in as little as a 3 weeks, and im talking light usage.

Agreed. The desk stars actually have a glass platter. My friend and I spun one up while the cover was off and I tapped it w/ a screw driver... glass shrapnel everywhere. =-o lol.

I haven't had much luck w/ the WD Caviars either. I've blown through about 3 of them in my 486 thus far. :\ (Usually ranging from 100mb-500mb.)

Joined: 27 Jan 2007 Posts: 274 Location: USA

here is what a deathstar looks like on the in side, http://www.astro.ufl.edu/~ken/crash/

Joined: 03 Feb 2006 Posts: 488 Location: pennsylvanai

still using the 8 gig maxtor
after the use of maxllf a few errors than scandisk found more and
sunday it made oninous sounds winrar stopped working,
and scandisk added 2 more errors. today no strange clicks or noises.
I did copy data to d: and back up my bookmarks.

Joined: 03 Feb 2006 Posts: 488 Location: pennsylvanai

they really cannot be fixed

a few weeks ago I reported that a maxtor 8g drive " with some errors" mostly 2/3 thru. was "fixed" by maxllf.exe and only one error was left. but scandisk picked up some more after formatting. I have used the drive every day and added programs, but i was careful to make 100% working backups.
after getting another drive I formatted 'ol flakey and am running scandisk . the format did not show errors during format "recovering xxxx"
but when I ran 98 dos scandisk, the same old " hit with birdshot" look as before.
so " there ain't no easier way" I am surprised how well it worked for those 2 weeks.

Joined: 22 Apr 2007 Posts: 264 Location: Ohio/USA

If new bad sectors keep cropping up, it is time to get a differnt drive.

Posted: Mon Aug 06, 2007 6:50 am

The early hard drives were known to have bad sectors from the factory. Some of them have bad sector lists printed on them. I've got a ST251 with almost none, but my ST225 has about 18 or so.

It wasn't until later that they developed the technology enough to produce drives without bad sectors. I think most IDE drives are bad sector free from the factory, but don't quote me.

Joined: 22 Apr 2007 Posts: 264 Location: Ohio/USA

Yes, I recall seeing the bad sectors on drives printed on the label way back when. Newer drives have bad sectors as well, but they are hidden from you. A 20GB platter is generally larger then 20GB so bad sectors can be mapped out and still get the desired 20GB to the end user (per advertising).

Once a drive leaves the factory there will be no bad sectors at all visible to the user untill it starts to mess up.

Joined: 27 Jan 2007 Posts: 274 Location: USA

hey everone, got me a st380013a, its an 80gb seagate baracuda. the reason why i now have it. its got over 6500 bad sectors passed the 65 gb point. ran hdd regenerator, recovered all the sectors up until around 74-76 gb. im now gona try it do you think it will be safe in my 386, partioned at 70 gb and 2 gb

Joined: 22 Apr 2007 Posts: 264 Location: Ohio/USA

Sounds like a soon to be dead drive, why do you need such a large HD ina 386?

Posted: Wed Aug 08, 2007 6:00 am

It might be ok, but 2 gb and 70 gb partitions (makes me think "Linux server") are DEFINATELY going to cause problems. Your 386 won't see over a gig or so without a drive overlay, and if you use a FAT32 partition (Windows 98 & some Windows 95, I think) you risk losing the partition table because they just cannot handle something that large.

The only way to know for sure is to try and see. Rule of thumb, though, is if errors are anticipated don't store important data on it.

Joined: 03 Feb 2006 Posts: 488 Location: pennsylvanai

I have a bunch of mb and the companies provide little suppoprt
I am trying to install drivers for audo NO PROBLEM
and video BIG problem.
I use either too small to be prectical ( 700-1000 meg)
or a larger "flakey drive" oif it dies in the middel so what.
the screwy 8g maxtor has been replaced and is no longer my c: drive.
it continued to develop errors so it on its way oput.

YOU CAN use the qujick brainless dormat from diskmanager.
and then run scandisk as a last resrot.
if the front of the drive is ok. note where it starts having errors during \format.
and partition it a few percent less.