Disk error checking messages

stevem999

Hi everyone, got some great advice on speeding up my laptop on here recently which has helped loads so thought I'd try another problem I have.

Just recently (last few weeks), my Vista Home Premium laptop has started displaying a warning message during start-up (white text on black screen before it gets to desktop) saying that one or more of my disks may have an error and needs checking. It then starts a countdown to allow me to cancel it if I want. However I would like it to check the disk, but if I leave the countdown to expire, just before it gets down to 1, it says 'disk checking cancelled' or something similar and then carries on and starts up normally.

I tried to do a manual check through the control panel tools but it says it can't do it whilst it's in use and will schedule it for the next time I turn it on, but nothing additional seems to happen, just get the messages as described above every time and they won't go away. I'm a bit concerned to be honest and wonder if anyone can tell me what is going on? Is it a virus of some sort or is my disk on its way out? I've also done a complete disk check via the BIOS on start-up, which hasn't raised any problems.

It is now causing me problems doing a back up of files and folders as I get error messages which Google searches tell me is because it thinks there is an error on the disk!! I need to back up!!

Thanks

cowbutt

Sounds like S.M.A.R.T. diagnostics are reporting a problem. You'll need to use a S.M.A.R.T. diagnostic tool to investigate - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_S.M.A.R.T._tools

Essentially, there are two types of S.M.A.R.T. attributes; old-age and pre-failure. The former simply indicates the drive is at or near its expected service life, the latter type is more critical and indicates imminent failure. From your description of your problems doing a backup, it suggests that it might be that one or more sectors have become unreadable. This happens from time to time, and drives will remap those sectors if they are written to. If you can identify specific files which contain failed blocks, you can delete those files and fill all the empty space on the disc which should force a write to most, if not all, of the failed sectors. If the drive runs out of spare sectors, the drive is already toast.

fwor

One other thing you can do is to find out the make of HDD, and then download the diagnostic tools from the manufacturers website.

These are typically provided as an ISO file for a bootable CD, so you don't get problems with files being locked by the OS.

Typically they provide the tools to do a full surface scan and to replace any bad sectors that may be found, as well as checking and resetting the S.M.A.R.T. status.