hard drive - Second Harddrive is failing. Due to Hibernation?

07
2014-07
  • xeed

    About a year ago my WD Green drive started failing. I started getting BSOD (disk related) and freezes, until it was not readable anymore. It was still recognized in the bios, but it was not mountable in windows and neither in ubuntu. Smart said btw it was flooded with bad sectors. So I plugged it out and bought a new one. WD Blue this time. It was working just fine until a couple of weeks ago.

    What happens? If my computer is on, it works without any issues. But if I put it out. It won't start a couple of times. Scratchy Noises appear and after a while the "Select a proper boot device" message appears, repeatedly, if I hit a key to search again. When I boot ubuntu from USB Stick, it probably can't mount the drive. But after some rebooting or waiting in the ubuntu, the drive wakes up and works just fine again. SMART says again there are bad sectors... 

    -- S.M.A.R.T. --------------------------------------------------------------
ID Cur Wor Thr RawValues(6) Attribute Name
01 200 200 _51 0000000000A8 Read Error Rate
03 161 160 _21 000000001B1D Spin-Up Time
04 100 100 __0 000000000349 Start/Stop Count
05 200 200 140 000000000000 Reallocated Sectors Count
07 200 200 __0 000000000000 Seek Error Rate
09 _95 _95 __0 000000000ECE Power-On Hours
0A 100 100 __0 000000000000 Spin Retry Count
0B 100 100 __0 000000000000 Recalibration Retries
0C 100 100 __0 00000000033A Power Cycle Count
C0 200 200 __0 00000000006F Power-off Retract Count
C1 194 194 __0 000000004C6E Load/Unload Cycle Count
C2 124 108 __0 00000000001A Temperature
C4 200 200 __0 000000000000 Reallocation Event Count
C5 200 200 __0 000000000003 Current Pending Sector Count
C6 200 200 __0 000000000003 Uncorrectable Sector Count
C7 200 200 __0 000000000000 UltraDMA CRC Error Count
C8 198 198 __0 000000000216 Write Error Rate

    So, I'm expecting, that the drive does only fix the bad sectors, when it boots up. Thats probably, why I get the consecutive boot failures on startup, until some point it has nothing to fix anymore. But for your information, the "Uncorrectable Sector Count" did not get any higher from the last occurence to now.

    I am thinking about buying another new harddrive (no WD this time). But I just want to ask, if there could be anything causing this issue. I never move my computer. I am using hibernation A LOT (writing RAM to Disk and turning it off). I just had some trouble with my GPU not working anymore. That was temporary too.

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    Related Question

    How do I fix a boot process that broke because of a failed hard drive? (Windows 7)
  • MasterCorban

    I used Windows XP for years, before I was able to get my hands on Windows 7 RC, which I bought a new HDD for, and setup to dual-boot. About a month ago, Windows XP started acting funny, and I thought the disk might be dying, so I started using Windows 7 all the time.

    Today I started the computer, and it can't find the disk which Windows XP was installed on anymore. I guess it's dead. So, I removed the hard drive that had Windows on it, and now my computer won't start - I get an error message that says insert bootable disk (or something similar).

    How do I remove the primary (dead) hard drive that has Windows XP installed on it and boot straight to Windows 7?


    • Related Answers
  • Col

    You should be able to fix it by booting from the Win 7 DVD using these instructions

    http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/668-system-recovery-options.html

    and doing the startup repair.

    Edit: As we discovered later I should have said to unplug the damaged xp drive first.

  • fretje

    Edit: It's maybe better to try Col's suggestion first. As that one is simpler. If it doesn't work you can resort to this one though.

    I suppose your XP disk was the primary and active one, from which your computer booted, so it's normal that your PC doesn't boot anymore after taking that one out. You will have to make your Windows 7 disk Active and bootable by changing its master boot record.

    I've found a nice tutorial how this can be done here.

    It basically comes down to booting your PC with the Windows 7 install DVD into Command Prompt mode and issuing a

    bootsect /nt60 SYS
  • Juice

    I had the same problem. My BIOS had the option to boot to a specific hard drive. Check your BIOS settings to make sure it is booting to the correct hard drive.

  • Zaagmans

    Sounds like a Master Boot Record issue.

    Check this article: MBR - Restore Windows 7 Master Boot Record

  • lo_fye

    It's possible that your Win7 harddrive is set to slave, and the WinXP harddrive was set to master. You can change this, but to do it you need to open the case, and switch the little plastic jumpers on the back of the harddrive, next to where the power plugs into it.

    Photos here: http://www.onlinecomputertips.com/hardware/hd%5Fjumpers.html