DRIVE FITNESS TEST?
I may have missed the make of the drive, but look on the maker's web site for the hard disk tester to see if it's failing.
Bob
Specs: HP Pavilion 743c
HDD: Seagate 80GB
Started experiencing problems a month ago where I would get a blue screen
of death (usu. problems in atapi.sys or win32k.sys, or just 0x00000f4).
Got HP recovery CDs. But the recovery process would always fail
to extract certain files
Got Win2K cds and blew all partitions and then reformatted to NTFS.
Put the recovery CDs back in and did not create the HP Recovery
partition. The hard drive was not being detected, but I thought it was
some BIOS setting issue. So connected my secondary drive as well
and then the primary came up fine. After that the recovery went
smoothly.
Then trying to play with unhooking, hooking my secondary drive, I got
a S.M.A.R.T warning on my primary. I noticed that the IDE cable was
a bit loose. I tightened it and the warning went away.
The question is, should I pay any heed to the SMART warning given this
scenario. I downloaded Western digital's diagnostic tool and ran a
detailed check, which turned up fine. It had some bad sectors that it
said it repaired successfully.
I tried running their quick test and it failed. I believe it is because
my hard drive is not a Western digital hdd. Their quickTest seems to
be specifically meant for their drives as it checks for Data Lifeguard
information, which is a WestDig feature. In the SMART disk info all
the SMART attributes show a green checkmark.
The question is, should I trust the HD and go my merry way? I still have
no clue to why I started getting the blue screen of death in the first
place. I thought that it may be due to a Virus that messed up some system files, or an SP2 issue with XP
and the device drivers.
I have replaced all the cables and detached drives, and by process
of elimination, the only hardware possibilities that were left, were:
- That I have bad RAM
- That my HDD is bad
- That I have a faulty motherboard
Now since the computer has been behaving OK after an XP reinstall, I am
thinking that the last one has been eliminated.
Can anyone help me think this one through?
Will appreciate your help.
Thanks

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