Here's a funny thing.
I have a primary hard drive divided up into partitions ( W2000) and
the other day I ran the OS defrag utility. It found something to do on
the C: partition ( the OS ), but nothing to do on the other
partitions.
However, when checking some image files later on I noticed that almost
my entire subdirectory stack of images had completely disappeared -
close on 150 directories - along with a number of subdirs from other
root directories...so it couldn't have been due to accidental
deletion. A disk check reveals no problems.
Thankfully I had backups - but I'd really like to know why and how
gigabytes of files just disappeared, and if it has any connection to
the defrag utility.
Anyone come across this kind of issue before?
Regards,
--
Stephen Howard - Woodwind repairs & period restorations www.shwoodwind.co.uk
Emails to: showard{whoisat}shwoodwind{dot}co{dot}uk
Stephen Howard wrote:
> Here's a funny thing.
> I have a primary hard drive divided up into partitions ( W2000) and
> the other day I ran the OS defrag utility. It found something to do on
> the C: partition ( the OS ), but nothing to do on the other
> partitions.
>
> However, when checking some image files later on I noticed that almost
> my entire subdirectory stack of images had completely disappeared -
> close on 150 directories - along with a number of subdirs from other
> root directories...so it couldn't have been due to accidental
> deletion. A disk check reveals no problems.
>
> Thankfully I had backups - but I'd really like to know why and how
> gigabytes of files just disappeared, and if it has any connection to
> the defrag utility.
> Anyone come across this kind of issue before?
>
> Regards,
>
You can answer this question for yourself, in a general way.
Defragmentation takes a long time, during which the disk light is
on a lot. A lot of files are being moved around, and a lot of
file system structures would also be getting rewritten. It might
even involve more work than would be done by copying the files
from one drive to another. So we're talking gigabytes of write
operations in total.
If there are any latent faults in the drive (errors in directory
structure, not exercised by normal usage), then perhaps they manifest
themselves during the defragmentation.
SMART is one way to get some health information from a drive.
"Current Pending Sector Count" is a measure of how many sectors
the drive controller considers dodgy (it is taking multiple tries to
read them), and they are about to be spared out. They're actually
replaced on a write operation to the sector. You could check
this parameter before the next defragmentation, as an indication
of how healthy the disk is. The program "Speedfan" has a tab
for displaying SMART info.
Without understanding the details, I'd want the disk to be
as healthy as possible, before running a defrag. And if the
disk is showing obvious signs it is about to fail (you're
hearing "click of death"), your time would be better spent
doing a backup - a defrag could finish off the drive and
kill it.
On Wed, 20 Aug 2008 13:33:03 +0000, Stephen Howard
<seesigfor@email.uk> wrote:
>
>Here's a funny thing.
>I have a primary hard drive divided up into partitions ( W2000) and
>the other day I ran the OS defrag utility. It found something to do on
>the C: partition ( the OS ), but nothing to do on the other
>partitions.
>
>However, when checking some image files later on I noticed that almost
>my entire subdirectory stack of images had completely disappeared -
>close on 150 directories - along with a number of subdirs from other
>root directories...so it couldn't have been due to accidental
>deletion. A disk check reveals no problems.
>
>Thankfully I had backups - but I'd really like to know why and how
>gigabytes of files just disappeared, and if it has any connection to
>the defrag utility.
>Anyone come across this kind of issue before?
>
>Regards,
Since defragging causes a lot more access including
rewriting the files, yes it would be a more likely way the
files disappeared. Run the HDD manufacturer's diagnostics
utility on the drive and memtest86+ for a few hours to check
for memory errors. Other suspects might include CPU
instablity, run Prime95's Torture test (or Orthos if it's a
2+ core CPU) for over an hour and consider if there are any
other system instabilities that might indicate a PSU
failing, and check your Windows Event Viewer, sometimes it
will indicate disk subsystem errors.
On Wed, 20 Aug 2008 14:39:35 -0400, kony <spam@spam.com> wrote:
>
>Since defragging causes a lot more access including
>rewriting the files, yes it would be a more likely way the
>files disappeared. Run the HDD manufacturer's diagnostics
>utility on the drive and memtest86+ for a few hours to check
>for memory errors. Other suspects might include CPU
>instablity, run Prime95's Torture test (or Orthos if it's a
>2+ core CPU) for over an hour and consider if there are any
>other system instabilities that might indicate a PSU
>failing, and check your Windows Event Viewer, sometimes it
>will indicate disk subsystem errors.
Cheers guys, much appreciated.
I have SMART enabled on the disks, it showed no apparent faults - and
neither does a CHKDSK ( run after the event ). I'll do some tests on
the other hardware.
What puzzled me though was that I didn't defrag the partition in
question, merely ran the analysis - which reported the drive didn't
require a defrag.
Ran it again today, all seems well - but I'll do some hardware
testing.
Regards,
--
Stephen Howard - Woodwind repairs & period restorations www.shwoodwind.co.uk
Emails to: showard{whoisat}shwoodwind{dot}co{dot}uk
On Aug 20, 7:39*pm, kony <s...@spam.com> wrote:
> On Wed, 20 Aug 2008 13:33:03 +0000, Stephen Howard
>
>
>
> <seesig...@email.uk> wrote:
>
> >Here's a funny thing.
> >I have a primary hard drive divided up into partitions ( W2000) and
> >the other day I ran the OS defrag utility. It found something to do on
> >the C: partition ( the OS ), but nothing to do on the other
> >partitions.
>
> >However, when checking some image files later on I noticed that almost
> >my entire subdirectory stack of images had completely disappeared -
> >close on 150 directories - along with a number of subdirs from other
> >root directories...so it couldn't have been due to accidental
> >deletion. A disk check reveals no problems.
>
> >Thankfully I had backups - but I'd really like to know why and how
> >gigabytes of files just disappeared, and if it has any connection to
> >the defrag utility.
> >Anyone come across this kind of issue before?
>
> >Regards,
>
> Since defragging causes a lot more access including
> rewriting the files, yes it would be a more likely way the
> files disappeared. *Run the HDD manufacturer's diagnostics
> utility on the drive and memtest86+ for a few hours to check
> for memory errors. *Other suspects might include CPU
> instablity, run Prime95's Torture test (or Orthos if it's a
> 2+ core CPU) for over an hour and consider if there are any
> other system instabilities that might indicate a PSU
> failing, and check your Windows Event Viewer, sometimes it
> will indicate disk subsystem errors.
This reminds me, how do I read the xp error log from within 98se? I
dont even know which file it is. Reaon is trying to see what went
wrong with my xp installs, which were completely unrecoverable once
they failed (after a few days). System used fat32 on boh 98 and xp
partitions, so no problem there.
>This reminds me, how do I read the xp error log from within 98se? I
>dont even know which file it is. Reaon is trying to see what went
>wrong with my xp installs, which were completely unrecoverable once
>they failed (after a few days). System used fat32 on boh 98 and xp
>partitions, so no problem there.
>
>
>cheers, NT
It's not expected that the error logging worked to tell you
anything useful if the system wouldn't even boot to safe
mode. Otherwise wherever it stopped booting should have had
a bluescreen and error code.
Slightly OT - lost files 
Linear Mode
