(Geekish for "The story of the HDD that fooled CHKDSK")
This article was quite long when the background was added. The key question is:
When CHKDSK /r gets stuck, does that mean my hard disk drive is as good as dead? I have reformatted repeatedly with small results.
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Background:
AFTER A FEW MONTHS of gradually increasing problems concerning slow computer performance, more and more often leading to total inresponsiveness forcing hard power shut down I backed up my data and reformated my HDD. I asumed I had been too careless downloading various programs, thus giving my system too much to handle in the background. At upstart of Windows XP there were over 80 processes running before I even started an application.
Then various serious errors started to appear, one of them i had seen before, the one about not finding Realtek Ethernet, making it impossible to boot. After a few soft and hard resets it came to life again, though. Then the PC had sudden breakdowns showing disturbing Windows blue screens with intimidating messages. Somehow it recovered and started up again after a few hours left alone, but I really had to take care not to use up too much memory, then it would fail again.
Before it was too late I sensibly backed up my data and didn't store anything more important on the HDD. I had decided to reformat the disk and reinstall Windows. Wanting to try out Linux, however, I downloaded Ubuntu 6.06 and ran on a Live CD, which worked fine. Having recovered all installation disks from three years back in the bottom of some pile around the desk I was ready for the leap. To make room for both Windows and Linux I repartitioned the HDD accordingly:
I installed Windows on C: and Linux on H: and it worked fine. For about one day. Soon Windows started complaining about that it could not save various files in the Documents and Settings-folder or even the System folder. When I tried installing Outlook and download all old messages from the mail account this was not doable either. Obviously the Windows partition was too small for holding my personal files. I had intended them to go in the D: partition but hadn't come around to find and change the settings ere the problems started again. This time the error message read:
"SMART failure predicted on harddisk 0... imediately backup your data and replace your hard disk drive. A failure may be imminent."
Ofcourse I Googled and Wiki'd on this failure and found out that this usually means the HDD is finished, but not always. Anyway, I repartitioned my HDD according to another recommendation:
I have then tried to install Windows XP again, but at the end (after about 3 hours) there is a message that there is some kind of problem and that I cannot use that partition for my WXP installation. Then I tried some of the recommendations out there:
PC-doctor from the HP website, but it didn't even find the disk.
BIOS self check passed.
CHKDSK acted strangely:
I ran CHKDSK /R on the C: partition, with the report "...resolved one or more problems on this partition." or something similar. I have repeated the CHKDSK-command (without a parameter) but it gets stuck on 75% for at least 8 hours (the duration of one night). A new trial with chkdsk /r is going on right now. It went up to 20% quickly, ascended during approximately 20 min to 75% where it dropped to 50% and is now slowly working its way up. After a couple of hours it is again stuck at 75%.
Is this anything like normal? I should just tuck this HDD away, right? Not that a new HDD is exceptionally expensive, and maybe it will be a new laptop, but do you think I can just skip the damaged partition and use the rest? Will it be reliable?
These are the relevant hardware and the software I used before reformatting:
Laptop: HP Paviliion zv5000 (purchased september 2004)
HDD: Toshiba MK4025GAS -(PM) 40GB
Mem: 1GB
OS: Windows XP home SP2
Norton Internet Security 2006
You could have ran check disc by selecting Properties on C drive by clicking on the Tools tab.
Sticking on Check disk think I'd be tempted trying a new drive with no partitions to start off with to see how things run, as things progress then you can add another partition and try that for a while.
Quote:
AFTER A FEW MONTHS of gradually increasing problems concerning slow computer performance, more and more often leading to total inresponsiveness forcing hard power shut down
I know what you mean here.... when wanting to do something important the whole thing either blacked out momentarily, froze or sometimes locked up even typing a much needed document in MS Word...
... it just seemed to know if what I was doing important behaving perfectly ok when I wasn't. A new power supply seemed to improved things but the problem was soon back, same when I rebooted the bios.
Then one day the hard drive started clanging and banging like the garbage collectors van, by now sometimes Windows would load quickly and sometimes took forever... a new hard drive cured the problem even with the old power supply.
The clue I think is 'it gradually got worse', this could mean mechanical like the hard drive, the power supply or even bad caps on the mobo letting hf ripple in from the switch-mode power supply here's an example Bad cap's in mobo's.
Chkdsk /r -> Hdd R.i.p.? 
Linear Mode
