bsod....bad blocks???

[Soap]

my computer came up with a bsod which had stop message which i looked up on http://www.adare.ca/stop.htm

x0000000A: IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL - Usually cause by bad driver or incompatible hardware/software.


i looked in the event viewer after a reboot and it had an entry saying that my hard drive has a bad block. my drive is only 3-4weeks old.

im assuming its time for a warranty claim...am i correct???

 

[Rick]

IRQ_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL isn't usually caused by a bad hard disk, but I'm sure it is a possibility. Use a diagnostic utility to check your disk (Check out the Storage forum) and see exactly how healthy your disk is.

 

[Soap]

since the drive is a western digital i thought i would go with their little utility thing....was i meant to use the dos version?? the windows version doesnt seem to do much and i cant see anywhere about the health of my drive???


also i should have added originally is that i have s.m.a.r.t. enabled and i use a program called HDD Health.

it has been coming up with warnings about two things spin up time and seek error rate.int he log it has Attribute seek error rate changes from 100 to 200 then it changes from 200 to 100 and then from 100 to 200 then back to 200 to 100.

 

[vassil3427]

Go to My Computer, and right click on your C: Drive, click properties, click Tools, and then Check Now. Make sure you enable surface scanning...

 

[Soap]

what will doing a scandisk tell me?? i ran one last night but i dont know where to find a scandisk log file.

 

[Mictlantecuhtli]

Running chkdsk (or scandisk if you want to call it that) in 2k/XP doesn't tell you anything really. Well, anything other than "Windows has performed maintenance on drive blah blah". I'd use 3rd party drive diagnostic tools instead.

 

[Rick]

If you have bad sectors, there are programs that will fix or (usually) ignore the bad sectors on your drive.

The DOS version of WD utilities should tell you everything you need to know.

The programs you have been using check the SMART status of the drive, which is used for drive failure prediction, not necessarily drive failure existance. SMART is a good tool, but it is not 100% accurate. If you have had bad sectors though, SMART will usually pick that up.

The full WD diagnostic under DOS will do a complete scan of your drive mechanics, interface, SMART and surface. This will tell you with certainty whether your drive is bad or not.

 

[Soap]

i downloaded the dos version of western digital. can anyone tell me where the scan option is??