[ubuntu-uk] Diagnosing Faulty HDD

[Liam Proven]

On 29 November 2011 08:58, Jon Reynolds <maillist at jcrdevelopments.com> wrote:
> Hi Folks,
>
> My son claims his hard drive is faulty. He lives remote from me so I
> couldn't look at the symptoms first hand. His diagnoses is basically, that
> when he tried to log in (WinXP) the password would only work if he puts
> caps lock on (?) and when he was logged in, there were many many graphical
> artifacts everywhere, windows opening randomly and generally unusable.
>
> The faulty HDD came from someone performing a scan on the drive and
> reporting that it was 'full or errors'.
>
> Before we go any further, I have the HDD, out of the machine. (I got him
> to bring it with him). This was when I thought it was just faulty, before
> he told me that it did actually log on but behaved badly (I immediately
> thought corrupt or infected software).
>
> But seeing as I now have the drive in my possession, I need to ask advise
> on diagnosing whether the drive is indeed faulty or not. I don't (easily)
> have access to any PCs to put the drive in, so I am hoping I might be able
> to diagnose by putting the drive into an external USB enclosure that I
> have, plugging it into my netbook and going from there...
>
> Can anyone please advise best steps to take (using Ubuntu obviously)?
>
> Much appreciated.

The best way to fix a Windows disk is using Windows, just the same as
the best way to fix a Linux disk is using Linux.

I've tried NTFSFIX. It can repair some minor problems but for /repair/
you're better off with the real thing. For data /recovery/ Linux is
fine and possibly better than Windows, which won't mount
badly-corrupted drives.

Yes, you can put it in an external case, that should work. For such
things, I use an assortment of cheapo external drive adaptor cables,
such as this:

<http://www.play.com/PC/PCs/4-/22651479/Trixes-2-5-3-5-SATA-IDE-To-USB-Adapter-Cable-For-Hard-Disk-HDD/Product.html?_%24ja=tsid:11518%7Ccat:22651479%7Cprd:22651479>
(This was just the first one Froogle found - it's not a recommendation
or endorsement for Play.com, although I've heard they're good. Never
used them myself.)

If you have the disk space, before doing anything to the drive, *back
it up.*  Either take a whole-disk image, either using DD to a file or
using something like PartImage, or use CloneZilla and copy it to
another (same size or larger) drive.

*Then* and only then:

If you have Windows XP or newer on the system, run CHKDSK.

If you don't have WinXP, you can use the freely-downloadable Windows 7
Recovery CD. It's an ISO. It won't let you install Win7 but you can
repair Windows NT/2000/XP/Vista/7 hard disks using it. Get it from
here:
http://neosmart.net/blog/2009/windows-7-system-repair-discs/

Connect the drive, find its drive letter (e.g. drive E) and type:

CHKDSK E: /F

This will repair /data\-level/ corruption.

If the drive is phyiscally damaged and unreadable, try:

CHKDSK E: /R

This *will* take a long time - it tries to reread every single sector.

To be honest, the symptoms you describe don't sound like mere disk
corruption to me. It sounds like a more serious hardware fault.
Overheating is a very common problem on older PCs.

The first thing I'd do, after backing up any data, would be to give
the machine a really good clean, especially its fans, using an
airduster (a can of compressed air). Make sure all its fans spin
smoothly, are as dust-free as you can get them, and that the vanes and
fins of the CPU and GPU heatsinks are free of dust and allow
unobstructed airflow.

Leave it plugged in to the mains but with the mains socket turned
*off* while doing this. This means it's earthed so static buildup
should not be a problem.

-- 
Liam Proven • Info & profile: http://www.google.com/profiles/lproven
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