My Harddisk Is Stuffed ! (i Think?)

My No.3 , 4 month old 120Gb hard disk sort of self destructed

120GB called data , about 8 Gb free ! (using Fat32)
with all my .iso cd images around 50 of
+ all my backup zips , mp3 , etc

using XPPro
firstly i noticed 75% of my untested .iso's had errors (got from overnet)
rebooted computer it froze on startup
Did a diskcheck on it , it then decided to delete quarter of the disk due to errors
whole directories vanished , it then took 5 hours to check the freespace!
Every reboot after diskcheck wanted to check it for inconsistencies.
Mmm , reformatted it under partition magic 8 , this did not help the diskchecks
Norton Utilities said it was a NSDos disk & wouldn't touch it
XPPro's format would find the partition but wouldn't format it
Got back some of the files via GetDataBack but most of them were trashed
Deleted the partition under partition magic 8
Now no program will do anything with disk3
Partition magic 8 or even fdisk (win98 boot disk) won't do anything

The question -
I want to format it check it for errors & start again
but can i trust this disk to hold any info ever again ?

I'm thinking of returning it to where i bought it from to try to get it replaced
The rest of my computer & the other 2 hard disks are still going perfectly
running symantec antivirus corporate so i don't think it is a virus problem

I'm really pissed of with this drive !

Any comments or help appreciated !!

You could try http://www.killdisk.com/

just return it, if posible, that would be the simplest way.

@VB, doesnt that killdisk thing viod his warranty?

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Originally posted by ROSSCO_2004@11 April 2004 - 16:39
@VB, doesnt that killdisk thing viod his warranty?

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y would it??? you're not opening the HDD or anything............

@MoReBeEr(VB): what you can try doing is to place your HDD in another comp and reformat from there.... if that wont work, return it, cause you're kind f***ed

btw: always partition your HDD into multiple drives.......... this saves you alot of trouble (like disapearing space)

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Originally posted by ROSSCO_2004@11 April 2004 - 09:39
just return it, if posible, that would be the simplest way.

@VB, doesnt that killdisk thing viod his warranty?

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No. I don't think the warranty would be void. All that it does is write to the drive.

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Originally posted by Virtualbody1234+11 April 2004 - 18:31--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (Virtualbody1234 @ 11 April 2004 - 18:31)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> <!--QuoteBegin-ROSSCO_2004@11 April 2004 - 09:39
just return it, if posible, that would be the simplest way.

@VB, doesnt that killdisk thing viod his warranty?

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No. I don&#39;t think the warranty would be void. All that it does is write to the drive. [/b][/quote]
oh ok, what kind of format was it then that would void your warranty? or am i just completely wrong and nothing will void your warranty lol.

Kill Disk just writes over all the data on the drive with redundant data so many times. Its for making files unrecoverable.

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Originally posted by ROSSCO_2004+12 April 2004 - 03:58--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (ROSSCO_2004 @ 12 April 2004 - 03:58)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'>

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Originally posted by Virtualbody1234@11 April 2004 - 18:31
<!--QuoteBegin-ROSSCO_2004

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Quote:

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@11 April 2004 - 09:39
just return it, if posible, that would be the simplest way.

@VB, doesnt that killdisk thing viod his warranty?

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No. I don&#39;t think the warranty would be void. All that it does is write to the drive.

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oh ok, what kind of format was it then that would void your warranty? or am i just completely wrong and nothing will void your warranty lol. [/b][/quote]
I think manufacturers look badly on low level formats.

There is a proggy called "Spinrite", which is supposed to be able to do a low-level format without destroying the data on disk.

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SpinRite prevents mass storage systems from crashing or warns the user of pending catastrophe. If SpinRite is not used until after a crash, it skillfully picks up all the pieces, recovers your data, and puts everything back together again.

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I think I saw it shared too..... :unsure:

I tried Kill Disk

All it basically does is destroys the partitions & writes 0 on all of the disk , works from floppy boot up , looks like a good program for my collection.

It got to 3% in 20 minutes
Left it on overnight & found it frozen with the harddisk light on at 5% in the morning&#33; Escape for cancel - that does nothing , Control-alt-delete , froze at startup (nothing had changed&#33;) , power swich off/on , boot up - now the harddisk makes a clunk , clunk sound (i do not blame kill disk for this the harddisk is gradually getting worse & worse) , at least when i take it back to the shop i can prove that it is totally stuffed&#33;

Pardon my english but i think it is well & truly F*cked now &#33;

Ok , i&#39;m downloading spinrite 5.01 from overnet at the moment
I&#39;ll see if i can make that sort out the harddisk between its clunking tonight ?&#33;?&#33;

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Originally posted by MoReBeEr(VB)@12 April 2004 - 13:16
I tried Kill Disk

All it basically does is destroys the partitions & writes 0 on all of the disk , works from floppy boot up , looks like a good program for my collection.

It got to 3% in 20 minutes
Left it on overnight & found it frozen with the harddisk light on at 5% in the morning&#33; Escape for cancel - that does nothing , Control-alt-delete , froze at startup (nothing had changed&#33;) , power swich off/on , boot up - now the harddisk makes a clunk , clunk sound (i do not blame kill disk for this the harddisk is gradually getting worse & worse) , at least when i take it back to the shop i can prove that it is totally stuffed&#33;

Pardon my english but i think it is well & truly F*cked now &#33;

Ok , i&#39;m downloading spinrite 5.01 from overnet at the moment
I&#39;ll see if i can make that sort out the harddisk between its clunking tonight ?&#33;?&#33;

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I&#39;ve heard that clunk...clunk before; on a fucked hard drive.

Oh , i just remembered

I can&#39;t use spinrite on it tonight
This morning after all of its clunking i thought i would disconnect it under harddisk detect at the bios , the bios COULDN&#39;T find it , so i definitely saved that setting &#33;

By the way this is my first Western Digital drive , all the rest are Seagates , i hope the shop can exchange it for a Seagate because i DON&#39;T want this to happen again to me. In all of my years of computers this is the first problem i&#39;ve ever had.
(I had a 105Mb SCSI in my old Amiga 3000 which set me back &#036;1000 Aussie &#33;&#33;&#33;)

Maybe you have added one hd too many, and your power supply isn&#39;t coping; that would explain the clunk noises and freezing. Try unplugging another drive, then runnung killdisk again.