Where did this come from?

[Agent24]

Re: Where did this come from?

If a drive came from the factory with bad sectors on the G-list I would want a refund.

[b700029]

Re: Where did this come from?

Well, not if you're looking at the raw data. Sometimes you may see a drive with 1 or 2 bad sectors still show "100" under the value column.

My experience is that unless it came from the factory with those values nonzero, once a bad sector appears it's soon followed by many more.

[shovenose]

Re: Where did this come from?

@ shovenose: Is *your* hard drive really relevant in this topic?

Nope. Just providing a comparison :P

[lti]

Re: Where did this come from?

So your laptop may actually be slow due to that reason.

The CPU performance is extremely low. A 733MHz PIII is faster than the 1.2GHz Athlon XP-M in this computer and the graphics card has driver issues. Also, the computer gets hot enough to produce a burning smell. The computer is an HP Pavilion ze1210.

Also, the hard drive comment was supposed to be sarcastic.

[momaka]

Re: Where did this come from?

That drive has had bad sectors for over a year. The computer is so slow and has so many other problems that it wasn't worth repairing.

I've had HDDs with bad sectors for many years as well - it just all depends where they are. In my case, none of them had them where the OS files were so the computers were mostly unaffected.
We do have one laptop at work that boots extremely slow due to a dying 30 GB IBM/Hitachi Travelstar hard drive, though. I just looked into it last week. On boot up, the hard drive would click for about 5 minutes before finally completing the boot. Once it boots up, the computer runs fine with no problem. After running chkdsk, the computer booted very quickly twice, then the old problem resumed.
And this is not just an individual case. I have an old laptop HDD of my own (also an IBM/Hitachi Travelstar, 12 GB) that also has this issue. Amazingly, neither did the laptop at work nor my laptop show any problems when I ran the Hitachi Fitness Test Utility on those hard drives. Go figure.
So your laptop may actually be slow due to that reason. I'm using a PIII laptop for school, and it's pretty decent. I find it particularly funny that half the computers at school actually run slower, even though they are Core 2 Duos.

With the exception of the first one, my belief is that these should never be nonzero, otherwise the drive is not reliable and should be replaced.

Well, not if you're looking at the raw data. Sometimes you may see a drive with 1 or 2 bad sectors still show "100" under the value column.

[lti]

Re: Where did this come from?

That drive has had bad sectors for over a year. The computer is so slow and has so many other problems that it wasn't worth repairing. This computer will be replaced soon.

[Th3_uN1Qu3]

Re: Where did this come from?

With the exception of the first one, my belief is that these should never be nonzero, otherwise the drive is not reliable and should be replaced.

Agreed. Pull all critical data off it and replace drive ASAP. It isn't fun when it starts losing data, or worse, if it fails all at once. Been thru both situations.

@ shovenose: Is *your* hard drive really relevant in this topic?

[shovenose]

Re: Where did this come from?

Yes but the one in my bedside PC is really good!

[b700029]

Re: Where did this come from?

Ultra DMA CRC Error Rate 200 21
Offline Uncorrectable Sector Count 1 255
Current Pending Sector 100 300
Reallocated Event Count 100 108
Reallocated Sector Count 100 160

With the exception of the first one, my belief is that these should never be nonzero, otherwise the drive is not reliable and should be replaced. The first one may indicate cable problems.

This is an example of a disk in good condition. (It's getting "old" but I wouldn't worry about that because everything else is perfect.)

[Agent24]

Re: Where did this come from?

If that's a report from Speedfan then I would say it's accurate.

That many reallocated sectors, your drive has issues. While it doesn't spell immediate doom, it's a good sign.

Backup your data if not already, and get a new drive. Hopefully you can find someone who hasn't heard of the floods in Thailand.

[momaka]

Re: Where did this come from?

For me, registry cleaners don't do anything good.

Yes, many registry cleaners will pick up things they shouldn't. If you know what to delete and what to leave from the list they give you, they can be okay.

Do you think the hard drive is bad?

If that utility is correct, then YES, your HD is going bad.
According to the screenshot you posted, your HD has 160 reallocated sectors, 108 that have been registered as reallocated (Reallocated Event Count) and 300 pending to be remapped (Current Pending Sector).

Try HDD Tune and see what it tells you. If it's the same thing, then the hard drive definitely is going bad.

[Agent24]

Re: Where did this come from?

Memtest86+ has floppy images, so if you can boot from your USB floppy that should work.

[lti]

Re: Where did this come from?

For me, registry cleaners don't do anything good. Updating drivers or the BIOS also have a negative effect on the computer's performance and stability unless the update fixes a known problem.

I just remembered that I can't test the memory because the optical drive is dead. The computer can boot from a USB floppy drive, but I don't know if it can boot from a flash drive.

Do you think the hard drive is bad?

[shovenose]

Re: Where did this come from?

+1
Well, I don't use CCleaner much for the registry, but I do use it to delete all of those junk files. I usually run it before shutdown. You can even make it do this automatically. Just create a second shortcut of CCleaner on your desktop, right click it, click on properties, and then in the "Target" box, type " /AUTO /SHUTDOWN" after the ccleaner.exe name. When you double-click this icon, CCleaner will run and then shutdown the computer. Then just use that instead of the shutdown button in Windows.

This is a genious idea!

[momaka]

Re: Where did this come from?

To keep my temporary file folders and registry clean (seems like these are favorite hiding spots of malware) I use CCleaner.

+1
Well, I don't use CCleaner much for the registry, but I do use it to delete all of those junk files. I usually run it before shutdown. You can even make it do this automatically. Just create a second shortcut of CCleaner on your desktop, right click it, click on properties, and then in the "Target" box, type " /AUTO /SHUTDOWN" after the ccleaner.exe name. When you double-click this icon, CCleaner will run and then shutdown the computer. Then just use that instead of the shutdown button in Windows.

[RJARRRPCGP]

Re: Where did this come from?

Usually when I encounter such problems I just say f-it, reformat the drive, and reinstall the OS to make sure its clean.

Soo QFT!

[larrymoencurly]

Re: Where did this come from?

I had one instance where SuperAntiSpyware eliminated a malware, but sometimes none security programs found anything, while free online scans from Symantec, Bit Defender, Trend, Kaspersky, etc., did, although they didn't always provide the solution (had to go elsewhere for that). Also posting a Hijack This log at a computer security forum, like SpywareWarrior.com, can help.

[lti]

Re: Where did this come from?

If the computer was worth repairing, I would reinstall Windows... after replacing the hard drive, optical drive, battery, keyboard, and touchpad (all need to be replaced).

Windows is fully updated, but I am still using Firefox 3.6. I was told that the online portions of my college classes can not be accessed using Firefox 6 or later. I am only using the Windows firewall.

I might test the RAM some day.

[Th3_uN1Qu3]

Re: Where did this come from?

If I try to open Internet Explorer (the login page for the college's wireless network will only display in Internet Explorer), the window will sometimes close when the home page or login page starts to load.

That sounds like it could be faulty RAM... run memtest and see what you get.

[Agent24]

Re: Where did this come from?

Got a good Firewall? I would recommend Comodo Firewall. It's free, and very good!

The Defense+ engine is the best part of Comodo, I think.


Anyway, for virus removal I would also suggest a bootable scanner CD, like Bitdefender's Rescue CD for example, much easier to catch things that way, when they're not active and potentially hiding.

(http://download.bitdefender.com/rescue_cd/)