Windows 7 Hard Drive Issue

joanmt

My husband's Acer Laptop today had an message appear:

Windows detected a hard disk problem:
Start backup
Ask me later
Don't ask me

This computer is around 6 months old, bought brand new, is running a Toshiba MK64656SX ATA hardrive.

The system is protected by AVG free 2011, Lava Soft Ad-ware, and Spyware Blaster.

I have scanned with Malwarebytes and AVG. Nothing came up.

I also performed the built in Scan/Disk check for the hard drive that is part of Windows 7. It found no errors on the disk and says that it is ready to use.

We have the computer backed-up on Carbonite.

I have not re-started the computer since the error message appeared.

What do you recommend?

Thank you,
Joan

Straight_Man

If possi ble, back it up to a USB HD attached to computer (get one if needed, then back it up, then get it backed up by choosing start backup and back it up to the USB HD). I use that kind of HD with no errors. The problem detected with HD message could be a real thing, many HDs have smart stuff in built-in programming code on HD itself, in which case you DO want to abck it up. Writing a file partway would result in Scandisk finding and fixing something.

There are other things you can do also, but usually that strange seeming set of circumstances all together means the drive might really be gradually failing.

I would do this:

Open the start icon (lower left hand corner of screen\display).

Click Computer.

Right Click the C: drive.

Click Properties.

Click tools tab.

Click the button that says "Check Now".

Let it do its thing after checking the Scan for and attempt to recover bad sectors. If it will not start, then it will ask you if you want to schedule a disk check the next time the computer starts. Click the "Schedule disk check" button to tell it yes.

You can then just restart the computer like this: first click the start menu thing, then click the right arrow button to the right of the power looking button down to right bottom of what opens when you click the start menu thing (It may look like a windows logo in a blue ball looking thing.), then click restart in little menu that opens. Computer will shut down, then when it starts back up, Scandisk will run.

troll

Back up all your data and contact Acer for warranty service.

https://customercare.acer.com/customercare/

Straight_Man

True. Also do that.

joanmt

I already did just the scan, I did not ask it to find and fix errors, but the scan said there was nothing wrong with the disk? So I should run it again and ask it check and to fix the errors?

Straight_Man

Yes, just in case... the problem warning can mean bad sectors not fixed-- smart stuff on HDs is designed to detect bad sectors by read or write failures, smaller ones usually. If you or your husband manage to drop or strongly jar the computer while the head is over the drive platter, you then might cause the head that does reading and writing to bump against the media on the rotating drive platter.

This could cause bad places in the drive platter media by the head scraping the media. You definitely need to back up the drive and then run checkdsk as described please. Then contact Acer warranty support if the run shows any errors or if you cannot back up(by making a system image) the hard drive to an external drive.

Checkdsk will ignore tiny amounts of bad sectors and say drive is clean if it is not the drive media that is real bad. If the drive media is real awfully bad, I would expect
Checkdsk to say the drive is unusable after trying to fix it. Unfortunately there are real drive problems (power circuit, hard drive controller card)that Checkdsk will not detect and warn of, it is mostly(almost totally) a file system fixer.

Defragmenting a drive gets rid of little file pieces scattered on a HD. I run defragmenting routine in Windows once a month minimum on my laptop here. I hardly ever let it auto-defrag, too busy using it when it is not off, sleeping, or hibernating (no, the laptop does NOT wake up to checkdsk or defragment its HD).

If under warranty you send the laptop back for warranty work and they "repair" the HD (usually they just replace it), all your husband's personal data and any programs he installed will be missing. So, you need a backup done. A system image makes a copy of an entire partition, like the Whole C: drive. Then you can recover when they send you the laptop back with only Windows on it perhaps.

Let us know how it goes, please, we might come up with new ideas that things you mention make us think of (I've been a tech-involved person for 30+ years, not boasting it is a fact simply to me.).

I have a HD in my Lenovo Laptop that parks its head when it is jarred hard or tilted. Even so, I follow old good habits for maintenance like defragging and checkdsking the HD. I am used to HDs that do not have anti-shock-and-tilt sense circuits.

John.

joanmt

Thank you John.... We do regular maintenance as well and handle our computers very gently so there is no jarring issues. I am in the process of copying of documents, pictures, movies, etc. Also making sure that Carbonite has the outlook.pst file backed up. I will run the chkdsk again with the option to fix/repair. Most likely it will be going in for repair. I will keep you posted as to what happens. Thank you again for all of your input.

Joan

Straight_Man

Thank you John.... We do regular maintenance as well and handle our computers very gently so there is no jarring issues. I am in the process of copying of documents, pictures, movies, etc. Also making sure that Carbonite has the outlook.pst file backed up. I will run the chkdsk again with the option to fix/repair. Most likely it will be going in for repair. I will keep you posted as to what happens. Thank you again for all of your input.

Joan

Quite welcome. One thing about forums, you will find that what is not posted can really make for a lot of long coverage of things the other person posting knows already. However, a lot of other lurking readers might be unaware of what has been said anyway.

joanmt

Hi John,

Just wanted to let you know that it was a defective hard drive. We managed to get a new computer out of the deal. We got a Dell instead of another Acer.
Again thanks for all of your insight! :-)

Straight_Man

Ok, good to read that you solved the problem, even if it meant a Dell instead of an Acer.

John.