Failing Hard Drive?

[tictoc5150]

Since I pride myself on not having to ask questions this is rather irritating but I seem to be stumped on this...

No recent configuration changes (software or hardware)

Noticed some choppy video playback and some slight hanging of cursor (maybe 2 sec.)

Rebooted to see if that would fix it

Hung at Windows screen (the progress bar boot splash) for about 3 minutes then booted fine.

Went to play a video to check it and found my slave drive missing in "my computer" and in disk management

Checked the event log and found a ton of these entries:

The file system structure on the disk is corrupt and unusable. Please run the chkdsk utility on the volume C:

(C: seems to be fine since it's my OS HD and chkdsk agrees)

The device, \Device\Ide\IdePort0, is not ready for access yet.

The driver detected a controller error on \Device\Harddisk1\D.

In an attempt to troubleshoot I:

Booted to linux to see if it could see the drive (no hdb1 to be found)

Swapped out the IDE cable for a brand new one (no change)

Changed the cable to the secondary IDE port (positive results: showed the drive in "my computer", started thinking bad IDE controller on MB)

Switched back to the original IDE port on MB and found same results (working fine)

Left well enough alone until it happened again 3 days later (today)

Tried running PowerMax to diagnose the drive and it just hangs on "detecting devices" - no joy there

Yet, I reboot after trying that and there the drive is once again, showing and behaving as it should in "my computer"

I have the drive *mostly* backed up and am about to make that 100% backed up but I'm curious as to what you guys think...Google says those errors can be caused by other *seemingly* non-related issues

Edited January 22, 2007 by tictoc5150

[TheTerrorist_75]

I had that issue with a failing logic board on a Maxtor hard drive. I would try a different slaved hard drive to confirm it isn't the IDE controller going south.

[tictoc5150]

I had intended to take that advice and test it out today (and wait for my next errors) but looked at the event viewer to see if anything misbehaved while I was at work last night and found this wonderful bit:

Event Type:	Warning
Event Source:	Ftdisk
Event Category:	Disk 
Event ID:	57
Date:		1/22/2007
Time:		4:09:57 PM
User:		N/A
Computer:	TAYLOR1
Description:
The system failed to flush data to the transaction log. Corruption may occur.

and then:

Event Type:	Warning
Event Source:	Disk
Event Category:	None
Event ID:	52
Date:		1/22/2007
Time:		4:45:53 PM
User:		N/A
Computer:	TAYLOR1
Description:
The driver has detected that device \Device\Harddisk0\DR0 has predicted that it will fail.  Immediately back up your data and replace your hard disk drive. A failure  may be imminent.

Nice!!!

I downloaded WD's Diagnostic and sure enough, failed the S.M.A.R.T. test on the "raw read error rate"

Could the IDE controller going bad make the drive 'seem' like it failed the test?

The drive is about 5 years old and owes me nothing considering that it's been running 24/7 for almost the entire 5 years.

Seeing that the first errors were for HardDisk1 and the second errors for HardDisk0 worries me that it's the MB but at this point I'd really love for it to be the drive...Drives are easy to clone and swap out, motherboards on the other hand are a bit more of a hassle and I'd rather not have to talk to a skeptical Indian fellow asking me "on how many computers is your copy of windows?" when I have to reactivate.

[TheTerrorist_75]

I would try another hard drive(s) first to see if it is the controller. I also wouldn't worry about talking to them Indians to re-validate. See if you can retrieve the wpa.dbl and wpa.bak files from the root drive and copy them to a floppy or thumbdrive. This way if you need to replace the motherboard get the same one and replace the files as below.

http://www.theeldergeek.com/activation_workaround.htm

Activate Windows XP from Floppy Diskette Backup

Circumstances arise where you'll need to reinstall Windows XP on your machine when no hardware changes have been made. Rather than go through the reactivation process, create a floppy disk to back up the activation status file. Once XP has been reinstalled the floppy can be used to restore the previous activation status.

Create the Activation Status Floppy Diskette

Navigate to %systemroot%\system32 folder.

Copy the wpa.dbl and wpa.bak files to the floppy diskette.

Reinstall Windows XP

Reinstall XP in the normal manner. After the install is completed and the XP Out Of Box Experience (OOBE) appears where you'd normally activate the product, decline to activate and let the installation complete.

Activate the XP Reinstallation

Restart the computer and use the F8 key to bring up the Advanced Boot Options menu.

Select Minimal Safe Mode using Up and Down Arrow Keys and press Enter.

Navigate to %systemroot%\system32 folder.

Rename the existing wpa.dbl and wpa.bak files.

Using the floppy diskette, copy the previously backed up wpa.dbl and wpa.bak files to the %systemroot%\system32 folder.

Reboot the computer.

[shanenin]

I personally think it will activate automatically(without a call), since you are just changing the harddrive.

edit added later//

you mentioned switching the motherboard. that still being the only piece of equipment changed, still may allow easy activation.

Edited January 23, 2007 by shanenin