8300 boot hard disk failing, replace?

Question

I have a Dimension 8300 which has been great. Lately, when scanning for adware, I've been hearing a buzzing noise from the disk at a certain point in the scan. I'm assuming that means that the disk is retrying at that point, so I think that this means I need to think about replacing the disk. This is the only disk in the system, and it is a 120Gb. SATA hard disk. This system is set up to dual-boot Windows XP and SUSE Linux (Windows installed first, then the Linux installation adjusted the NTFS partition, and added a grub dual-boot). I don't know if the dual-boot thing is relevant or not.

I have these questions:

1. Is there any non-destructive way to salvage the hard disk, like some way of remapping bad sectors? Or is this done automatically, and the buzzing means that it can't remap?

2. If I have to replace the disk, will another 120Gb. SATA disk be big enough? I do know that disks get smaller after they're formatted and partitioned, this may vary among manufacturers. On the other hand, if the replacement disk is larger (say 160Gb.), would the fdisk partition table still be valid?

3. How do I get the Dimension 8300 disk mounting bracket if I just buy a disk elsewhere (like Newegg or TigerDirect)? I've shopped Dell for SATA disks for the Dimension 8300 and come up empty. I'd be happy with either 120Gb. or 160Gb. (I think), but I don't see either in the storage part of the Dell web site.

4. What is the recommended procedure for duplicating my boot disk onto a second disk so that it is all there and bootable? I picture putting the second disk in, and doing some sort of image copy.

This is a lot of questions, but I've looked around and don't see anything on this forum that addresses my questions.

Thanks very much for your help.

-Roger

ejn63 · Answer

1. First run the Dell diagnostics to verify the drive is failing (F12 at boot). If bad sectors show up, replace the drive.

2. You can use any size drive you wish in the 8300.

3. If you're replacing a drive, just reuse the rails. If you're adding one, you'll find the additional rails in the bottom drive bay of the case.

4. The cleanest way to do this is with a copy of Acronis True Image or Symantec Ghost V. 10.

doh_123 · Answer

So far I've run chkdsk, which did fix some stuff. I've just now run the adware scanner that hit the bad area on the disk and heard the disk noise again at the very end of the scan.

I haven't run the F12 diagnostics yet, but will do that next.

My concern about disk size was whether programs like Acronis or Casper XP would be able to copy/clone to a slightly smaller disk (if the formatted capacity of the replacement 120Gb. disk ended up slightly less than the old one). From what you say, this isn't an issue...the disk isn't full in any case. And after reading about the copy/clone tools, they seem to be able to adjust the fdisk partition table to adapt to the new disk as long as there's enough free space.

I'll look for the extra rails...from past experience, Dell computers don't include anything extra in this area, but I'd be happy to find them there.

Thanks very much for all your help.

-Roger

doh_123 · Answer

Sorry about the fire drill. I ran the diagnostics available through F12 boot, and it said that the drive was fine. So I got an idea, and re-ran the spyware scanner since the "noise from the disk" was just at the end of the scan. And guess what, the floppy light lit up at exactly the time that the buzzing noise occurred that I thought was coming from the hard disk. So, the whole problem has been the floppy drive noise doing a perfect imitation of failing hard disk noise. I don't know why the spyware scanner tries to scan the floppy drive, I never even think about the darned thing (*smile*), but this is the first time I've experienced this.

Sorry to take up people's time, but as a result I've now got a pretty darn good idea of what to do when the time comes. And after all the other research I've done, I'm contemplating getting an extra disk of the same size anyways, and occasionally doing an image copy to it (and testing that it's bootable, as well), so that I have a live backup/replacement that I can boot from if I need to.

I've been backing up to CD-R all along, just data files, email, bookmarks, etc., though. And just the other day I ordered a Plextor PX-740A for backup to DVD-R, since I'm tired of spending time deleting files and going through my backup selections all the time to slim things down. So a bootable backup is my main concern at this point.

Again, thanks for the help.

-Roger

rickmktg · Answer

@doh_123 wrote:
So far I've run chkdsk, which did fix some stuff. I've just now run the adware scanner that hit the bad area on the disk and heard the disk noise again at the very end of the scan.

I haven't run the F12 diagnostics yet, but will do that next.

My concern about disk size was whether programs like Acronis or Casper XP would be able to copy/clone to a slightly smaller disk (if the formatted capacity of the replacement 120Gb. disk ended up slightly less than the old one). From what you say, this isn't an issue...the disk isn't full in any case. And after reading about the copy/clone tools, they seem to be able to adjust the fdisk partition table to adapt to the new disk as long as there's enough free space.

I'll look for the extra rails...from past experience, Dell computers don't include anything extra in this area, but I'd be happy to find them there.

Thanks very much for all your help.

-Roger
The rails are in there, and as mentioned the old ones are easily removed. You only need to old drive to copy anyway as it's failing.

No program is needed to be bought if you use the manufacturer's software to copy old to new. However, no program may work right if in fact the old disk is dying/dead.

I would STRONGLY recommend that you stop playing around right now and copy your data before doing anything else, you may be living on borrowed time.

rickmktg · Answer

@doh_123 wrote:
Sorry about the fire drill. I ran the diagnostics available through F12 boot, and it said that the drive was fine. So I got an idea, and re-ran the spyware scanner since the "noise from the disk" was just at the end of the scan. And guess what, the floppy light lit up at exactly the time that the buzzing noise occurred that I thought was coming from the hard disk. So, the whole problem has been the floppy drive noise doing a perfect imitation of failing hard disk noise. I don't know why the spyware scanner tries to scan the floppy drive, I never even think about the darned thing (*smile*), but this is the first time I've experienced this.

Sorry to take up people's time, but as a result I've now got a pretty darn good idea of what to do when the time comes. And after all the other research I've done, I'm contemplating getting an extra disk of the same size anyways, and occasionally doing an image copy to it (and testing that it's bootable, as well), so that I have a live backup/replacement that I can boot from if I need to.

I've been backing up to CD-R all along, just data files, email, bookmarks, etc., though. And just the other day I ordered a Plextor PX-740A for backup to DVD-R, since I'm tired of spending time deleting files and going through my backup selections all the time to slim things down. So a bootable backup is my main concern at this point.

Again, thanks for the help.

-Roger
While setting up a backup plan is a good idea, yours is slightly flawed. Instead of copying the entire drive to a bootable drive, you should buy a big drive and save regular images (i.e. versions) of your existing drive. If it fails, you then restore the most current.

Why? Here's one reason. You start the process to make a new copy, and 1/2 way through your boot drive fails. Result is you have no copies as the backup was 1/2 way done being created...

doh_123 · Answer

Rick,

I appreciate what you're saying. However, my current backups onto CD-R pretty much have all the stuff that I care about on them. And I don't see how having a large disk that has multiple images on it really helps me in maintaining a bootable backup disk, or in setting up a replacement disk after my current boot disk has failed. You can't boot the large disk, and need to have some OS running in order to restore one of the images to a new replacement disk. At least, I don't see how you could do an image copy to a replacement disk without an OS to support that operation? Maybe there's a way to do this that I'm not aware of.

More to the point would be to have two live backup disks and rotate making an image copy to each of them. That way, if the real boot disk failed while making an image copy, I'd still have a bootable disk. Since I'm using SATA, I could, in theory, have 3 hard disks in my 8300, assuming that the power supply would support it. I don't know if it is really worth it, the risk of the real boot disk failing when making an image copy seems lower than it failing during the other 23.5 hours of the day.

At any rate, yes, you're right, making an image copy to a backup disk is more risky than some other approachs, but much less risky than what I'm doing now.

Again, thanks so much for taking the time to help out.

-Roger

ejn63 · Answer

You do not need to reinstall the OS to do a recovery from an image stored on an external drive. The major imaging utilities (Acronis TrueImage and Symantec Ghost) both support booting from a CD and doing a bare-metal recovery without the need for a time consuming manual reinstall of the OS.

They are a tremendous time-saver in case of drive failure - one CD plus a current image and you can be back up and running in as little as 15 minutes, vs. hours or days of manual reinstallation and reconfiguration without the utility.

doh_123 · Answer

Interesting...so maybe I should be thinking of getting Acronis and a larger external (USB?) or internal backup disk. Given that my current boot disk is 120Mb., guess I'll need about 250Gb. worth of storage to have two images backed up (so if my boot disk croaks making one, I'll have an older one to work from).

I wasn't aware that Acronis supported booting from CD, that should indeed allow rebuilding things on a new disk.

Thanks for the clue.

-Roger

shesagordie · Answer

Doh_123   You can download the full retail version of Acronis True Image 9.0 Software @ $29.99 from here,  http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E1681279691SF    Bev.

doh_123 · Answer

Bev,

Thanks for the URL.

My question is how do I get the CD that others have mentioned that would be used to put together a replacement boot hard drive if I do a download? Does the download allow you to make this CD, or do you need the boxed product for this functionality?

-Roger

shesagordie · Answer

Doh_123

Yes, you can download Acronis true Image 9.0 to the desktop and then burn it to a CD for future use, then download and print the instructions from,

http://www.acronis.com/homecomputing/download/docs/

You download the exact same copy of Acronis, as the boxed retail version.

Bev.

rickmktg · Answer

@doh_123 wrote:
Interesting...so maybe I should be thinking of getting Acronis and a larger external (USB?) or internal backup disk. Given that my current boot disk is 120Mb., guess I'll need about 250Gb. worth of storage to have two images backed up (so if my boot disk croaks making one, I'll have an older one to work from).

I wasn't aware that Acronis supported booting from CD, that should indeed allow rebuilding things on a new disk.

Thanks for the clue.

-Roger

You're still missing the point on images. If you do what you stated above, there is no reason to have a full copy of the drive vs. a storage image. If you have a 120gb drive and you're using maybe 50gb of it, a Norton image with normal compaction might take 30gb. So, with a 120gb drive you could store 3 complete images. In other words, you don't need a 250gb to store 2 copies of the 120, you could store 7 copies on it.

I have Ghost set to image weekly (I also image data daily), it runs while I sleep from 10PM Sunday to 6AM Monday, creates images of all 3 computers (both C drives and data drives) on a server that only stores images. I keep 4 copies of each C drive and 8 copies of each data drive, and all that fits on one 200 and one 250. That includes a bunch of photos and games too.

doh_123 · Answer

Rick,

Well, the water is muddied a bit by the dual-boot, but if the image can be compacted, that's cool. While I wasn't aware of this, it is good news, and I'll certainly take advantage of it. I was simply making the conservative assumption that compaction wouldn't be done, since I don't want the image copier software to be playing with the Grub dual-boot, other than to copy it, and I'm not sure yet that the Linux partition can be compacted by Acronis and/or Ghost, as well as the Windows NTFS partition.

I'll be looking into this more in the near future.

Thanks for all your help.

-Roger

doh_123 · Answer

Well, replying to my own reply *sigh*...It occurred to me that if the compaction is on the basis of a classic bit compression algorithm, like bzip2 or some such, then it doesn't make any difference what's in the partitions. Just stuff to be compressed, no knowledge of what the bytes mean is needed.

Told you I needed to do more research...I'll eventually get this all figured out.

-Roger

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8300 boot hard disk failing, replace?

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