wd hard drive probably about to crash

about a week ago, i ran piriform defraggler on my wd 1tb external hd. ever since then, itunes hasn't been able to locate a lot of the mp3s i have stored on there. today, it wasn't reading anything. i tried to open my music folder in the hard drive and got an I/O device error message. so, i disabled the device in the control panel, restarted the computer, and enabled the device. now, i can go into the folder but itunes still isn't reading shit. anyway, my question is, i think my hard drive is going to **** up, is there anything i should do to prevent that?
thanks

 

If your HD is going bad, there's nothing you can do to prevent it. Back up your data now.

 

You might want to run a chkdsk on it to see if piriform caused a few errors.
Right click the drive in Computer and select Properties and then Tools menu select Check for errors. Leave the first box checked and hit OK. See if any difference.

If not you can go back and check both boxes and let it run (will take quite a bit longer).

[I can't say how good a defragger it is, as I only used it once, but Defraggler takes a Looong time to defrag. I don't know what it is doing but it makes me a bit suspect of its capabilities. No other defragger takes near as long in my experience.]

 

Hi!! I have a question. Why are you defraging your external HD?? Are you using it for some thing more than storage?? It is my opinion you defrag a drive to increase speed when your searching your OS. It sounds like you may have lost some music. Would like to ask; have you defraged your external drive before, and why do you think it's needs to be defraged?? Are you using it for reasons other than storage?? If not I see no reason to defrag your external drive. That's my opinion????? I store pictures and back ups on my External drive and see no reason to defrag it.

 

I copied this from internet and I have read this many times.

 

sach2, thanks. i ran the chkdsk and it seems to be running smoothly now. i probably won't use piriform's defraggler again.

oneeyejack, i'm not sure if all of those questions were rhetorical or not, but i move about a gig of mp3s to this external hard drive every day. i didn't know i wasn't supposed to defragment them

 

I'm glad chkdsk helped a bit.

I don't want to put down Piriform too badly as they say the first defrag takes the longest but it just seems to do a whole lot more calculating than necessary. Maybe it is optimizing system files but I just don't like it.

I always used O&O defrag but my version wouldn't run on Win7 and I got some kind of give-away of the day on Perfect Disk. It works fine for me but when I reload Win7 sometime soon will probably try out O&O's free version although I don't like the new interface--I'll have to research if the paid version looks better (I'm shallow that way).

I don't see any problem with defragmenting an external, especially if you add/delete a lot of files. I defrag my storage drives about once or twice a month usually when I delete a lot of files. It seems to me consolidating free space makes things run more quickly for a while when reading/writing to/from those drives.

 

Hi guys. I just go by what I read on the internet. I use my USB mostly for back up images of my OS. I don't degrag it and see no reason to. If sach2 says it's OK , then I'm guess it's OK. I'm by no means an expert on this and like I said in my reply" In my opinion it's not necessary????". I'm glad you got every thing fixed. I use piriform defrag , but never defraged my external USB. It sounds to me that it might not be a good idea if it's going to cause you problems. I'm still wondering if you have defraged your USB before using piriform or another defrag program, and if you did; did you have these problems??
PS Do you ever defrag your registry??

 

sorry oneeye. yeah, i've used piriform for my C: and other external and i've had no problems, except it does take a couple of hours. i'm just worried about defragmenting at all now at the risk of losing everything on my external hard drives. and i'm not sure if i've ever defragged my registry, i don't know what that means

 

Hi friend. I'm totally confused. I thought your thread was about a problem after you defraged your USB with piriform. I understand after a chkdsk, every thing is now OK, and that's a good thing. I have never ran a chkdsk on my USB, and I never defrag it. I only run it on my active drive(C Drive). Never even thought about running it on my USB. I would keep doing what ever works for you. Here is a link for Major Geeks Registry defrag. Don't know if it does any good, but Major Attitude, our leader, recommended it, and what ever he recommends, I give it a shot. Safe surfing friend!!
http://majorgeeks.com/Eusing_Free_Registry_Defrag_d6132.html

 

Short definitions !! I learn every thing I know from forums and Google and members like sach2
CHKDSK is a command in DOS and Microsoft Windows system which verifies hard disk or floppy disk for file system integrity. It is similar to fsck command in UNIX. Under Windows 2000 and Windows XP, CHKDSK can also check disk surface for bad sectors, the task previously done by SCANDISK. CHKDSK can also fix errors.

Defrag Is a process (run by a defragging program) whereby parts of data files on all segments of a computer hard disk are taken from their fragmented state (with parts of files spread all over the disk), and grouped together in complete-file segments. This makes it quicker for applications to find the files they need and frees up disk space, making the computer run more efficiently.
PS I learn some thing new every day. I try to help when I think I can.

 

I have used defraggler on my pc and hundreds of computers that i have work on through out the last 2 years, and never had any issues. As far as speed i can't say as i never sit and watch any defragger do its job, just start it and walk away lol. Other then that oneeyejack has it covered info wise.

 

Other then that oneeyejack has it covered info wise.

Thank you sir!! You just made my day

[/QUOTE]

 

alright, after the following events, i felt like i should return to this thread. i realized that the chkdsk didn't fix my hard drive, so i went back and checked both boxes. that chkdsk took 5 days to complete. afterwards, the hard drive is still behaving the same way. it seems like the most recent folder i added to it has a corrupted file inside. when i try to delete the folder, i get a 0x80070091 message and can't delete the file. i tried to delete in safe mode with no luck. if i move all of the files to another hard drive and reformat this one, will it take care of the problem? will i be able to use this hard drive again?

thanks again

 

Hi,

Since it is an external drive you can use the Windows version of the Western Digital Diagnostic program. Start here and select your HD type and you will get to a page for downloading the program.

Run the short test to see if the SMART status is good or bad. That should tell you if it is a mechanical problem. After that run the Long/Extended test which will be a bit more capable than chkdsk of marking bad sectors bad and fixing errors. Or if the SMART status is bad and you want to save time; skip the long test and use the WD low level format option to mark bad sectors and format at the same time (as long as you already have all the data you need off the HD)

A hard drive with a bad SMART status is always suspect but after reformatting I have used them for data files for years with no problems. I wouldn't trust them for running my operating system as a single bad sector that holds a system file can keep the OS from booting.

 

which of these should i download? http://support.wdc.com/product/download.asp?groupid=120&lang=en

 

3rd one (I think)

 

Hmm, wait up; the VCD software, if it's been installed (it's sometimes installed automatically on first connection of the WD) can cause problems when using normal Windows tools on the drive.

This can encrypt much or all of your data into what looks like a single file, some antimalware tools will detect rootkit like hidden files:

I suggest you disable the VCD via the VCD manager before doing anything else. Once disabled (and assuming it also removes any encryption) you may be able to see your files again. I doubt if iTunes will automatically pick up the media files as the path and/or drive letters might have changed.

Note that once you've selected the 3rd option on the WD site, there are 2 pages to read through.

 

Hi,

Try satrow's advice. Looking at the download page for your HD, I don't see an applicable diagnostic program. Perhaps it is due to the backup software on the drive but the standard WD diagnostic program is not listed for that drive so nothing there will check your drive for errors as I had thought.

 

This is the program I use to check my WD Drive!