Chkdsk taking a long time

Hi guys,

I'll start with spec then work my way to my question. I have a P8Z77-V Pro mobo, i5-3570k CPU, 8GB RAM 2000Mhz, NVidia GeForce GTX 560 Ti, 128GB OCZ Petrol SSD, 2TB Barracuda HDD and I'm running on Windows 7.

I was using my SSD as my primary drive and storing everything else on my HDD. Couple of Fridays ago, I got impatient with the speed at which my computer was shutting down, so I held the power button in for however long it took to cut the power. After work, I turned on my computer and got an 'Error reading disk' (white font on black screen), I rebooted and got a 'Please insert bootable drive and restart' (or something like that). I put Live Ubuntu onto my USB stick and partitioned my 2TB to hold Windows 7 so I could at least boot into Windows 7.
Since 2nd July, I've been running chkdsk /f F: (which was the drive my SSD was assigned to) and it's still going. It's corrected 16 errors (in index $130) since it started but for the last 36 odd hours it's been stuck correcting an error.

Am I doing the right thing here? Should it take this long to correct one error? It hasn't taken this long with the other 16.

 

OCZ Petrol SSDs are not good quality and have a very high rate of both failures and returns. Many of the older OCZs had similar problems; the latest range seems to be better, at least for the more costly models.

For reliable SSDs, stick with Intel, Crucial, Samsung and, probably, Plextor. Most of the others, while they may score well for value or speed, are simply not worth the risk.

 

Check OCZ's website to see if there's a firmware update available for the drive (be sure to back up the drive, if possible, before installing any updates).

I agree with satrow. If a firmware update doesn't solve the problem and/or the drive is out of warranty, I'd dump it and get one of the brands satrow listed.

 

Thanks for the replies
I can't actually access my data on the SSD without it crashing Windows. I'm surprised it even got to a check disk quite frankly.
I've got some data on it that I want to keep -photos etc - that I didn't get a chance to back up before this happened.

 

You can try hooking the drive up to a working PC using a drive enclosure such as this:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817155704

You may be able to read the drive contents and transfer the data before you replace the drive or run a firmware update.

 

... and use something like Unstoppable Copier to grab the data rather than Windows Explorer, it could save a lot of frustration and repetition.

 

Clearly, with hindsight, you know now you should NEVER simply kill power to computer because all sorts of opened files remain and disk corruption is highly possible.

I have seen chkdsk take over 2 days to work its way through a 1.5Tb drive, seeming to be hung for hours on end, but it eventually made it. But this long on a 128Gb SSD is too long.

I agree with gman - hook that SSD up to another computer as a secondary (not boot) drive and salvage any data you don't want to lose.

 

Yes I have very definitely learned my lesson now.

I was just wondering how plugging the SSD into a USB casing is any different to what I'm doing now?

 

There is a big difference between plugging in a USB device and suddenly killing power to the whole unit.

When Windows (any OS) is running, it typically has many files opened, some critical for operation - many more may be opened if you have opened any documents, etc. When you "gracefully" shutdown Windows and then shut off power, Windows first saves any opened files, properly exits opened programs, and then deletes many temporary files it has opened before finally shutting down completely.

If this happens to the boot drive, improperly closed files may result in file corruption of critical system files, and failure to boot.

USB connected drives typically are not boot drives. Also, USB is designed to allow "hot-swapping" - plugging in and unplugging devices while the system is up and running ("hot") - depending on the settings for that USB device.

 

I know the basics behind USB connections. I'm just wondering what it will do for me now? I've got the SSD as a secondary drive and it's running check disk. I'm going to buy a new SSD for the future, but I just want to get my data off my current one. I can't access the drive because it's check disk-ing. I'm considering cancelling it (I'm going to have to on Saturday if it's not finished because I'm moving) but I'm worried that I won't be able to get any data off still.

 

You may not be able to recover any data, but you should allow chkdsk to complete, if it will.

It should work normally.