I just finished running chkdsk c: /f /b, went about 1.5 hrs. Afterwards, I looked again and still see reallocated sectors, same as before running it. Is there another way of correcting bad sectors? I did see another bit of strangeness, looking at both drives, the WD has much higher (error?) thresholds than the internal drive, and more reallocated sectors. Is that because of the difference in size? Are these numbers set by the MFG'er in firmware? I've done the basic chkdsk on p:, now will try the /f b/ and see... Russ
I have only experiences using the /f switch. Since I am using SSDs I did not use chkdsk anymore, there were no bad sectors at all. If I remind correctly the system drive is locked in some way and it asked for repair on / during next reboot when it's not locked anymore. Keep in mind using repair functions can recover old data and a sys drive might refuse to boot. This actually applies to any HDD and repair attempts. Backups should be available when trying just in case it screws more than it helps. Either way never interrupt a currently running chkdsk process.
Not all systems allow you to mask the Removable flag. In my system (ASUS mobo), I will get the Removable flag only if I declare the corresponding SATA socket as being "e-SATA".
OK, thanks all. Guess it's gonna be a "fixed disk" from now on, unless it decides to flip back for yet another unknown reason! Russ
Arrrgh, this s**te is becoming a nightmare. It doesn't matter if I use the "Safely Remove Hardware" anymore, my 'puter always needs a reboot in order to see the removable HDD. Even then, my scheduled nightly backup refuses to run. I don't know what that first "red x" line means so I can't diagnose it. This "fixed disk" crap started before my "C" drive crapped out and had to be restored from a previous backup. Guess when I get home from vacation, I'll reformat everything and start over... Russ
Did I ever tell you I HATE electronic cr@p?. It is sooooo freakin' flaky! Yanked the HDD cable today w/o doing the "safely remove hardware" just knowing that a reboot would be required. Later on, plugged it in before rebooting and heard the dee-dunk sound of a connection. Looked in my computer and the drive was showing up. Tried it with a 2nd removable HDD and it worked too. Pulled and plugged (hot-swapping) a bunch of times and they all worked. Just when you think you know something, you find out you don't know jack... BTW, I cloned the the b/u program settings to a new scheme and it ran fine. Guessing the fail error was due to it being on a new (different) internal HDD. Russ
Started requiring a reboot again to be recognized. Found some errors concerning the USB hub, rooted around and found a slightly newer driver package, installed that, and it seems OK for now. I do see a new service I didn't have before, "usb3mon.exe", so maybe that was the problem. Anyway, I can hot-swap drives now w/o any apparent problems. Hope this helps someone... Russ