Confirmed: Shooty* is a drama queen

[Shooty*]

OK, I've just installed a full version of Home Server over my trial version.

This in itself was not without problems, mainly the fact that PowerPack 3 seems to have made it steer like a cow now. Still, nevermind.

What I would like your help on, dear reader, is the following:

The server has 3 x 1tb disks in it.

These are backed up on 2 x 1.5tb disks, one of which my parents got me for xmas. I store them separately, to guard against the usual fire, burglary, etc, and periodically connect them to ensure synchronisation.

I fouled up the reinstall of WHS, so have to wipe the 3x1tb disks. BUt that's OK, coz I just copied the contents over from the back up drives later.

And, largely, this was fine. 2.6tb of stuff got copied over without a hitch.

However, 5 files fouled up. They were all 350meg avi files, and were all near each other on the disc (similar names, and I chekced the physical location with O&O Defrag). When I tried to transfer these files, I got "cyclic redundancy error" and they would not transfer. There were files in between the locations of those files which transferred fine. When I tried to play the affected files, they play up to the point roughly corresponding with when the transfer borked (i.e. if the file would appear to tranfer about 50% before cyclic error, the avi would play to the 50% position), then freeze, and play fine when I forward it on a minutes or so.

I moved the back up 1.5tb drive in question to another computer, and got the same result. I am happy that the fault does not lie on any of the 3x1tb drives in teh server.

Question:
Does cyclic reduncany error mean that my hard drive is irrevocably borked?

Quesiton 2:
Or can the error just indicate that, for whatever reason, the files in question did not transfer properly that time?

I ran O&O Defrag's drive check, and it found no errors on the drive. I'm about to run the vista scan disk thingy. I would have expected O&O to show bad sectors if there were any, but it didn't.

Any thoughts gratefully appreciated. Any software recommendations for decent drive checked also would be good.

Cheers.

[peterb]

<---snip

Question:
Does cyclic reduncany error mean that my hard drive is irrevocably borked?

Quesiton 2:
Or can the error just indicate that, for whatever reason, the files in question did not transfer properly that time?

I ran O&O Defrag's drive check, and it found no errors on the drive. I'm about to run the vista scan disk thingy. I would have expected O&O to show bad sectors if there were any, but it didn't.

Any thoughts gratefully appreciated. Any software recommendations for decent drive checked also would be good.

Cheers.

Probably not - could just be an error transferring large files resulting in file corruption - unusual, but it happens.

You rarely see bad sectors at the drive level. Drives have 'spare' sectors that are mapped into use if a sector is showing signs of failing, but this is detected by software withing the drive itself, and should never appear at the user interface (until they are all mapped into use - which should be a dew years down the road)

[Shooty*]

So...I should be OK?

[Steve]

It's more likely to be the external drive enclosure causing the issue. I'd recommend making sure the cable is in good condition and not too long, and that the enclosure firmware is at the latest version if it has one.

A chkdsk /r might be a good idea too.

[Shooty*]

It's not an external, but the point is well made. It's a naked drive that I slot into an Antec Easy Sata CD bay quick release mechanism. When I had it connected to the "other" computer, I was connecting straight to SATA headers on mobo, but good call.