Drive Wiper shuts down laptop with blue screen error message

[fatbottoms]

Something strange is happening when I run Drive Wipe on one of my drives.

Let me preface this by saying I have smart failure on my disk because of reallocated sector count.

I put in a clean install of windows on C drive and saved a backup to the D drive that is giving me problems.

First time I ran drive wipe on D, it shut down the laptop giving me a blue screen error message saying it encountered some errors etc...it disappeared before I could read the whole thing.

So I formated the D drive erasing my backup and tried to wipe the drive again.

Same thing happened again.

I noticed when I click on computer, I notice the D drive has a red bar instead of a blue bar like the other drives, so I opened the D drive and found a file that's about 20 gigs so I'm assuming it's the backup I made.

I delete the file, and the red bar disappears and shows the D drive is empty, but every time I try to run the drive wipe on the D drive, it creates this file which shuts down my laptop with a blue screen error message and a runs a chkdsk on reboot, but the chkdsk gets stuck after completeing 3of3, so I have to manually power down the laptop and restart again.

Somehow after I format the D drive. the drive wiper is recognizing the old backup and creates the file.

I know it's risky to run the drive wipe, but I don't care about losing any info, I just want to use the laptop til it dies.

[Super_Fast]

I am thinking that the 20 GB file you are talking about is one of the files in the damaged sectors of the drive, hence the bluescreen errors.

If you still have this error after running something like Kill Disk or D-BAN, you should probably replace the drive.

Others may contribute if this is wrong, but I am hunching that the bluescreen is happening because the drive wiper attempts to access an area of the drive that is in the bad sector zone, which would cause Windows to become unstable & crash.

But I am sure others will provide their opinion shortly...

[hazelnut]

I agree with Super fast here, it may be time to get a new drive.

[Augeas]

The large file you found could be the file, or one of the files, that CCleaner uses to do the drive wipe.

I assume you're running a full disk erase on the D drive?

If chkdsk is failing then there's not a lot you can do. If you're concerned about leaving data on the disk you could try one of the heavy gang as SF recommends, then dump the drive.

[fatbottoms]

Yes, I think you are right "Superfast" , I think the backup was in one of the damaged sectors.

Yes, I tried the 1 and 3 pass wipe of entire drive and same results, but this d drive is the only drive that is giving me problems with chkdsk...My other two partitioned drives are fine.

I've been told you can partition around the bad sectors on the drive to an unallocated space, so

I ran an error test with hd tune and it showed errors around the 90gb count so I tried to isolate about 40gb to a unallocated part of the drive to contain the errors, but it looks like I didn't do it right.

How do i find and isolate the damaged sectors on my drive to an unallocated space on my hd...is this the best way to proceed with a smart failure hd?

Can I run kill disk or dban on just one of my drives?

[DennisD]

Hi fatbottoms.

Is that name a reflection of oneself, or just an inclination you have?

Sorry, I just had to ask, Of course you don't have to answer, and you can tell me to butt out.

Seriously now. You mention various drives here, but are we talking about one drive with C: D: and whatever other partitions you have on it?

Is that why you're trying to avoid a simple replacement of your hard drive? I ask because if it is, that would give you some options to go with, including possibly isolating a bad section of the drive with "Unallocated Space".

I've never done that, but with a good "Partition Manager", and plenty of free space, I think it could probably be done.

MiniTools Partition Wizard 7 Home version (freeware) can do a visual surface test of a partition, as so ...

... and then maybe the result could enable an isolation of a flagged bad area. I have no idea what kind of information a surface test will produce at it's conclusion as I've never tried it, but there may be enough to have a good idea of the area to be isolated.

http://www.partition...on-manager.html

It might be an idea to have a look at MiniTools, and see what your drive looks like, and try a surface test. We'll help all we can with it.

Just supposition at the moment mind you, and it would have to be looked in more detail, and it would take time and effort, and really require you to back up that drive as an Image first, otherwise you could end up in the deep stuff.

One drive would also bring up some different suggestions as to how to "Image" your entire drive, as it is, and then restore that Image to a new hard drive, which would be a straight transplant of your current partitions and all there contents. This would be the easy option.

Macrium Reflect Home (Freeware):

Just some thoughts, so let us know what your set-up is in way of drives and partitions.

[Super_Fast]

@Dennis, I have. I have actually remapped around bad sectors on a drive. In my experience, it seems not to matter that much. It seems that a month or two, sometimes less, but definitely very shortly afterwards, the harddisk still crashes. And the next time, usually fatally, as in, not working at all.

He can do this, but be sure to back up all the data you can first. Because if it is blue-screening due to a bad data sector, chances are that your harddisk doesn't have a lot of life left.

Edit: Different drives may have different fault tolerances & last a different amount of time. In my case, the drive was partitioned to "quarantine" the bad sector. After I identified & quarantined it, then verified the other sectors were still "good", I was able to delete the bad partition & just use the good partition for setting up Windows on. I noticed that on drives with bad sectors, there may be other areas that are failing, or that can still read & write, but are close to being gone as well.

So drive read & write speeds can vary depending on where you are reading or writing from. Not just from data location on the faster or slower parts of the drive, but from being slower because Windows is having trouble reading some of the sectors...

This was my experience with several drives, so I hesitate to really recommend it as an option, unless it is a last ditch one & you really don't care about the data on the drive, but your just trying to use it till it totally dies...

[DennisD]

I tend to agree, although I'll give anything a try with the right back up first i.e. an Image of the entire drive.

An Image restore of all his partitions to a new drive is also the best and easiest option.

[fatbottoms]

Yes, when I say I have different drives named C, D, etc...I mean I have partitioned the one 250gb Toshiba hd I have in my HP.

The reason I don't just get a new hd is because I hate this laptop and refuse to spend any more money in repairing it.

I've already replaced the motherboard and I'm not about to put more money into a laptop that doubles as a furnace...in the winter who needs a heater when you have a HP laptop (g60-120us).

My laptop is very similar to a model released around the same time which had a class action lawsuit brought against them that HP had to pay out because of heat issues- the nvidia graphics just doesn't work well with the hp computers.

Because I bitched and moaned so much and brought up the class action lawsuit, they sold me a motherboard at cost for 80.00...I was debating whether to even spend the 80 to repair it when you can get a better laptop these days for under 500.

When I took my laptop in to get it repaired, the tech said that nearly all of the computers they get are HP models with heat issues.

I will try the mintool and other apps suggested, but won't get to it til I'm off work after this weekend.

Also, this was first time I've had a blue screen on this laptop, and it only occured after trying to wipe the drive.

While it's been about a month since the smart failure showed up, after the clean install, the laptop seems to run fine and boots up fast except for having to push the annoying F1 button for the smart failure at the start.

As for my moniker, yes DennisD, it refers to an affinity I have for girls who have this attribute - originally from Queen's "Fat Bottom Girls," they make the rockin' world go around...one of my favorite songs.

Also, I have online comic called fatbottoms - not what you think.

DennisD- interesting avatar...what's the story behind the pic?

[DennisD]

The avatar? That's Woody Guthrie, the first real protest singer All who later followed were poor imitations.

He was protesting when it could get you killed, or worse.

There were some pretty nasty company men back in his day. Anyways, there's a link in my signature to the official WG site.

-----------------------------------

It sounded like it was a single drive you were talking about, and I can appreciate why you're reluctant to change it.

If you have the space on the other partition/s, you could maybe switch all your files to one or both of them. And if a surface scan can accurately show you where the damaged sectors are, you could, again maybe, shrink that now empty partition and give some space from it to the others.

Or, again if you have the space, leave that partition empty, and turn it into unallocated space.

I have to stress that I've never done this, and wouldn't try it without first backing up the entire drive as a Disk Image to another drive. And as Super Fast and others have suggested, the drive may develop more damaged sectors at any time, as it does sound like it's on it's way out.

There's no perfect answer for you unfortunately, but have alook at MinTools and tell us what it says about your drive.

A screen shot of MiniTools with your drive mounted would help.

[fatbottoms]

I ran the surface test from the mini tool app, and WOW...found hundreds of errors.

So many that I stopped the surface scan on one of the larger partitions (K:) because it was taking way too long and I didn't want to push the laptop too much...fortunately, the (C:) with the OS was the only one that passed the initial surface test without errors.

I also wiped all the drives with the mini tool except for C which had the OS on it.

All the Drives wiped successfully except for K which got to 99% before it blue screened with the same error message.

I've uploaded images from the Surface test on each drive with errors before and after wipe with the mini tool.

Info about the partitions:

(J:) is the partition I tried to isolate all the bad sectors originally after the clean install and was unallocated.

(D:) and (K:) were originally all part of one partition but I tried to shrink D a little at a time to see if I could isolate where the bad sectors were by running wipe and seeing if it blue-sceened, but decided not to do it and left it as is...interesting to note when I tried to shrink D, it would only allow me to shrink it to 2.96gb partition.

Also, it seems like surface test scans with the mini tool brings up different error reports in subsequent scans...why is this?

Will running the mini tool wipe with different setting (0's and 1's) eliminate the errors that the quick wipe (just 0's) didn't correct?

@DennisD - I just saw a Dylan documentary which featured Woody Guthrie in it...Dylan's hero and main influence. It's hard to tell from your pic, but he looks so young in the picture.

@Superfast - if a block still passes the surface test, but takes a long time to verify it's ok, does a longer verifying time for the blocks indicate that it's on the way out?

[DennisD]

Wow is right.

I'm wondering if you did any backing up before you tried all this? Your system partition didn't show any errors in the scan, but messing around with adjacent partitions on the same drive could mess it up.

I've been down that road some time ago, and it can happen quite easily.

You have a large second drive there in the screen shot. Have you backed up onto there?

You have a disk which appears to be on it's last legs, but just to see what would happen, you could try running MiniTools "Check File System" on the messed up partitions, and see what it turns up.

You can run it just to "Check only", or to "Check and fix detected errors". Maybe just do a "Check only" first.

As I said previously, I can understand why you don't want to replace the drive in that Laptop, but I wouldn't use that drive any more to store important data.

The file system check in windows can isolate bad sectors so that they are ignored in future, but I think you are going to need a lot of luck for Windows to make those partitions usable. And I mean reliable as well as usable.

Just a suggestion, but if the system drive is fine at the moment, and if you don't already have one, maybe invest in a new external hard drive, and use that as you were using the partitions on your current one.

A portable USB Hard Drive isn't too expensive when compared with the cost of a new Laptop, and it will still be there if your Laptop goes down completely.

I can't really tell you much more, but I'm sure if any of the other guys can give you something better, they will.

Try the file system check and see what it comes up with. If it balks at any of them it may be because they don't have a drive letter.

I noticed in the main screenshot of MiniTools, that all partitions have letters, but the individual surface test screenshots show a couple of them without, one being "Disk 1 Partition 2".

[fatbottoms]

MiniTools "Check File System" is not available to me on the interface.

I've formatted the partitions, but that option is greyed out because I have no files in those partitions, I'm guessing.

As for backing up, the G: drive is my external hd and I've already backed up everything and created a disk after I clean installed, so I'm good.

[DennisD]

I've just formatted an old drive, and it's completely empty, but the System File Checker still runs as the partition is formatted with an NTFS file system.

Are you highlighting inside the partition as opposed to the entire drive ...

Highlighting the drive gives you a completely different set of options.

[fatbottoms]

Yes, I was highlighting the drive/partition in the user interface, but I think I might of forgotten to click apply maybe.

Anyways, Windows was having trouble recognizing the changes I made in minitools so I went into disk management and rearranged the drives/partitions.

I went ahead and did a more comprehensive deeper wipe-3 pass, and it eliminated nearly all the errors...down to 8 errors now from hundreds, but the K volume or last one on the list still blue screens with an error message near the end of the wipe so I isolated the bad sector to 16.09gb of unallocated space.

And now the new D: drive wipes without blue screening and passed the check file system...hooray! - see minitools image below for reference.

I've attached surface test results from quick wipe and 3 pass wipe.

I'm tempted to the 7 pass wipe and see if it'll get rid of all the errors.

I hope I managed to isolate all the bad sectors, but let me know, if you think I did it right from the surface test results.

[DennisD]

My good man, you are now in territory where I've never been before, and I would hazard a guess no one else on here has ever been before.

I've never had, or seen on here or anywhere else, a drive with so many errors. And I'll be honest and say I'm amazed that you've been able to do what you've done with it.

All on your own, you're doing an amazing job at resurrecting it, and I'll be honest again and say I've no idea if you could improve on what you've done with more passes. You may do, but I've really no idea.

Hats off to you for your perseverance, and I hope all your efforts have extended the life and reliability of that drive. Time will tell, but once again, you're in an area I've never been with a drive, so once again, I've no idea.

When you start using it, make sure you keep backing up your stuff on a reasonably regular basis, and if it does let go at any time, it won't be a disaster.

I've just had another look at your screenshots, and I'm amazed again.

Maybe some of the other guys might chip in with an opinion, but I'm sure they'll be patting you on the back for your perseverance.

Just make sure of one thing. Call back in here occasionally, and let us know that your drive is still going strong.

[fatbottoms]

Yes, I feel fortunate that wiping the drive corrected so many errors, but I suspected that it would, and was afraid to do it because of the condition of the drive...I thought wiping the drive would push it over the edge.

I think part of the reason so many errors were corrected is that I did so many clean installs in trying to correct a problem with my laptop not restarting on its own.

Ever since I've had this laptop, I've had problems with it restarting on its own after an update or just reboot so I would have to manually power down the laptop and push the power button to start it again...Once again, this goes back to the Nvidia graphics that doesn't work well this laptop.

I did a clean install after I caught a virus that I couldn't delete, and in a span of a few days, must of done 6 or 7 clean installs in trying to fix the restart problem...a Windows update would cause the restart problem..

I think I only stopped because of the smart failure message.

Who knows how many installs I would of done without the message...the freakin' restart's been driving me crazy for 3 years.

So after some research, I tried Spinrite on the hd and I believe iit recovered some data and corrected some errors, but it was just taking way too long, and I didn't want to push the hd over the edge so I stopped it after running it for several hours each day for a couple of days..

But the laptop was in bad shape, taking forever to boot up and crashing so I crossed my fingers and did yet another clean install.

Because of the heat issues I have with this laptop, I literally used a big box fan set on its side with the air blowing up into my suspended laptop 3 inches above it for all the installs...boy, talk about an efficient notebook cooler.

After downloading Ccleaner, I noticed the new wipe feature which made my laptop blue screen, bringing me to this forum, thank god.

Thanks to everyone who contributed and DennisD for referring the mini tool which was a great help.

And yes, I will occasionally report on the condition of the drive-about 2 months since the smart failure message, and hope to squeeze as much life I can out of this laptop, but with my luck, it'll probably die before I finish writi :)

[DennisD]

it'll probably die before I finish writi

Nice one, and good job with your drive.

[fatbottoms]

Well, it's been a couple of months since I posted this about my smart failure hd, and I'm happly to say that the laptop and hd is still doing very well.

I even spent 20.00 to get a new battery for the laptop from Amazon.

I've had issues with the firefox browser taking forever to load pages, but doing a reinstall seems to have fixed the problems...with all their updates, firefox just seems to get slower and more bogged down.

I almost wish the laptop would die already so I can get a new laptop.

[Super_Fast]

@Superfast - if a block still passes the surface test, but takes a long time to verify it's ok, does a longer verifying time for the blocks indicate that it's on the way out?

Also, it seems like surface test scans with the mini tool brings up different error reports in subsequent scans...why is this?

Yes. When a drive fails to read a block, it tries again. And again. And again. After so many tries, it marks it bad. But sometimes, you have a block that it has a hard time reading that still passes. But barely. So, yes, this means that a block is on the way out.

_____

As per your re-install & the slow browser/laptop, I am not sure what kind you have, but there may be various things you can do to speed it up a bit.

It would be awesome to know your CPU/RAM/HDD size & free space/OS

RAM is usually a great way to speed up a system, & if you have an older laptop with 512 MB RAM, your not hitting on much. XP will load & run, but any attempt to install an antivirus, surf Utube, etc, will eat what's left of it in a heartbeat.

_____

You can manage with 1 GB under XP & 7, but that is still cutting it close, because some integrated graphics cut into your RAM by using part of it for 2D/3D graphics. Cheapskates! LOL!

I'd say that about 2 GB RAM is decent, or even 1.5 GB can be sufficient if managed wisely. The more you have, the better you can multitask. But 2 GB is pretty solid.

_____

If you do not have enough RAM, your computer will page it to the HDD & slow things down a lot. Crucial memory scanner is the easiest way to check what you have & order more RAM without even opening your computer case.

I am not sure what your specs are, but a deficit in RAM will always slow a laptop or PC down.

_____

As for why it shows different errors with different scans, it could be a variety of reasons:

- A drive that is going bad will have more errors & problems the more you use it. Usually, drives that are going bad don't last too long. Couple months, if that. Sometimes, just a few weeks or even less. Depending on the drive

- Software err