Partitioning Hard drives: Healthy or not?

[GoGeTa006]

So, for some of you that have been there in my times of needs. . .I thank you

I have officially resigned all hope and accept the fact that I lost around 500 - 600 GB worth of anime in my external hard drive due to some cyclic redundancy bullshit. . .

ANYWAYS!
the hard drive seems fine, no weird noises. . .I ran the WD check up utility as suggested and it seems fine.


The question at hand now. . .
given the recent issue, I was wondering "maybe if the hard drive was partitioned, only half (or X partition) fails and the other partitions are safe. . ."

is this true?
would that mean that it is recommended to have large hard drives into smaller partitions?
other than physical failure, internal failure (total loss) can be avoided by partitioning hard drive?

those are my questions, since now I have a 1 TB of unallocated space. . .which I am still very skeptical to use since it failed me once. . .although Im assuming that its because it was an external hard drive and I think the USB interface can at some point be the problem. . .

*EDIT*

clarifying question:

1)IF A NON-PHYSICAL FAILURE happens, something like that cyclic redundancy or some other "bad data" thing. . . will it fuck up ONLY the partition that its on?

if the answer is yes then it is obvious that partitioning is indeed an effective way to "save" data. . .
right?

[kitamesume]

partitioning doesn't necessarily save you from file loss, well it could but highly unlikely. well because once a drive is failing, the contents is doomed to get affected.

ps: before you do anything, can you try putting that HDD back in it's external enclosure and run it again? oh and do try another USB cable.

[Lupin]

the hard drive seems fine, no weird noises. . .I ran the WD check up utility as suggested and it seems fine.

Check the SMART attributes of the drive. Drives can pass the test as long as the attributes are in the "safe" range. But any decrease (or increase, depending on the attribute) in the critical attributes is an early sign of impending failure.

[GoGeTa006]

partitioning doesn't necessarily save you from file loss, well it could but highly unlikely. well because once a drive is failing, the contents is doomed to get affected.

ps: before you do anything, can you try putting that HDD back in it's external enclosure and run it again? oh and do try another USB cable.

I already "quick-formated" the disc on the disc manager, its now 1TB hard drive (Im thinking of partitioning it into 2 500 GB ones) I didnt try it back on the external enclosure, TBH it doesnt make sense that that would work. . .I've never had problems with internal hard drives, usually failure occurs in external hard drives due to the USB interface fking up at some moment in reading/writing. . .

also that new hard drive ib ought (750 GB) Im thinking in partitioning it around half also. . .I am asking if this is recommended tho

[Stsin]

How many times has this happened? and on different externals?

Yea, if the CRC errors are caused from disconnecting while writing, it would most likely only effect that partition.  But honestly, I'd fix it so that would never happen again.  If can't, may want to try setting the the 'Removal Policy' of that drive to 'Safe Removal' instead of 'Better Performance'.  Also prevent as much writing to it as possible, like turn off indexing and scheduled tasks such as defragmenting.

Here's a thread on tools to recover such data loss if it happens again:
http://www.techsupportforum.com/forums/f16/drive-is-not-accessible-data-error-cyclic-redundancy-check-605287.html#post3536338

[Slysoft]

what you should do, is get an extra hard drive and setup raid 1. It basically mirrors everything onto another hard drive and while not as much as raid 0, still improves read performance while effectively providing a backup drive since it doesn't use striping like raid 0.

[datora]

.
I'd not rely on a quick format with the Windows Disk Manager.  May I assume you're using WinXP at this point ..?

With the drive connected directly to your system (NOT over USB),

1) I'd do a quick analysis and check SMART with the WD utility

2) then do a full detailed analysis (takes ~2-2.5 hours for a 2TB drive)

3) then do a full format with that WD analysis tool; it will also align sectors (again, ~2-2.5 for 2TB)

4) Does not hurt to check SMART again at that point & see if anything is changing dramatically; if so, that's a Bad Sign.  Any changes should be VERY minor or not at all, that would indicate a healthy hardware situation ... which we suspect at this point, but would be nice to confirm before going through this all over again ...

THEN

5) I'd go into Win Disk Manager.  You can cut the drive into 2 or 3 partitions; it can't hurt and there might be some benefit if something similar happens again.  Chances are it won't make a difference, but it will not hurt you for that slim possibility that it could make a difference.

And, when you make those partitions (three max is good enough for the 1 TB, two enough for the 750 GB), do a full and real format w/ Disk Manager.  You won't get a chance to do this again, hopefully ever, so spend a little time and do it right at the beginning.

Also, might want to do the very same steps 1) - 5) with the 750 GB before you rely on it.  If it is not a Western Digital drive, you can still use the WD utility on it, as long as any Western Digital drive is detected on your system.  I used that utility to analyze and format several 2 TB Samsung drives that way, a couple of them more than once.

You'll have done two different and full formats by the time you have your usable drive again ... if there's any errors at the disk/hardware level, they should turn up.  Run SMART again and look for changes again when it's done.  If no or minimal changes show up, you should have confidence that your drive is now "refurbished/recertified," so to speak.

Then, the other advice above about using it in a USB enclosure .. yeah.  Pay close attention to disconnecting it properly, make sure your cable is quality & not loose, don't have your OS or other utilities doing stupid things like constantly accessing for no good reason.

You seem to be torrenting directly off this drive ..?  Try to find another option.  If you do that anyway, make sure the drive/enclosure are staying cool.

If you can place your system on an uninterruptable power supply, even a small one, that's a Good Plan.  If there are small power variations (air conditioners, refrigerators, microwave ovens, hair dryers, etc.) in your current, those could cause write problems on your drives.

I lost several drives when lightening struck nearby and flickered the power for an instant.  Surge suppressors (very powerful & professional quality ones) did nothing to help.  Battery UPS keeps the current smooth through minor glitches like that and really helps to preserve the life of ALL electronics.  I even use them on my best stereo componants when I can afford to.  A 350V/550watt UPS is great, 750 W is better ... but even a 250 W will get you through little microsecond spikes and fails, even help you out for a couple minutes.


[ EDIT: @Slysoft -- RAID 0 does not mirror anything.  It's for performance boost only.  One drive fails, all is lost.  RAID 1 is somewhat useful, RAID 5 is much more betterer.  However, GoGeTa006 has already indicated that buying more drives at this point isn't an option.  He's just going to have to risk it for a while, and take great care with what he has.  With the 750 GB drive becoming available, you'll have a good manual back-up option for a while.  Use the time to learn and plan how to prevent this in the future. ]

[ EDIT again:  Huh.  Sorry about that.  "not as much as raid 0" threw me off.  Careless/quick reading on my part. ]

[Slysoft]

I know raid 0 doesn't mirror it. That's why I said use raid 1. Raid 5 requires at least 3 hard drives and also has the possibility of a write hole (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAID_5_write_hole) so I think raid 1 would be the best option. If he can't buy another drive then it's a moot argument though.

[GoGeTa006]

TBH I kind of know what happened. . .but Im not going to get in an argument over it. . .

my roommate got hooked on FMA:Brotherhood and I happen to have the whole series on my external hard drive, so I lent it to him over the winter break while I went on vacation. . .apparently "half-way trough", the computer wouldnt open the drive anymore. . .

I did specifically told him "never unplug the hard drive unless you eject it or the computer is shut down!! and always disconnect the external hard drive from the power AFTER you eject it or the ocmputer i shut off"


I have a big feeling that he failed to do something at some point and it fked it up. . .
but he says he did everything as instructed and that i was just a sudden thing, w/e Im not gonna have an argument with him over already broken dishes

-------------------------------------------
=================================

anyways thnks datora I'll do that

[Freedom Kira]

Heh, make him get his own external. I never lend my externals out. If someone wants to grab stuff from me, I'll copy stuff onto an external they give to me or let them do it themselves, but my externals stay with me, unless I know whoever I'm lending to is 99% diligent about safely removing the drive (the remaining 1% dedicated to those times that Windows randomly refuses to eject the drive).

Anyway, on partitioning - in your case, it makes sense, since CRC errors are usually due to specific portions of the disk, rather than mechanical failure, which would just kill your whole disk anyway. But yeah, you probably have a couple of bad sectors, and they do happen every so often. Like I suggested in your other thread, let Windows do a long format to mark bad sectors.

Note that you might want to re-word your question, since drives must always be partitioned before they can be used; Windows just calls it "formatting."

[fubuu11]

my asnwer would be yes... as the user above me explaineed it... but if you really want a redundant storage... RAID 1 like the other user wrote.... or RAID 5 , RAID 10 if your willing to spend some extra bucks.... and sorry for my bad english... 

[kitamesume]

i wonder if its possible to partition a drive to something like 4GB and do software raid-1 with a 4GB ramdisk to make a super fast partition

thinking of making fun on it, like moving caches and some games into it =O

[SilverDash]

Only specific raid system's and other backup system'ss that actually back the data up to another hardware device are safe. Preferably even to another physical location on the world.

I used to use raid 50 (5+0). That's 6 HD's linked together non-stop backing each other up. Even when 2 disks break you might still have a fully running system. Even your Windows will still run if you pull em out. The problem with raid 5 and raid 50 is that the HD-access is huge. Therefor the HD's will break way sooner than the normally do. HD's weren't designed for that. In my case most HD's didnt even last 1 year... One way to somewhat counter that is by using a 7th HD outside the RAID for the operating system. But I don't recommend RAID 5 or 50 to inexperienced users as there are many things that you might configure wrong.

Another problem with raid systems is that the raid controller itself might break and then you got nothing untill you replace it with the exact same raid controller... And they might be slower in some cases.

But the biggest mother of all problems: If your power supply is bad then every single HD might break. Unless you use an expensive server power supply. Had it only twice in 20 years or so tough. Still sucked. Had to throw away 90% of all hardware including the HD's...

1)IF A NON-PHYSICAL FAILURE happens, something like that cyclic redundancy or some other "bad data" thing. . . will it fuck up ONLY the partition that its on?

Maybe. Depends on the software fail. But almost always the entire drive is gone or random parts all over it.

As for the raid 5 hole.. A few bits on trillions and trillions of bits in total ain't much of a problem I think. Even a single letter uses atleast 8 bits. 1TB = 1000000000000 bytes = 8000000000000 bits. That x 1500 or so and then a few of those might switch. And even when they switch, a bit can only be 0 or 1 so there is still a 50% chance that it is the right one lol.
You can use a UPS system to protect your hardware against power spikes and power outages tough. A bit overkill but it is possible.

[Pentium100]

1)IF A NON-PHYSICAL FAILURE happens, something like that cyclic redundancy or some other "bad data" thing. . . will it fuck up ONLY the partition that its on?

CRC errors are caused by two problems:
1) Those sectors became unreadable because the media or the heads are failing.
2) There was a power problem during writing or a bad data cable (more likely with IDE than SATA or SCSI) resulted in wrong/incomplete data being written in the first place.

In case of #1, the whole drive might fail soon. In case of #2, using more than one partition would only help if you access only one partition at a time.

If a drive has bad blocks, use MHDD and run the "ERASE" command, it will overwrite the entire drive and either fix the bad blocks caused by #2 or cause the drive to remap the bad blocks caused by #1. You will have to back up the drive before doing it.

Bad sectors are the most damaging if they occur in the file system area (FAT file systems have a backup copy of the FAT, but for some weird reason NTFS only has a partial copy of the MFT), otherwise it may be that just a single file is damaged.

[Proin Drakenzol]

There is no RAID 0, that's striping.

RAID 1 is eh. RAID 5 is the way to go 

[AnimeJanai]

Yea, if the CRC errors are caused from disconnecting while writing, it would most likely only effect that partition.  But honestly, I'd fix it so that would never happen again.  If can't, may want to try setting the the 'Removal Policy' of that drive to 'Safe Removal' instead of 'Better Performance'.  Also prevent as much writing to it as possible, like turn off indexing and scheduled tasks such as defragmenting.

Sometimes, despite safe removal and having automated functions turned off for that drive (drive indexing, chkdsk at boot time, defragmenting, virus checking on writes/reads, etc), the drive still remains "in use" when you click on the remove device icon in your systray.   If this is the case, you can flush the cache to the platter by running a small utility.  Yes, I do use it.  I made a little shortcut icon for it in the Quicklaunch area (the set of small icons on the left side of your taskbar).

Background Info:  http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/aa364218(v=vs.85).aspx
Software Tool:  http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb897438

[SilverDash]

^ I love you for that tool.