Has anybody ever heard of the "burn in" test on a hd, or the "write test"?

[James T Kirk USS Enterprise]

hi, and welcome.

i have a bit of a delimna here,
a situation.

and people say that if you have a "hardware" question, then toms hardware is the place to go.

so, now i have a hardware problem, and am sure that there is some smart person out there who would know the answer to this question,
because i'll tell you right now -- i sure don't.

QUESTION
Has anybody ever heard of the "burn in" test on a hd, or the "write test"?

 

[JOHNN93]

burn in is usualy when you stress your cpu and gpu.
there are free programs that you can benchmark the preformance of the hard drive.
you will be able to see the read and write speeds.
some tell you if the hdd is bad.samsung magician has a benchmarking tool that mesures iops.

 

[Szyrs]

To measure the write or read performance of a drive I can recommend AIDA64.

I can assure you with almost absolute confidence though, that any hardware problem that you are facing will not be solved by benchmarking software - it is used to measure the performance of your hardware and does so by stressing it. It basically makes it work as hard as it can doing different tasks, one after the other, while measuring how fast it does them.

"Intel Burn Test" as explained by the user above, is a benchmarking tool for stressing your CPU. It was created by some guys at Intel and while it is not quite as good as something like Prime95 at testing your system stability, it is one of the most stressful tests that you can run on your CPU. It it strongly advised by its creators at intel that you do not use it if you do not know how to use it and strongly advised not to use it with the intel stock cooler that they provide with your cpu. Improper use of this software will literally cook your CPU.

If you are testing a machine that you yourself have built and are getting errors on without stress testing then you should go to the build section of this forum and look for answers there, or try searching the error codes that you are getting on your bluescreens (commonly known as BSODs).

If you are having a problem of any kind and have come to this forum for answers, you could always try just describing your problem and asking the other users to offer a solution...

 

[James T Kirk USS Enterprise]

howdy JOHNN93, nice to be acquainted. how is your day going?

just a stress test, huh?.....

Szyrs, hey bro, what's up man? thanks for the reply!

what i had in mind, was the use of the UBCD or the Eurosoft pc check.
they both consist of a burn in/write test.
but if it only a benchmarking tool, then forget that noise, that's useless....
[except when building your computer from scratch, which i hope to do someday]

the problem?:
i have detected several bad sectors on my hd, and have got error messages when using them sometimes.

what i am trying to do?: find a solution to --
1. fix my hd so that there are no longer any bad sectors and can use it as normal without error messages when trying to write data to it, such as a "delayed write failure"
2. or, if it can't be fixed, then to "intellectually" fence off the bad sectors part of my hd, so that i will only use the good part

thnx you, much appreciated! 😉

SECURITY
God is my Shield

 

[JOHNN93]

if you want to waste your time on programs then go for it.
the problem you have is in the hardware what ever program you have wont fix it if your hard drive is bad.
what i advise you to do is take a back up and buy a new hard drive.
if you have warranty return it they should give you a new one.
if you want to do a quick fix go to my computer right click on the hard drive and select properties go to tools error checking check now select both boxes auto fix file system errors and attempt recovery of bad sectors.this is what you mention in 2 for a temporary solution there are programs that are more advanced.
by the way my day is going relay fine how is yours?

 

[Szyrs]

It is true, harware failure is hardware failure.

 

[James T Kirk USS Enterprise]

howdy JOHNN93, thnx for the reply.
i'm doing good. got stuck on a clone restoration for lack of a hd, but alright, other than that.

okay, then what about this:
what you do is partition off a separate partition where the bad sectors on the hd are, and then have the rest, which is good, to use?

hi Szyrs, abG
what i am trying to do is to see if there is a way to intellectually fence off the bad section of the hd from the rest of the hd, so that that way, i only use the good part.
it may be bad, but only part of it is bad.
i'm seeing if it can be salvaged.

SECURITY
God is my Shield

 

[JOHNN93]

you do not partition you mark them as useless and the hdd does not store data on it anymore.
when you partition a hard drive you virtually split the hard drive to show it as 2 separate drives or even more on your operating system.you can not move sectors from the platters.

 

[Szyrs]

Playing with partitions and filesystems on a drive that is loaded with data or contains your OS is always dicey but you certainly can try.

The MBR partition table only allows for 5 partitions, 4 + 1 extended. If you convert your disk to a gpt partition table then that would allow you up to 128 partitions on one drive. You will need to do some more fiddling if you do have Windows installed on this disk as windows seeks an MBR disk to boot, but there are work-arounds... You would need to empty the disk to convert the partition table though, so you'd need to back up your data somewhere first.

Having a vast number of partitions would be kinda annoying but it may help you isolate the problem area on your disk. Alternatively you could use the 4 in MBR and keep shrinking the partition until you locate your bad sectors... You should be able to get a rough idea of the problem area from your results in chkdsk though...

This is definitely a cowboy practice though and I can't assure you that it will work, or that more problems won't arise. HDDs are always throw away items and in my personal experience, ones that start to show faults tend to continue to show faults... That said, I'm not known for my luck hahaha, see how you go...

 

[James T Kirk USS Enterprise]

😉hi JOHNN93, thanks for the reply,
how's your day going?

"you do not partition you mark them as useless"
do you mean like "unallocated space"?
is that what your talking about, as to HOW to do this?

oh, i see, so your saying that if they are "in" a partition, then they computer has "acknowledged" that they are GOOD SECTORS (even if they are not, as in not being able to put them in the bad sector section of the disk reserved for such a thing)

if it is a "soft error", and i do fix it, will it still be the verge of potential error at any moment, or will it then be as good as new?
[note that even new hd's shipped directly out of the factory sometimes come stock with bad sectors, right off the shelf]

Szyrs, hey what's up?

"The MBR partition table only allows for 5 partitions, 4 + 1 extended"
oh wow, didn't know that -- thnkx for the info!

"If you convert your disk to a gpt partition table "
by "gpt" you mean the program called "G Parted" [linux]?

"keep shrinking the partition until you locate your bad sectors"
wow, that's a good idea. didn't think of that.

"This is definitely a cowboy practice"
yeee haa!
ride em cowboy.
comin' around the bend, thar's ye come
ai's comin' around the bend, thar's it comes

soft error = possible fix with all '0' fills
hard error = emminate destruction, given only a matter of time. cannot be fixed. use hd as target practice

i think i figured it out.
i'm going to run some surface scan software from the hd manufacturer.
i hope it is a soft error. mechanical ones are nasty, dead.

SECURITY
God is my Shield