Barracuda XT, Barracuda, Barracuda Green, DiamondMax and other desktop SATA and IDE drives

[aycintl]

Hi, if anyone could help me w/my newly purchased st9500325as..

This is what happened (actually this is my 2nd hdd, from my still a day old warranty replaced HDD st9500325as)

On my first HDD I tried to partition it using GParted live CD the latest version (I had already prior knowledge in using GParted because that was the method I used before when I partitioned my pre-installed WD Scorpio HDD from my laptop 160gb) but the partition take a very long time.. after almost an hour the status of my partition is still at 0%.. so I end up cancelling it then killed my HDD.. so now with my new replacement

Now, I tried to use the conventional way, using my Windows 7 installation CD. I partitioned my first w/ 160GB then create.. after a few minutes that Windows 7 partitioned a part of my disk.. I end up to still with my 465.8GB unallocated space.. So I repeated it a couple of times but still no luck.. Then I rebooted back to the same CD, now it tooo a longer time for me to login to the Installation UI.. then recreate again but no luck still and now with this error message

"Failed to create a new partition on the selected unused space. [Error: 0x8007045d]."

And my 3rd way is using my Ubuntu 9.04 Live CD.. It took a long time to boot my Ubuntu because of some HDD errors.. I tried to install Ubuntu using my same HDD.. At start the "Starting up the partitioner" took a long time around 5-10mins. Then prepared disk shows up with

SCSI1 (0,0,0) (sda) - 500.1 GB ATA  ST9500325AS

I select the Use entire disk space. Then after some setup the setup show me some status on what it will going to do

The partition tables of the following devices are changed:
 SCSI1 (0,0,0) (sda)

The following partitions are going to be formatted:
 partition #1 of SCSI1 (0,0,0) (sda) as ext3
 partition #5 of SCSI1 (0,0,0) (sda) as swap

Now at "Installing System" again stuck for a few minutes at 15% during detection of file systems then another error

Input/Ouput error during read/on /dev/sda

I tried to Retry, but it keeps on retrying so I tried Ignoring (and Cancel on my another installation attempt) and after a few cancel/ignore click it then continues with the formatting, set-up, copying files and when installation is at "Installing GRUB boot loader at 94%", then another error occurs.. And that's the last one.

Executing 'grub-install /dev/sda' failed.

This is a fatal error.

And using GParted either w/the one in Ubuntu or GParted Lived it tells me the "No devices detected"

Using Windows XP with SATA drivers(one I used before for my dual boot), still No HDD

I am yet to try SeaTools.. I had also tried TestDisk from GParted Cd and scan for hidden partitions and told me Structure is OK

So what might be the problem? Is it with my laptop? I have a Compaq Presario CQ40-107au w/4GB RAM w/160GB WD Scorpio HDD preinstalled, BIOS version f.52 release date 09/03/2009. I bought this 500GB to upgrade my HDD.. I already ask HP forums about the capability of my laptop before in there support forum, and they told me that it is possible for me to install 500GB upto 1TB or more(if available)

A screenshot during boot using my GParted Live CD

 http://img132.imageshack.us/img132/2617/dsc02688k.jpg

Thank you to anyone who may help me. I still have my warranty so I may still replace my HDD but I want to know  where the problem is. Maybe I'll just gonna end up same way. I currently don't have an enclosure (my order haven't arrive yet) so I can't try a different approach.

[fzabkar]

It does sound like your drive is retrying bad sectors. :-(

I would test it with SeaTools and one or more comprehensive SMART diagnostics.

SeaTools:

http://www.seagate.com/support/seatools/

HD Sentinel (DOS / Windows / Linux):

http://www.hdsentinel.com/

HDDScan for Windows:

http://hddscan.com/

Look for reallocated and pending sectors.

[aycintl]

But how come that there are bad sectors? My 2 HDD including the replaced one are totally brand new.. And I can't remeber from my previous experiences that I partitioned an HDD that took almost an hour and still at 0%... maybe it should atleast have some value..

 And I don't think that it has something to do on how I partitioned my HDD, because I already use a retail version of Windows 7, in which the formatting/partitioning tools are already easy to use.

[fzabkar]

I can't offer any explanation for the 0% issue in Windows, but Linux appears to get a lot further into the drive.

MHDD is another program that can display the bad sectors, if any:

http://hddguru.com/content/en/software/2005.10.02-MHDD/

It is popular among the data recovery specialists.

[aycintl]

one more question.. is it still possible for me to fix my HDD using seatools?

I think the problem in here is because of failure in creating a partition.. so is it possible to fix a HDD from a failed partition creation (remember this a brand new HDD.. so no partition were existing before all unallocated space)?

And I've got my enclosure.. My XP can't detect my HDD but can detect my enclosure.. Tried seatools for Windows not the DOS one, then seatools just hangs....

[fzabkar]

SeaTools doesn't really "fix" anything. If you have a bad sector, SeaTools will offer to reallocate it, ie replace it with a spare. This means that the data within the original sector will be lost. Sometimes retesting a bad sector will recover it without reallocation, in which case the original data are intact.

I still don't know what is actually wrong with your drive. I know that MHDD can produce a graphical bad block map.

Partitioning a drive entails writing to LBA 0, the first sector on the drive.

[aycintl]

Thanks a lot fzabkar for your help.. Actually my HDD is now fixed.. I had used Seatools for DOS, then zero my 1st part of my HDD, and now its fixed..

I love this HDD according to my Windows Experience Index on my Win7 it scored 7.1, my WD Scorpio before only scored around 5.6. And its not just with the score it is really fast.. Thanks again for your advice..

[fzabkar]

One of the more comprehensive SMART utilities will probably show one or more reallocated sectors. If so, then I would keep watching the number in case it grows.