ECC Error on HDD

[nik_kosy]

I was in the middle of computing yesterday when we experienced a power-cut. When the power came back on, my PC would not boot correctly (kept hanging on the black Windows screen). After using the Recovery Console, I have managed to get it working OK again.

I had my suspicions the HDD was playing up, and may have been damaged by the sudden loss of power, so I have used the Samsung HDD HUTIL to scan, and it reports an 'ECC Error at LBA 118797531'

Does this mean the HDD is now on its way out, and should I think about replacing it? If I were to format and restore my most recent backup, will this result in a system as reliable as before the power-cut?

[Austin_KW]

Power cuts can cause the heads to damage the magnetic media. You can lose the entire disk but often you only loose a few sectors where the head hits. This is probably what happened to you, of course you also lose the data on the sectors which can cause boot failure or other random files to vanish.

Disks are supposed to be resilient to sector loss. You lose the data but the sector should be mapped out (not used again) and the file system should be rebuilt when you reboot.

You should be fine now that you have recovered, and of course all your data is backed-up in the unlikely event of a disk failure

Some people might recommend a complete low level format & reinstall but I don't think that it is necessary these days.

[Memfis]

run a windows checkdisk to mark bad sectors not to be used again.

[raygunpk]

Sorry to bring up an old thread but I'm having the same problem with it hanging on the Windows loading screen. Just curious, how did you fix it with Recovery Console?

I also have a Samsung HDD and it's doing a scan right now and it has an Ecc error as well.

It's good to know it is recoverable as the OP did it but I'm not quite sure how..

Thanks

[nik_kosy]

To be honest, I'd completely forgotten I'd ever had this problem!

I would imagine I just followed the instructions given - I certainly haven't had problems since...

Good luck!

So what would it mean if there are handreds of ECC errors on my samsung HDD?

[moog]

CHKDSK C: /F
will do a full drive scan of C: when typed at command line

Just happened to me. I used the windows xp CD-rom, which loaded the recovery console. There, just type chkdsk /p/r and hit enter
Afterwards, type exit and allow windows to load normally.