Windows 7: HDD errors

Have been having problems with my Toshiba laptop -Sat L550 - HDD is a Toshiba MK5055GSX - since June, and keep coming up with Device\Harddisk1-2-3-5\DR1-2-3-5 has bad blocks and controller malfunctions.

My dealer (also Toshiba trained techs) keep telling me that there is nothing worng with it andit is something I ahve downloaded or mucked around with in autoruns / reg. Now I have done a factory default - a real pain as had to reinstall the security and do all the udate for that and Windows. Now I am finding that after only doing those items and setting the email - doing chkdsk for all the small external HDD's I had for backup then chkdsk the internal drive the errors have flooded back too many to count but reckon must be around 500! I cannot figure out what all the diferent numbers are those readouts and the device manager check in windows is tellingme that the internal HDD #0 is working normally.

Anyone got ant suggestions as most of my comptuing time is being taken up with trying to find an answer and fix!!

Any suggestions - gratefully appreciated.

I've never owned a Toshiba hard drive, but using a tester, such as HD Tune, or one by Toshiba...

Software Utilities

should tell the story.

Thanks seeker downloaded that toll but it come as ?run \ enter \needs admin \enter then nothing unless it's going on in the background. Probably have to get onto Toshiba here in Oz and find out as this problem is - seriously driving me mad.
Ruddy machines only tem months old and since June has been a nightmare especially when the dealer is inferring that I am some sort of idiot or have nothing else better to do.

Anyway mate thanks for trying!!

Which is giving you problems...HD Tune or the Toshiba Tester?

Both of them seeker I have now run the Windows 7 diag and it comes up clean. The Toshiba diag I am not an expert but looks pretty damn ordinary.

Anway in the meantime I have probably and hopefully found the HDD error problem - the external HDD's I was using for backups - bad blocks. now as I have 4 of them 1 1Tb and 3 350Gb I have a fair bit of money invested in them. The 1Tera is being ditched as I think it is really the worst offender, a Verbatim 350 has just shown up errors galore after test transferring backup files to the C: drive so it's going. Now left with 1 WD and 1 HP so am going to try a format of both and see what happens.

Any ideas on a decent brand I don't care re the cost so much as long as I get a drive that isn't going to cause me 3 months of nightmarish problems, and spoil the only little bit of pleasure I manage to get these days. *slumps back in chair*

I have just ordered the third one of these:

*Deleted*

I have not been using them long enough to vouch for them, but I like their capacity, performance and the fact that they have a 5 year warranty. In the past, I didn't have very good luck with WDC drives, but from what I have been told, these are good. Anything is better than the Seagate 7200.11s that I'm replacing.

Thanks seeker I'll have a look for one of these out here - generally fairly close behind you blokes with the new stuff, but if I can't find it I can always get it there eh?

After posting, I realized that what I linked was my invoice, rather than just the ad, so I deleted it and found this on eBay:

WD 1TB WD1002FAEX SATA 6GB/S 7200RPM 64MB OEM - eBay (item 400132063898 end time Nov-24-10 09:22:42 PST)

I have no idea of availability down under, nor the situation for ordering it from here.

Hiyya seeker I have just bought a Seagate Expansion portable drive - 500Gb and before I even used it ran a Kaspersky scan and then a ckdsk to make sure everything was tickateeboo and it came up no probs. The part number should you like to have a look is 9SD2A4-500.

I have ID'ed a possible culprit for some of the disk errors a WD My Passport -
WD8AAA3200ABK which would not only dismount / disable but made some fairly odd noises when operating. Ended up having to just unplug the damn thing and it's gone.

Now my original problem is still with me - now with my new desktop - disk controller errors - not many but my problem is ID'ing the drive involving the errors namely the ref to Device\Harddisk1\DR1 and my primary C: (internal HDD) is listed as Drive 0!
This has become a real mystery to me as searching for an answer even the microsoft support site http://support.microsoft.com/defaul...kb;EN-US;159865
however correct the info that it gives still gives me my primary drive as 0 and this wierd reference to Drive 1 in the eventvwr is to say the least bizarre!
I did a chkdsk on the internal (?main HDD) last night without anything plugged in - storage wise - just the monitor, wireless mouse/keyboard, printer, and audio system (small Logitec), and still come up with that ref to Drive 1.

So don't know where to go to next - at a loss to find the cause of the error entries.

I'm having a problem resyncing my mind to your problem/question. It is normal with multiple drives that they be listed numerically starting at 0, the second drive would be listed as 1. Is this what you are asking about, or am I off track?

EDIT: I have never owned an external Seagate drive, but I do remember a year or two ago, complaints that Seagate externals were not compatible with XP x64. I have no idea if that remains true with Windows 7 x64 or not. However that incompatibility was in regards to their software backup system, not the drive itself.