Can't save as - program stops responding

NYaccent said:

Yep that is what I finally figured out that I should click.... It is running now. :)

OK. The utility will scan your drive for any errors. It shows a screen like this while it is running;

NYaccent said:

That program is still running............... I'll report back when it stops BUT the corrupt file the music file on the "K" drive was backed up fine on my Seagate Free Agent drive so I didn't lose a thing when I did the back up. I just defragged the Seagate Drive - I hope I did the right thing by doing that. I'll Let you know what the report says when it is done but there are a lot of red squares right now.... 34% damaged it says at the moment.

Question? If the drive was damaged and it said files were unreadable - How come they backed up fine? Thanks again for all your help and looking forward to the next step. Ilene

Hi Ilene,

all depends on the damage and the reason for it. It is often possible to recover data from damaged drives, it just takes a very long time using standard system copy methods.

When windows is unable to read or write a block within a certain time, then it stops trying, and you get an error. Some damage causes this. It is not usually reparable. When windows writes a block it finds the next piece of empty space to write it to. If the drive is badly fragmented anyway, this results in pieces of a file being spread all over the place. The more you do this, the more fragmented the drive becomes, and the harder the system has to work to read or write data to the drive. This causes extensive abnormal "wear and tear" on the drive. If you run a fragmented drive for a long time, it becomes more or less unusable.

If a drive has more than 30% of damaged blocks then it is unusable. You could try a FULL format on it, but that probably wont work if it has that much damage.

When the test has finished I will have a look at the results and tell you what I think.

Regards....Mike Connor

NYaccent said:

Okay Thanks - It is still running

OK. That is also an indication that the drive is damaged. If various operations start taking a long time, then something is causing that. It is not always possible to discover exactly what is causing it without using extensive diagnostics and other tools. With the price of drives being so low nowadays, it is usually pointless trying to repair them. The price of a good technician to spend time on it invariably exceeds the cost of a new drive.

Repairing drives, apart from using software, is not an option for home users.

Regards....Mike Connor

NYaccent said:

I agree it doesn't pay to reapair it. Should I stop the scan?

You can if you want. If the drive has more than 30% damaged blocks it is unusable anyway. Finishing the scan will tell you how much damage there is, but it wont repair the drive.

You could try a full format, but I don't think that will do you much good. In my opinion the drive is no longer any use. Best to just discard it.

Just as a matter of interest, how old is the drive?

Regards....Mike Connor

NYaccent said:

I think it is about 2 years old - maybe 3 - I have had it for some time. Okay I'll stop the scan. I will buy another external hard drive so I can have another back up for all my stuff. I learned that I need to defrag - would once a week be good? I will also load my important files on Fotki so they will be backed up there as well. Thanks again for all of your help. Hugs Ilene

Some drives have a three year warranty. You should check that, maybe you can get it replaced.

Once a week is OK.

If you have any other questions or problems with anything don't hesitate to ask.

Regards....Mike Connor