AND by the way: This disk is NEVER reliable again
On first bad sector --> backup ---> dump!

 

no worries guys; i'm not a newbie to basic computer stuff, just trying to figure out THIS problem since i've never encountered it before.

immediately after the crash i first ran antivirus/antimalware/antispyware to make sure that wasn't the problem, and backed up all valuable files, which i do automatically. i'm not worrying abt my data; just trying to understand the issue.

 

Ok, good to hear.

I've had at least > 20 bad drives the past 20 years. In not one case I was able to use the drive any longer.
If bad blocks appear the drive is most likely dead within hours or days.

Normally bad blocks are marked as bad by the HDDs on board electronic and transferred to spare blocks on the drive. This is written into the SMART registers of the disk. You won't need a utility for that, you won't even recognize it.
In the moment you do recognize, there is a problem on the disk, it means "game over". In this event there are no spare blocks on the disk anymore to transfer the data or there is another serious problem, the on board electronic of the disk couldn't handle.

 

Last edited: Jan 10, 2018

We have tested the drive and there are no bad sectors.

Do you still have those drives? They can easily be repaired providing there is no physical damage

 

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Last edited: Jan 11, 2018

This is indeed possible but then why the slowness would only occur at the beginning of the login process and not during the whole session?

 

Hello.
From my exact same experience, it's a damaged Win7. To be sure, uninstall the misfiring audio software, clean the OS (registry included) with Advanced System Care Pro or equivalent, defragment C drive, boot-time scan C, reinstall audio software. If the problem persists, reinstall/repair Windows from the original disc, that should fix it.

 

I never experienced anything similar but I would tend to agree with @type2002n :
If the disk has no errors and no virus/trojan were found then the OS is probably fucked up for some reasons.

 

If you've already cloned your HDD and verified it has no bad sectors then run SFC to verify the Windows install is intact. Also disable all unnecessary drivers, startup tasks, and services. And when I say "unnecessary" I mean anything that isn't strictly needed to boot or run the OS.

Sluggishness remains? I wouldn't waste your time anymore. Start fresh.

 

It all depends on where the bad sectors are located. Once something is cached in RAM or another easily read part of the disk then it's no longer an issue.

 

Because once the system has verified that certain part of a hard drive are not reachable, it stops trying, to the benefit of your action.

 

NOOOOOOO!

 

Just another guess.. do you really know what starts up when you boot Win? I would check it with CCleaner (or if there is anything better..) Start up and Scheduled tasks - theoretically you don't need anything there (or at least keep it minimal, like AV..) Almost all free/utility progs leave something there, in case you installed something

 

While i agree with almost all you say mate, i must say i have a 1.5tb SATA2 Seagate drive that has been flagged "bad" 2 yrs now (36 bad sectors atm,has worked for 42000+ hrs) and its still working in my secondary home comp. When i took it out from my secondary studio comp and brought it home, it had 18 bad sectors, now it's at 36. Sometimes it gets stuck for a second or two but the fkn thing still works. While i 've had equally as many drives fail too, some drives just seem to be more resilient.

 

Last edited: Jan 11, 2018

always aligned partitions excluding the bad sectors and used them as 2nd choice tmp/scratchdisks, they still work well enough to be a system disk in an unimportant win install, like a gaming rig, no need to dump them.