Aqua-Soft ForumsJust last week I got a fresh new 200 Gig Seagate. So, unknowing of the trouble that lay ahead, I used the DiscWizard software which is supposed to copy EVERYTHING from your old drive to your new.
And here the fun started.
It was ready and cooked to roll, so I rebooted and swapped the 200 gig as the master. Rebooted, hoping everything came peachy and then I could defrag and zoom with my compy. However, luck was not in my cards, as I was met with an error with iTunes that it couldn't find 'key components' or something other. I figured hmm, I can reinstall that. Then I saw my dock was there but the icons were missing. Figured hmm, manually copied the icons again and reloaded. Still didn't work. So I manually sifted into the icons folder for OD (ObjectDock to you unknowing) and copied again under just that folder. That time after a reboot of OD, it worked. Then I discovered it was more than iTunes that wouldn't work under the new drive. Just about everything with a code insisted I reenter the code, reevaluate, etc. etc. Avast wouldn't load at startup and when I launched the app it begged for a code too. Then I wondered how come this stuff wasn't working right when the thing was supposed to copy EVERYTHING. I then thought to myself if it's missing all that, God only knows just what all ELSE is missed deep down in things. I sure wasn't gonna play the find-the-missing-files hunt, so I swapped the drives and, using the DiscWizard, wiped the 200 gig and performed the copy drive again.
When i rebooted this time, iTunes worked, but now the dock not only lost its icons but that it was supposed to even exist on the desktop! No matter what i set in it, no matter how many times I rebooted it, it wouldn't reappear either, even though its sorry butt was sitting in Task Manager's process list. And the same misbehaving apps repeated their junk. So, I went back to the old drive again and MANUALLY highlighted the contentson my old and copied them to the new. This way, I thought, it would fill in whatever was missing and it'll be fine. Rebooted to the new drive, pffff, still the same ol' crap.
At this point, I was growing quite annoyed. So I booted into Safe Mode and used Windows to format it, because on top of the other stupidity, I had to boot to SAFE MODE just to wipe the drive. I used DiscWizard yet again and copied the data. Long story short, it was still being dumb. Two wipes and a manual copy and THIS TIME the wallpaper ran away along with the programs' serials!
So last night finally I decided F*** this! and whipped out a disc recovery program (EasyRecovery Professional for the record) to analyze the new drive. The program keeps hitting two I/O errors and claims there are unreadable sectors on the drive. Ah ha. This appears to be where some of my data may be in falling into virtual 'cracks' never to emerge again. So, to be certain it's more likely the drive, I go into Safe Mode and wipe the drive AGAIN. Then right after, without putting ANYTHING on it again, I whip out EasyRecovery to analyze it again. It kicks up I/O errors again. The same 2 in the exact same sectors.
At this point, I've determined it's a hardware defect, and that's the cause of all my copying trouble. However, I thought you guys should point out any other things I could try or whether or not it really IS the hardware responsible before I go yanking this thing back out again. I wanted to try Symantec Ghost on it but I can't seem to find a trial. Either way, it seems it might be useless anyway, especially when you're getting I/O errors on a drive containing no data.
So the ball's up. Any suggestions? I'll give ya some more specs in case something else here might be it.
The old drive (which I'm on now) is a Western Digital 20 GB. I'd use the Seagate as extra storage, but I have too many things I want to keep within My Documents (including my growing iTunes library). This old drive is also so fragmented, it's like chopped data salad. Or maybe with Windows Disk Defrag, more like chopped strawberries with little slivers of blueberry here and there for extra flavor and a few kiwi slices for page file. And it's too full and too fragmented to repair.
I'd still use the new drive as secondary storage, but after this I/O junk? I wouldn't trust it to store one of my old ripped up shoes, let alone my music, vids, and piccies, not to mention my programs.
Yeah, that was all so you knew exactly what was going on and could help the most. Now for the other (rather wimpy) specs.
1 Ghz Intel Celeron
384 MB RAM
Creative PCI 16 Sound
Ati Rage Pro 3D Video (and is still better than my really BAD intergrated vid port)
16x DVD+/- R/RW (DL?) Drive
And I thank you and apologize if you managed to read all that. It was the only way I thought I could best explain my predicament. You may take a break and massage your eyeballs before replying.
