Greetings,

I'm almost certain that I have narrowed my BSOD (blue screen of death) problem to a failing WD HDD.

Here's my uncertainty:
CrystalDiskInfo tells be that the S.M.A.R.T. attribute "Current Pending Sector Count" is greater than 0 and that the drive is under caution. I have run both the quick test and extended test with DLGDIAG. Both tests are giving a green check mark. The drive in question is for sure greater than 5 years old (had it when we bought this house and moved in in Oct 2012). I would venture to estimate that the drive is actually greater than 7 years since I was using it before moving out of the old house and into our current one. I cannot absolutely verify the age of the drive.

I have ordered a new WD drive this morning anyway since I would rather err on the side of caution.

So, even after running DLGDIAG and Win7's disk checker, CrystalDiskInfo is still telling me to caution the use of this drive.

Any opinions of the utilities I used and which to actually believe to be true? I googled the difference between CDI and DLGDIAG and found that someone else ran into the same thing. The support forum was, of course, on the Western Digital's server and they said to go with DLGDIAG. They're going to go with their own product of course. ;)

Any thoughts... :)

Siran

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CAPT Siran d'Vel'nahr - L L & P _\\//
Winders 11 OS? "What a piece of junk!" - L. Skywalker
"Logic is the cement of our civilization with which we ascend from chaos using reason as our guide." - T'Plana-hath

i believe that CrystalDiskInfo use HDD smart info

you can check here[url] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S.M.A.R.T.[/url]

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i believe that CrystalDiskInfo use HDD smart info

you can check here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S.M.A.R.T.

Yes, I know this. I mentioned it in my post. :)

I'm just trying to find out if I should rely on it's report or the diagnostic report from DLGDIAG or perhaps both or neither.

Fixed your link, by the way. ;)

Thanks for the reply. :)

Siran

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CAPT Siran d'Vel'nahr - L L & P _\\//
Winders 11 OS? "What a piece of junk!" - L. Skywalker
"Logic is the cement of our civilization with which we ascend from chaos using reason as our guide." - T'Plana-hath

I don't have any experience with brand specific diagnostic tools since I rely on SMART info solely. But you would assume that the brand specific tools MIGHT have more information as they likely can probe specific addresses in their own, known, controller for health information and not just rely on the industry standard SMART ID port exports.

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Seti@Home classic workunits:20,676 CPU time:74,226 hours

A proud member of the OFA (Old Farts Association)

I don't have any experience with brand specific diagnostic tools since I rely on SMART info solely. But you would assume that the brand specific tools MIGHT have more information as they likely can probe specific addresses in their own, known, controller for health information and not just rely on the industry standard SMART ID port exports.

Hi,

Yeah, I used to just rely on DLGDIAG from Western Digital since I buy only their drives. But today when I was continuing my research into what the problem is that causes these BSODs, I had read that CrystalDiskInfo was recommended along with DLGDIAG. I just happened to have CDI and ran it. That was when I discovered the caution and the cause was the pending sector count.

I also had read that DLGDIAG and Window's own Error Checking utility should fix it. I ran them both and CDI still reports the pending count as greater than 0. So I have ordered a new drive from Newegg and it will be here on Wednesday. Re-installing is now in my immediate future. :( June 2016 I quit running SETI on this PC because of the BSODs. They weren't real frequent, about once every 10 to 15 days. Could not keep a decent uptime. The past week or so now they're more frequent, every 2 or 3 days.

Anyway, thanks for the reply. Can't go wrong with a new drive. I just wanted to find out what others think of or experienced these utilities. Thanks. :)

Siran

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CAPT Siran d'Vel'nahr - L L & P _\\//
Winders 11 OS? "What a piece of junk!" - L. Skywalker
"Logic is the cement of our civilization with which we ascend from chaos using reason as our guide." - T'Plana-hath

I think the SMART info covers the major bases and I alway liked Crystal Disk Info for the application design. Clear and compact. I am keeping my eye on one of my drives with a slowly decreasing percentage of drive lifetime that coincides with the wear leveling count.

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Seti@Home classic workunits:20,676 CPU time:74,226 hours

A proud member of the OFA (Old Farts Association)

Okey dokey,

Got the new HDD. I'm going to let it sit overnight to make sure the innards get to room temperature before firing that baby up. Outside is in the 30s F here.

So, I will continue to shut this PC down just before the time of all the BSODs. That way there won't be any. ;)

Siran

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CAPT Siran d'Vel'nahr - L L & P _\\//
Winders 11 OS? "What a piece of junk!" - L. Skywalker
"Logic is the cement of our civilization with which we ascend from chaos using reason as our guide." - T'Plana-hath

Greetings,

The new HDD was installed 2 days ago. I only had 1 little hiccup when trying to install Win 7 Pro 64bit. The file load went ok; read from installation DVD. Boot from DVD went ok. When it went looking for the HDD, that's when things went hay wacky. Good thing I have a laptop to get to the Internet...

The installation wanted me to "install a driver". I remember having to put drivers on a floppy disk a long time ago. I searched and searched and could not find the drivers. I found my external USB floppy drive and a disk I thought the drivers were on, but no such luck. I hit the Internet. I was on a help forum where others were having the same problem. A few posters had mentioned that when they hit the problem they unplugged their external optical drive from USB 3.0 and plugged it into USB 2.0. I thought "what the heck, I'll try it". Sure enough, it worked! Woohoo!!!!

I now have all the updates from Micro$oft installed except for a few stragglers that showed up yesterday afternoon. I have most of my programs re-installed. The PC is running like a top. Oh, and CrystalDiskInfo (for topic purposes) is reporting both drives as good and that my new drive is running cooler than my data drive. I'll keep an eye on the old drive. ;)

Now, if only I could get my new replacement keyboard... It was supposed to get here yesterday (Friday 12/22) but didn't. It's stuck somewhere in Kansas. It's delivery has been rescheduled for the day after Christmas. Bummer. :(

Everyone have a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! :)

Siran

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CAPT Siran d'Vel'nahr - L L & P _\\//
Winders 11 OS? "What a piece of junk!" - L. Skywalker
"Logic is the cement of our civilization with which we ascend from chaos using reason as our guide." - T'Plana-hath

I wonder if lots of people ordered new keyboards for Christmas. Mine was ordered early this week for delivery on Thursday, but won't be delivered until Tuesday after Christmas.

Windows 7 doesn't have any drivers for USB 3.0 in any installation media unless you add the driver to the install files before installing. Ryzen users ran into this problem trying to install Windows 7.

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Seti@Home classic workunits:20,676 CPU time:74,226 hours

A proud member of the OFA (Old Farts Association)

I wonder if lots of people ordered new keyboards for Christmas. Mine was ordered early this week for delivery on Thursday, but won't be delivered until Tuesday after Christmas.

Windows 7 doesn't have any drivers for USB 3.0 in any installation media unless you add the driver to the install files before installing. Ryzen users ran into this problem trying to install Windows 7.

Hi Keith,

My keyboard was rescheduled for Tuesday as well, but lo and behold, it got here today, Saturday. Woohoo! :)

That's what I was thinking. It would be nice if Micro$oft would actually tell you the problem instead of saying "Install a driver to continue". I don't remember exactly what the message said.

Windows 7 on Ryzen? Isn't that one of the CPUs that Micro$oft doesn't want anything but Window$ 10 to be supported on?

Siran

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CAPT Siran d'Vel'nahr - L L & P _\\//
Winders 11 OS? "What a piece of junk!" - L. Skywalker
"Logic is the cement of our civilization with which we ascend from chaos using reason as our guide." - T'Plana-hath