Defrag timeout equals dying drive?

Hey guys, it's been quite a while since I've posted, so I'll understand if anyone wants to get up me for being scarce :D

Anyway, I've been getting a few errors lately, odd stop errors, and now, errors in DfrgFat.exe (when I'm defragging, obviously!). I was going to add a picture showing the error and some S.M.A.R.T readings, but they were bigger than 1 byte :P So if someone wants the S.M.A.R.T readings, i'll send it or something, but for the moment, this is the error exactly:

"The specified I/O operation on \Device\Harddisk0\DR0 was not completed before the time-out period expired." Options: Cancel, Try Again, Continue
I get this error a few times in a row, and if i click cancel it tells me that data may have been lost or something.

When something happens again, I'll be sure to add it.

Some system specs that may help.

Intel PIII 1.08Ghz (Yes, its overclocked)
512MB SDRAM (Yes, its overclocked)
Windows 2000 Professional SP4
Liteon LTR-52246S (Cd Burner)
Liteon LDW411S (DVD Burner)
WD 400JB (40 GB WD HDD)
Geforce 2 GTS (Forgot the brand, overclocked a fair bit)

Also, I'm using Diskeeper as the defragmenter, but I'm pretty sure that'd make no difference.

Anything I've forgotten? Sorry, I'm a little sick as it's winter over here!

Also, my first guess was virus/ trojan/ overclocking issue, but it's been a long time since i've overclocked all these things so it'd be strange for them to suddenly have an impact now, right? Also, as for virus/trojan infection, i'm up to date with virus definitions, and have done the usual checks (processes list, startup items etc.)

Well thats all I can think of right now, so thanks for looking :D

Where have you been ? Daily attendence is required or we don't answer ..

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Originally Posted by confus-ed

Where have you been ? Daily attendence is required or we don't answer ..

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That wasnt very nice, bad mood?

BTW, This isnt the Tech Lounge.

:D .. only kidding ! ;)

At the risk of stating the obvious you have run chkdsk ? (ticking both boxes so that it runs at boot)

All that overclocking may have an effect timing wise on cached writes for your drives, but like you say you'd expect issues like that to show up straight away so if your systems been like this for 'ages' it seems unlikely that that's it ..

As for SMART, well it ain't very smart - it collects stats on completed & verified writes, when it thinks too many are happening (not all writes ever get done first time, some allways need doing again) then it signals, maybe the logs of that can be more illuminating, but they never have for me except to confirm what I was already suspicious about, say like a failing boot sector block (or some other 'about to be "bad" sector'), which chkdsk should be able to know about anyway ..

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Originally Posted by TechZ

That wasnt very nice, bad mood?

BTW, This isnt the Tech Lounge.

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Only a wee wotpp joke ;) .. didn't think anyone was up yet to notice .. I just did an answer :)

What UP, its 12pm here in the afternoon that is.
I can never enable SMART on my WD, even started a thread, couldnt do it.

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Originally Posted by TechZ

What UP, its 12pm here in the afternoon that is.
I can never enable SMART on my WD, even started a thread, couldnt do it.

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You just 'snuck in' while 'part 2' was being typed that's all ;)

For SMART to work you need a smart capable drive & motherboard - does that answer that bit for you ? Personally I don't think its much 'kop' (slang: 'of practical use') it monitors whether writes are sucessful & maintains stats on that, well the o/s can do that its called write verification, it just doesn't give you stats, but it will tell you like above that writes aren't completed (you get a bit of a different message - but the same 'result').

Okay, I did run chkdsk, but instead of running it at boot time, i did it in cmd and forced it to dismount the volume. NO errors were found whatsoever. I will tell chkdsk to run again on startup though.
Also, got a little program that someone recommended in another thread that monitors S.M.A.R.T and that program told me everything was sweet on the HDD.
Beginning to get a little suss about this, wondering if i should lose recently installed stuff and bring back couple-month old ghost image of the C drive (NOT the volume that is having problems, did I mention that?)

p.s what the hell does wotpp stand for?

My board supports smart, anyway since its not much kop ;) i'll stick with what i got.

Whats the time there?

Way of the Post Padders: A group dedicated to increase their posts any way possible. Join

But we dont bother others, mostly ppl in the Tech Lounge.
Leader: adept

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Originally Posted by TechZ

But we dont bother others, mostly ppl in the Tech Lounge.
Leader: adept

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Err its a 'joint conspiracy' - I'm supposed to be enforcer - so I'll just add Good wotpp practice is to stay off live technical threads until you have 'teh way' .. & hope you take the hint ;)

Ok, how do I join? OR HAVE I ALREADY?!?!!? :p

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Originally Posted by G Man

Okay, I did run chkdsk, but instead of running it at boot time, i did it in cmd and forced it to dismount the volume. NO errors were found whatsoever. I will tell chkdsk to run again on startup though.
Also, got a little program that someone recommended in another thread that monitors S.M.A.R.T and that program told me everything was sweet on the HDD.
Beginning to get a little suss about this, wondering if i should lose recently installed stuff and bring back couple-month old ghost image of the C drive (NOT the volume that is having problems, did I mention that?)

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Need to run it at startup else it can't check system areas. (MFT being the one that needs checking most that won't get done the way you did)

You need a smart util that specifically states it can do your drive & board, or at least whatever revision level of smart is applicable to your hardware, there's some pretty 'shonky' utils out there that don't take account of this ..

Can you explaain the last bit again for me ? .. I was just about to tell you that generally running FDisk can map out any bad & failing sectors much better than Chkdsk can, by the sounds of it you may be in a position to clear the volume ? (but as I said I'm not so sure).

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Originally Posted by G Man

Ok, how do I join? OR HAVE I ALREADY?!?!!? :p

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Oh everyones a wotpp'er whether they know it or not as soon as they've replied to anything or posted, you've been here before & know how 'mad' we are here sometimes, so its just a game, but new posters sometimes get bewildered by it all, hence the 'no wotpp'ing on technical threads "rule"' I was hopefully reminding Techz of 'gently' (I may have stuffed up the 'gentle' bit ;))