> On Saturday 08 October 2011 22:10:36 Timothy Pearson wrote: >> > On Saturday 08 October 2011 19:41:56 Mag. Dr. Nikolaus Klepp wrote: >> >> Well, looks like the harddrive. Get a drive now, your's could fail >> any >> >> second. >> > >> > I have one on order! >> > >> > Lisi >> >> In my experience if the drive is going to die completely it will do so >> without much warning. The bad sectors you are experiencing are more >> like >> a cancer (dying R/W heads, bad disk surface, one or more head crashes in >> the past, etc.) and will continue to spread. The less you use the disk >> the better, as each write access will likely corrupt more sectors. > > Thanks, Tim. I can't afford to not use my main workhorse this week, so I > must > just be extra careful with backups of my important data. Would it be > likely > to help if I keep the box running permanently instead of shutting down > over-night etc.? > > Lisi > It depends on the failure mode. If it is a mechanical failure (IMHO less likely with your symptoms) then keeping the box on 24/7 prevents sudden mechanical death at power-on. If it is bad disk material, then shutting the box down overnight will lessen the amount of corruption from the OS normally writing its files to the disk. Tim