Kill a HDD by turning power off during POST?

[Internetlad]

So I was doing work on a netbook, and I wanted to upgrade the ram. Everything was going great. It's running fast, quick boot, very impressive for only having a dual core 1.3GHZ proc and 2GB RAM. I restart it and think "hey, I should swap the ram out, so I wait for the POST to start, and hold down the power button for 4 seconds, it turns off while the screen is still on the post.

After this it starts acting funky, long boot time, slow in windows, just really crappy performance. I had installed some drivers and stuff but it was all first party HP drivers and the Verizon Access software. Tested it in safe mode, incredibly slow loading drivers to boot.

So I pop in a Knoppix disc and check it out, apparently this unit has 8585653 bad sectors. Did I somehow pooch this drive by turning the power off during POST? I know you can hurt a drive by turning it off and on before the platters have stopped spinning but i turned it off, upgraded the RAM and put it back in.

What gives? I've never seen anything like this before. Is it just a coincidence that the drive failed or is it actually most likely my fault?

[Lorem-Ipsum]

When you opened up the back cover you didn't use a magnetic screwdriver did you? I made that mistake before, instant HDD failure.

Having said that it could just be a coincidence.

[TexasFlood]

coinkidink

[Internetlad]

When you opened up the back cover you didn't use a magnetic screwdriver did you? I made that mistake before, instant HDD failure.

Having said that it could just be a coincidence.

I've opened up hundreds of laptops with a lightly magnetized screwdriver, i'd be VERY surprised if that's what this chocks up to.

In any case, unless i've got it in my head wrong, that would just scramble the data, it wouldn't account for the drive taking a dump like this. I've got no issues trying to reformat it, it was a clean install anyways.

I'm hooking it up to a bench machine for a scandisk and then it's reformat village.

CHKDSK ran fine on it no issues, completed in maybe 15 minutes on a 160 GB partition.

coinkidink

Don't know what that means.

EDIT: I get it now.

[TexasFlood]

Actually, now that I think about it...

I recently had some bad RAM in a desktop and on cold boots it would make the system behave oddly, various BSOD errors and would report disk errors.  The system would try to run chkdsk and if you let it would try to fix these errors.  Only there weren't any errors in reality and it would "eat" the filesystem irrecoverably.  But if I simply powered it down and restarted all was good, no disk errors, all perfect.  Until... the next cold start.  I RMAed the memory and now all is well.  Might not be the same issue just FYI.

[TexasFlood]

Actually, now that I think about it...

I recently had some bad RAM in a desktop and on cold boots it would make the system behave oddly, various BSOD errors and would report disk errors.  The system would try to run chkdsk and if you let it would try to fix these errors.  Only there weren't any errors in reality and it would "eat" the filesystem irrecoverably.  But if I simply powered it down and restarted all was good, no disk errors, all perfect.  Until... the next cold start.  I RMAed the memory and now all is well.  Might not be the same issue just FYI.

[Internetlad]

Actually, now that I think about it...

I recently had some bad RAM in a desktop and on cold boots it would make the system behave oddly, various BSOD errors and would report disk errors.  The system would try to run chkdsk and if you let it would try to fix these errors.  Only there weren't any errors in reality and it would "eat" the filesystem irrecoverably.  But if I simply powered it down and restarted all was good, no disk errors, all perfect.  Until... the next cold start.  I RMAed the memory and now all is well.  Might not be the same issue just FYI.

Already had swapped the ram back to stock and same issues. I've got a scandisk running, we'll see what happens.

[Ekaros]

Bad connection?

I think there is some way to deep format HDDs, I suggest trying that and cheking if errors still pile up.

[Internetlad]

Well, Ran a checkdisk, no errors, ran a scandisk, no errors, put it back in the original netbook and it runs fine now. Sometimes these machines just drive you nuts.

Thanks for the input guys, i'll keep an eye on it.

[itznfb]

Sometimes when you boot and shut off the power like that it takes a couple clean reboots to straighten things out. I've seen similar behavior in our Dell laptops.

[Internetlad]

Sometimes when you boot and shut off the power like that it takes a couple clean reboots to straighten things out. I've seen similar behavior in our Dell laptops.

Yeah, I know that a reboot isn't the same as a clean shutdown. In the future, at least, I won't be shutting off a rebooting PC I suppose.

[fohat.digs]

A weird trick that somebody told me one time, and I do it at least a couple of times a year, is to somehow "discharge" the residual and static energy in a laptop by shutting it down, removing the battery, and then holding down the power button for 30 seconds.

Maybe this is an old wives' tales, but somehow it makes sense to me.

Perhaps some of you engineers are scoffing at me about now.

[TexasFlood]

I've heard of this being done to assure completely discharging capacitors to assure completely clearing CMOS but not as general maintenance.

[Internetlad]

I've done it before, maybe placebo but seemed to work a couple times.

[TexasFlood]

I've done it before, maybe placebo but seemed to work a couple times.

Could be, seemed to work in what way? What did it fix?

[Internetlad]

Could be, seemed to work in what way? What did it fix?

If there were Laptops that are having trouble starting (IE won't post) I usually that as troubleshooting. It rarely ever works, but IIRC I've had it work literally once or twice, but i'm so sketchy on the details, it could be that it was just the first thing I tried, or a coincidence.

I have seen it as a widespread rumour, and even in an HP or Dell service manual as troubleshooting IIRC

[TexasFlood]

Well I've heard of CMOS corruption, which could cause post problems and that procedure could help that so makes sense.

[Wildcard]

Computer's run on static electricity? Grabs cat...

There is still some power in the PSU/caps once you disconnect the power. For laptops I remove the battery (if possible) then for both discharge via the power button. You can sometimes hear the computer fully discharge when you do this.

As always, static strap to a metal case or other ground.

I've had this happen before where a drive would suddenly lose its mind, not sure where the problem lies but I've found that the drives in question had corrupted firmware (possibly due to some type of shock) which lead to read/write issues and threw the thousands of bad block errors you mentioned.

A weird trick that somebody told me one time, and I do it at least a couple of times a year, is to somehow "discharge" the residual and static energy in a laptop by shutting it down, removing the battery, and then holding down the power button for 30 seconds.

Maybe this is an old wives' tales, but somehow it makes sense to me.

Perhaps some of you engineers are scoffing at me about now.

Edit: One more note, a full power discharge also clears out ram, which sometimes helps with odd boot issues.

[kbafewx]

you should definitely ditch the HDD and snag an SSD. And thank you Internetlad