# Solved: Surface scan test failed?



## sugerspunsister (Nov 27, 2006)

Ok, have been having lots of problem with sony viao laptop, after trying lots of things to sort it i decided to do a system recovey. While the recovery was running, it gave me the option of doing a vaio Hardware diognestic test before the restore which i did. On the last test which was HDD test, it came back with "surface scan test failed". Can anyone tell me what this means as i am still having the same problems i incountered before the recovery. Thanks for anyhelp.


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## Elvandil (Aug 1, 2003)

It means that there are bad sectors on the hard drive that no longer allow saving and recovering content. If this proves to be true, the computer will have a problem every time it tries to use the bad sections of the drive. This usually means that the drive is dying and the number of bad sectors will just increase, sometimes rapidly.

But you may not want to rely on a single test:

Free Hard Drive Testing Applications:
HD Tune
HDAT2 (Diagnostics and bad sector recovery)
MHDD Low-level Diagnostics
Bootable Hitachi Drive Fitness Test Floppy or CD Image (works on most drives)

Hard Drive Manufacturers' Diagnostic Utilities Links:
TachTech
BleepingComputer

Luckily, it sounds like you don't yet have any data on the drive to lose. But you probably need a new one.

Running a chkdsk /r on the drive will find and mark the bad sectors so that Windows can still use the drive, but, as I mentioned, this is usually just the beginning of the end. Running chkdsk /r at a later time will probably show even more bad sectors.


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## sugerspunsister (Nov 27, 2006)

Thanks for the quick relpy elvandil, ive got sony coming round to pick the laptop up tomorrow and this is going to cost me just for them to have a look at it, will try another scan and see what happens but if it comes back with the same responce, is it worth me letting them have it or is the laptop ready for the bin?


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## Elvandil (Aug 1, 2003)

Depends on how much you are willing to spend. A new drive is less than $100 usually, plus their labor. If it's a decent machine, it's probably worth fixing.


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## sugerspunsister (Nov 27, 2006)

Love my vaio! if they can fix it then i will let them. Do you think it would be cheaper to go to a local indepenant computer enginear?


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## Elvandil (Aug 1, 2003)

I have no idea how much Sony charges, but I would suspect that a local guy could do it much more cheaply. It's not a procedure that only the manufacturer knows how to do--you could even do it. He may need to order a new drive since they can't stock everything, but I would bet (not BIG money) that it would be cheaper and maybe even faster than if Sony decided to take the laptop off the premises..

If you love it, it is well worth fixing.

As you have discovered, hard drives don't last forever. That is why everyone needs a backup of important files, as many of us have found out the hard way. In your case, it was a long illness and you had time to recover documents. For others, it is sudden death. Think about how to do some sort of backup. An external drive that can image the drive periodically would prevent disasters.


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## sugerspunsister (Nov 27, 2006)

Thanks for the help Elvandil. but i think ive just scraped through on the warrenty so hopfully it wont cost me a penny!


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## Elvandil (Aug 1, 2003)

Hope so. Otherwise. come on back and we'll do it .


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