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chiii0utFlag for United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland

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Samsung HDD ECC error

Had a virus which left some bad sectors on my Samsung 40g SP0411n. XP couldn't format a partition so I used hutil.exe from Samsung

It failed the test as follows:

Check M.C.
 - ecc error

Full disc scan
- several sectors with ecc error


I ran low level formatting and the full disc scan is fine but still get this check m.c. error. It only takes a sec to check it.

What is it and how to fix?

Ta
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stafi
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here is a free utility called killdisk. you can download it for free :

http://www.killdisk.com/downloadfree.htm
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Hi thanks I'm running that on the partition that windows still can't format.

Anyone have an idea what 'Check M.C.' means?
killdisk didn't help unfortunately

I still get the last 7 gb out of 40gb which xp format fails on
The disk surface is damaged.  The firmware isn't returning the proper error code.  You could partition the disk to 30gb, leaving buffer space between the damaged areas and the good areas, but don't put anything on the drive that you can't afford to lose.  When the surface is damaged, particles are usually flecked off that drag the surface under the heads, eating away at the good parts, causing data loss and destruction throughout the drive.  Call it a paperweight and get a new one.
BTW, M.C. is Media Control State.  The Media Control State section of the drive's firmware is returning the ECC error.
Thanks

I was hoping that it wasn't a physical error with the drive because the damage was caused by a virus.
The damage was likely already there, you just hadn't hit it.  That's why the occassional surface scan is so important.  You can have a failing disk for some time without ever knowing about it, and by the time you find out, often it's too late.
It was only 14 mths old - a Samsung from PC World.

I'm in the UK - checked on PC World website and they offer 12 mths faulty returns. Samsung website offers 3 yrs parts and labour.
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knoxzoo
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Thanks

I've just bought 2 new 80gb drives but when I put each one in as a slave it only shows up as 32,253 Mb on the boot screen (and in ghost 2003). That's the size my old faulty drive was showing.

You need to update your motherboard BIOS.  Go to the manufacturers website, download and install it.  
These samsung drives show as 33gb if you leave the 'slave' jumper on!! They're fine as slaves without the jumper (as per the manual)