[conspire] 3rd Master Hard Disk Error

[Rick Moen]

Quoting Paul Zander (paulz at ieee.org):

>  In using the computer, I was not aware of any malfunctions.  

With the exception (you mention elsethread) that booting Debian has
'become problematic', because its root partition is on the affected hard 
drive.

> What I saw were:* The message from the BIOS running POST* When running
> Win7, it started popping up a window saying a drive was failing and
> that I should run a backup.

Legitimate cause for concern, and you absolutely did the right thing by 
setting backup as your first priority.

> The Seagate Tool did not run on the "bad" computer with Win7.

Um,... OK?  I'm not totally sure -- actually, a bit mystified -- what
'did not run' means.  I see that there's a SeaTools for Windows whose
compatibility is supposed to include MS-Windows 7, SeaTools for DOS, an
intriguing 'SeaTools Bootable' that is self-hosting and you copy somehow
to a USB flash drive prior to use, and some 'SeaTools Legacy Tools'
files, comprising v1.12 that is  recommended for use if 'you have system
compatibility problems with the v2 GUI version', apparently running in
good ol' text mode, and 'v.2.23 (graphical)'.

I gather that current (non-'legacy') releases of SeaTools appear to
include CLI and graphical versions of the tools.  You should carefully
read program information and documentation, including any information
the drive manufacturer may (or may not) publish about what versions of
their diagnostic software are required for specific hard drive models
they have released in the past.

> On a newer machine with Win10, it identified and tested a Toshiba drive.

Um, huh?

It would be a bad idea on general principle to have a Seagate utility
play around with a Toshiba drive.  I would not have done that.  If it
offered to test a Toshiba drive (let alone repair it), I would have
acted to prevent that operation.  IMO, you should have wanted to find,
for a Seagate drive deemed suspect, the correct Seagate utility to
diagnose and possibly fix it.


> I went back to the Seagate website, but could not find a different (older) version.  

Um... I don't know what 'older' means, here.  Older than what?  Why?

I'm really not clear on what you're doing and why, but FWIW the direct
link for 'SeaTools Legacy Tools' is
https://www.seagate.com/support/downloads/seatools/seatools-legacy-support-master/
--- but I'm confused by the notion that you couldn't find that (if
that's what you were trying to find).

I'm concerned that I'm unclear on exactly what you're trying to do,
here, and why.  Perhaps you should back up and, first of all, determine
the exact model of the suspect Seagate drive.  (Among other places, that
will almost certainly be shown in your BIOS Setup screens, in addition
to briefly during each Power-On Self Test.

Try entering that model number plus, oh, I don't, maybe 'diagnostics'
into a Web search engine -- with the aim of attempting to find out from
the Internet what Seagate-offered diagnostic software is (or was)
available for it.  

I don't want to rub salt into your wounds, but around the time you first
acquired that hardware would have been an _excellent_ time to download
and burn to a CD/DVD all of the then-available diagnostic and repair
software for all the parts in your PC, most particularly the hard
drives.  As time passes, one might well expect the manufacturers of the
PC's various subassemblies to _cease_ offering software related to old
and EOLed product.


> In the interest of science, I will try the USB version.

If you mean the self-hosted 'SeaTools Bootable' tool, that sounds like a
fine idea.

> Going forward:  Win 7 kept nagging me to back up.  Well I have copied
> all of MY data files off the system.  Now suppose I did a windows
> backup, what would it get me?   
>    - If I replace the harddrive, can I use the backup to install
>    windows 7?
>    - What if I also replace the motherboard?  Pretty sure that won't work.
>    - So I replace hard drive and do a clean install of Debian, can I
>    use the back up to run under a virtual drive?
>    - In short, is there anything useful I can do with the backup?

Well, this is an awkward bit, because I need to start with a couple of
disclaimers:

1.  I have no firm grasp of what you are specifically referring to 
when you say 'a Windows backup'.  This is no doubt in part because

2.  I'm pretty certain I've never even seen MS-Windows 7.  So, 
it follows fairly naturally that I have no idea what the
characteristics, capabilities, and limitations are of the bundled backup
utility.  I actually didn't know they currently bundled one.
Historically, the bundled backup utilities with NT-based releases of
MS-Windows have been so dismal as to be pretty much universally ignored,
if memory serves.

However, I suspect you're asking the wrong question.  I believe the 
question you meant to ask is 'If I replace the believed-to-be-failing
Seagate hard drive, how do I carry forward to any replacement drive
MS-Windows 7, which is installed onto the believed-to-be-failing Seagate
drive?'

Which is related to:

> BTW, I do have the install CD, but not sure if I can re-use the serial
> number with new hardware. 

Yeah, about that:

You're not going to want to hear this (but -- disclaimer -- I lack
modern expertise on this matter because I've carefully opted out of
MS-Windows for decades).  tl;dr:  Microsoft Corporation has screwed you
and countless other users of its OS as to ability to reinstall the
operating system you paid for.


As you didn't clarify, I'm going to hazard a guess that your situataion
is that of a typical modern MS-Windows user:

1.  You did not purchase a retail copy of MS-Windows 7.  All you have is
an 'OEM preload' installation that arrived already installed on your
PC's hard drive, ready to use after booting the PC and entering your
name and some other details.  The cost of the OEM preload was bundled
into the system price of the PC.

2.  You do not possess a general-purpose installation image useful to
reinstall MS-Windows 7 from scratch, because none was provided to you,
and you probably didn't even stop to realise that this would be a big
long-term problem.  Instead, you have one of two inadequate substitutes.
(a) You might have a 'recovery' DVD/CD.  But probably not, because
burning one would have cost the PC manufacturer a whole 50 cents.
Instead, (b) you probably have a 'recovery partition' on the same hard
drive where the runtime preload lives.

If memory serves, there is a fairly easy way to create an optical disc
image housing the contents of the 'recovery partition', so that you have
at least that half-measure reinstallation software on something tht
won't go 'Pfft!' if the hard drive fails.  Of course, the time and
trouble and (tiny) expense of burning the DVD is on you, and only an
insignificant percentage of MS-Windows users think to do so -- before
the hard drive fails or becomes unreliable, at which point, oops, it's
too late.

What is a 'recovery' image or partition?  This is a deliberately
reduced-functionality MS-Windows installer that offers no installation
options, e.g., doesn't permit you to state how to partition the target
hard drive and which existing partitions to leave alone.  Instead, IIRC,
it blows away 100% of the existing contents and all filesystems on the
target drive and reconstructs the hard drive contents exactly the way
the hard drive was partitioned and loaded by the OEM.  This means the
'recovery' installer will blow away alternative-OS contents on that
drive, and will reinstall MS-Windows 7 plus all of the 'ratware'
third-party junk and advertising that the OEM accepted money to throw
into the bundle.


More of what you really didn't want to hear:  When your PC was
brand-new, it was strongly in your interest to stop and think:  'Where's
my off-system means of reinstalling the operating system and (any)
bundled software?  I.e., where's my master installation copy of the
software I'm paying for?'  Any time you pay for proprietary software, 
you're supposed to receive a reinstallable master copy, either on an
optical disc (sometimes with an activation code), or possibly as a
downloadable installable set of file (sometimes with an activation
code).  This being something you paid to acquire, and knowing that
accidents happen to computers (including but not limited to failing hard
drives and malware), you make sure you have the complete means to
reinstall that software from scratch tucked away somewhere off-system,
right?  Like on a DVD scrawled with the activation code (if any) in
Sharpie on the front?

So, where's your offsystem installable copy of MS-Windows 7, the OS 
you paid for as part of your once-new PC?  What is your plan of action
when, not if, the hard drive it's OEM-installed onto fails?

It boggles me, still, to this day, but your average MS-Windows user 
never planned for this -- and so is completely unaware that he/she has
been totally screwed over.

Maybe I'm wrong in the above guess.  Maybe you, Paul Zander, have a
proper retail copy of MS-Windows 7, acquired separately from your PC,
with required activation code, sitting in a ziplock bag in your office.
But the smart money's on 'Gee, I don't have that.'

If the latter, what do you do?  Personally, I am firmly of the view
that, if you don't have a fully installable master copy of your software 
(or at least the ability to acquire one quickly), then you don't
_really_ own it, because you're one hardware fault away from losing it 
completely.

As I see it:

1.  You could go buy MS-Windows 7.  Again.  And maybe make sure it isn't 
a restricted 'recovery disc' or such.

2.  You could decide you've had enough of awful compromises and abusive
customer relationships, and go open source.  (I said farewell to
Microsoft operating systems on my computers for good around 1992.
For me, the last straw was when MS-Windows for Workgroups 3.11
hard-froze while I was copy-editing articles for _Blue Notes_ magazine,
the 40 page monthly newsletter of San Francisco PC User Group,  My 
copy-editing session were a pair of DOS sessions running shareware ASCII
editor QEdit on several files that I had been frequently updating to a
floppy disk.  However, upon reboot, I found that not only had I lost the
contents of the QEdit buffers in RAM (no big loss), but also that
Windows for Workgroups had rewritten the edited files on-disck to zero
length, destroying hours of saved work.

That was it.  I was done.  That machine got reloaded with the beta of
OS/2 2.0 the same day, and then converted over to Linux a couple of
years later.

3.  Work with the terrible hand you've been dealt.

If you can still boot that hard drive (which I believe you said you
can?), then perhaps you can (at least) create a 'recovery disc' on
optical media.  That sucks, but it's way better than nothing.  Or
perhaps you already have such an optical disc.  I wasn't clear on that
from your very fragmentary description.

If your PC came with a 'recovery partition', then it's probably fairly
easy to poke around and figure out how to use it.  Usually, this
involves pressing F8 or something like that during POST, bringing up a
menu of bootable targets.  One is probably labelled something like
'Repair Your Computer' or something of that sort.  If so, that's the
recovery partition.  I would guess that it's perfeclty safe to boot that
partition to look around, i.e., I would guess that you are asked to give
confirmation before the 'recovery' installer blows away everything and
overwrites the hard drive.  Suggest you explore that.

Inside MS-Windows 7 itself, I see alleged on the Web that there's a
built-in utility (Start menu, Back up and Restore, Create a System
Image) where you can request that the contents of the recovery partition
be burned / copied to somewhere.

Once you have, say, your 'recovery' image stored bootably on an optical
disc or a spare external hard drive, or someting like that, you can
experiment with it to see if you can trick it into doing something
useful.  Like, for example, you could create a virtual machine inside
VirtualBox, then make the VM boot the 'recovery' installer, and let it
do a 'recovery' installation entirely within the VM -- writing only to
the VM's virtual disk file, not to the host OS's hard drive(s).  The
beauty of VM technology is that all software running there gets lied to
and told 'No, you have full control of an actual real computer.  You're
not running in a simulation. Trust me[tm].'  Such a Win7 installation 
would then doubtless squawk about needing 'product activation'.  So, I
guess at that point you telephone Microsoft's telephone line for
activation, say you've moved Win7 into a VM, and badger them into
helping you.  Scuttlebutt says they're not unreasonable about this.

(This was one of your questions above, so this is my verbose way of 
saying 'Yeah, at least one variant on your idea might well be a plan.')

Of course, in the alternative, maybe you imagine that you ought to
somehow back up the current exact state of your MS-Windows 7
installation including installed applications and somewhat ratty and
worse-for-the-wear Registry -- and then do a corresponding restore
operation later.  I personally think this is a tactical error, for
multiple reasons including MS-Window's tendency to accumulate bobbles
over time that are best dealt with by (infrequent) from-scratch
reinstallation of the OS, then from-scratch reinstallation of
applications, then re-creation of application configuration, then
restoration of user data files.

But, if you're feeling lucky and prefer to back up and later restore the
current exact state of your MS-Windows 7 installation including
installed applications, I'm sure you can somehow do that, possibly with
bundled backup/restore software, possibly with third-party software from
any of the cheerful publishers of proprietary MS-Windows utilities
standing by happy to accept your money.

Or, third alternative, there are ways to create _directly_ a virtual
disk image of your exact, literal, MS-Windows partition, for use under
VMware or VirtualBox.  This notion has been the subject of discussion
within the year on this mailing list, so, if interested, let me know and
I can dredge up Mailman archive links to the relevant back postings.
(Or, you know, you could research that yourself.  I don't have any magic
for finding such things.)


Disclaimer:  Although I'm confident what I say in relation to Windows 7
is correct in broad outline at least, you are solemnly advised to verify
particulars before follwing the advise of someone who gave MS-Windows
the heave-ho in disgust more than a quarter-century ago.


(A propos of nothing in particular, I'm pleased to note that QEdit's
current incarnation as The SemWare Editor = TSE is still around for
MS-DOS, OS/2, and MS-Windows users.  It was nice.)