Newly reported chkdsk bug in Windows 7 on Western Digital drives

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This in from reader NR: Hello, Woody ! I want to share to you my recent experience running chkdsk /f /r on licensed Windows 7 Professional SP1 on two
[See the full post at: Newly reported chkdsk bug in Windows 7 on Western Digital drives]

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Has NR cloned the weirdly behaving drive’s filesystem to another 500GB model or Seagate drive and checked it for errors?

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Hypothetical created while wearing my hand-crafted tin foil hat: Is this a ‘flaw’ introduced onto very popular hardware, that Microsoft will gladly ‘fix’ for you, once you toe the line and accept all rollups?

No proof to support, simply recognizing it fits the provided limited information.

Edit to note: chkdsk /f /r is a redundancy, I believe. [/r] implies [/f]

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Programs like chkdsk typically want to get down and dirty at the sector level.

Have you considered the possibility that the error you’re seeing relates to “advanced format”, i.e. a disk with a sector size that is NOT 512 bytes? Datasheet for WD5003AZEX says quite clearly that it IS an advanced format disk. Datasheet for WD5003ABYX isn’t so clear, but appears that it might NOT be an advanced format disk. (You might want do some additional checking.)

My recollection is that these new-fangled (well, not so new now any more) disks don’t always play so well with old hardware, and may require a special driver patch.

HTH…

— EstherD

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Cascadian, Great Lake Bunyip

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I never liked WD drives with them there is always something wrong they just time bombs..

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That’s funny, other people (would) say exactly the same thing of Seagate!

I’ve had ( and still have) both WD and Seagate drives, as well as Maxtor, Toshiba, IBM, Fujitsu. They all have their pro’s and con’s.  From experience, I can’t say WD is any better or worse than Seagate; both equally have long lives and failures.  It could just be something with a-a particular model or, b-a bad batch or, c-design changes that cheapen the product; that kind of thing. Just do your research before buying, and beware of user reviews on big sites like Amazon or New-Egg — a-some users haven’t a clue what they are talking about / what they are doing,  b-bad packaging & shipping are responsible for many “DOA” complaints, c-paid trolls to enhance or defame a particular brand.

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SueW

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Both partitions are created with default cluster zize, Acronis Align Tool reports that they’re already aligned. WD5003AZEX is an advanced format drive, WD5003ABYX is not. I don’t have any Seagate drive to test on it.

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The test drive doesn’t have to be a Seagate it could be any brand or a different model of a Western Digital drive family.  Good luck with your bug swatting test.

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I’ll try in the next few hours to patch the fresh installation of Windows 7 SP1 with the so called SP2 Convenience Rollup, dated 04.2016, on WD5003ABYX, on ATA mode, to minimize the period of time when the error could show up. If the error is not present after patching, and running chkdsk D: /f /r, it seems that probably a KB between April 2016, and May 2017 could be the cause. I’ll let you know. NR.

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Well, i was applied the Convenience Rollup (SP2), but on WD5003AZEX, (the advanced format drive),  to the 32 bit variant of Windows 7 SP1 fresh install, where the error was not present. SURPRISE: The error SHOW UP after running chkdsk D: /f /r. It seems that the main convenience rollup KB3125574 is the cause. After uninstalling KB3125574, the error disappeared. Due the fact that KB3125574 contains most of the Windows Updates between 2011-2016, i think is practically impossible to find which KB or combinations of KB’s could make this error show up. Case closed.

Remember the environment: Windows 7 Professional SP1 32 bits, hdd working in IDE (ATA) mode, applying Conevenience Rollup, April 2016 (KB3020369, KB3125574), running CHKDSK D: /f /r. (where D:\ is the second partition, data archive).

Thank you for your time.

NR, author.

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Cascadian

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can you try running chkdsk /f /r again on the WD5003AZEX again but only with the KB982018 update installed?

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Here’s something to try (I use this tool all the time and am very familiar with it)
http://gsmartcontrol.sourceforge.net/home/index.php

save the zip file or use the installed version (you may need to unmark the zip file as blocked)
open an admin command prompt and cd to the program’s directory

run:
smartctl.exe -x /dev/sda > where_to_save_the_log1.txt

repeat for other drives with /dev/sdb, /dev/sdc, etc…

Post the log here (feel free to edit out serial numbers)

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All S.M.A.R.T. parameters, on all drives tested are in the green range, no errors (according to HDDScan reports).  As I mentioned, applying Convenience Rollup, April 2016 (KB3020369, KB3125574) make the error possible to show up. Uninstalling KB3125574 make the error to dissapear.
NR

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Thanks, EP, for your suggestion with KB982018. The situation looks like this:

1. Windows 7 SP1 32 bit fresh install. No error.

2. Installing KB982018. No error.

3. Installing prerequisite Convenience Rollup April 2016, KB3020369. No error.

4. Installing main Convenience Rollup April 2016, KB3125574. The error show up.

5. Uninstalling main Convenience Rollup April 2016, KB3125574. No error.

In fact, the error is present regardless the type of the drive, advanced format or non-advanced format (e.g. WD5003AZEX, WD5003ABYX). I think, maybe, even the brand of the drive is irrelevant. The readers of this post could test the error on their own brands of drives and share it here, if they want. Resuming scenario: 2 partitions, C:\ – windows installation, D:\ – data archive, no recovery partition, both NTFS with default cluster size, D:\ could be primary or logical. Most important : the drive MUST work in IDE (ATA) mode. The error is not present in AHCI mode. After installing Windows 7SP1 32 bits, and the Convenience Rollup, April 2016 (KB3020369, KB3125574), run chkdsk D: /f /r and you will get this at the beggining of the logfile (in Event Viewer):

“CHKDSK is verifying files (stage 1 of 5)…

Attribute record of type 0x80 and instance tag 0x1 is cross linked

starting at 0x0 for possibly 0x2 clusters.”,  even your physical hdd status is perfect.

Maybe we have to live with that.

 
NR

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I was curious to see the log anyway, many drives I’ve seen are “fine” or “in the green range”. Most of the time this means the drive is actually fine, other times it means the drive is only “a little” defective.

I’m curious to make that distinction in this case, if for no other reason than to broaden my data set on drives (good or bad).

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Here is the log. And is an update to this error. The error appears too on a second drive attached as a single data archive partition. It’s seems more and more clear there’s a filesystem, logical error, not phsical on the drive himself.

https://pastebin.com/6dSD1wyH

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