"There are 719 bad sector on the disk surface. The contents of these sectors were moved to the spare area. Based on the number of remapping operations the bad sectors may form continuous areas.It is recomended to examine the log of the disk regularly. All new problems found will be logged there . It is recommendedto backup immediately to prevent data loss."
I receive this message when i open the program, the program also says to me that my HD are on critical situation. But i test my HD with many programs that stay testing for hours and they dont find errors. What happened? My HD really have a problem? HELP!!!
My HD have bad sectors??
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Re: My HD have bad sectors??
Thanks for your message and excuse me for the confusion. Yes, your hard disk have bad sectors, as displayed by Hard Disk Sentinel.
Let me explain.
The "bad sectors" detected by the hard disk S.M.A.R.T. and thus reported in the text description are no longer used by the hard disk: they are already reallocated.
It means that a spare area is used for all reads and writes targeting those bad sectors, instead of the original sectors. This spare area is originally reserved, so the bad sectors (and the health decrease in general) does not affect the usable capacity.
This means that disk surface tests (even the surface test in Hard Disk Sentinel) do not access those sectors, but tests the remaining data area and the spare area. This is good, as this way you can be sure that the original (bad) area does not contain important data and can't risk data loss.
This is why the detected and reported bad sectors can NEVER cause problems, regardless of their position because that problematic area is never used any more.
This is why manufacturers (really shame but work this way) allow more or less bad sectors. And other tools may happily ignore them too because of the above.
But we can't say the drive is perfect. Without monitoring and without knowing possible change, possible new bad sectors (which likely happen when there are already 100's of such bad sectors) we'd not know that the hard disk is almost failing - or at least degrade.
This is why it is important to KNOW these and keep an eye on the status, exactly to be informed about any (even minor) further degradation and take the required actions (I mean backup - and consider replacement if required).
Having high number of bad sectors is risky. If your drive is still working without noticeable problems - then you're so lucky. Usually drives with so many bad sectors fail completely, data loss or "just" data corruption occurs - and we did not mention the possible unstable operation and performance degradation.
I completely agree the testing.
This is always recommended in such situations, it is very important to verify the status: to
- reveal any kind (even minor) problems, issues, degradations which may lead to more problems later and stabilize (repair) them
OR
- confirm that the hard disk now stable, all possible errors are detected, reported and there are no further issues, so the drive reallocated all bad sectors.
Then of course it is possible to acknowledge the problems, clear the error counter(s) in Hard Disk Sentinel and restore health, exactly to prevent these displayed (as these are already fixed) and be notified about only possible further problems (see below).
Just the method you wrote is not correct. Other tools are usually not sensitive enough to detect and reveal all kind of issues, problems with the drive.
For example, Chkdsk never finds or repairs problems with the hard disk, but "repairs" problem only with the logical volume / partition. Even if sounds surprising, this may be independent form the actual hard disk status.
In contrast, by using the surface tests in Hard Disk Sentinel, you can verify if the currently used data area is error-free, there are no further errors reported (no weak, damaged sectors, no unreadable sectors, no retries, no performance degradations, no further problems - during a controlled, managed test system, where all steps and the disk surface can be verified, examined). These are usually ignored by other test methods.
For more information about these "bad sectors", please click on the "?" next to the text description (the text area describing the issues) and check
http://www.hdsentinel.com/faq.php#health
For more information about the tests should be used to perform complete verification of the hard disk, to reveal and fix possible problems, please check:
http://www.hdsentinel.com/faq.php#tests
and information about how to clear the errors, eliminate the displayed problems after verified that the current status is really stable and the disk surface can be used without problems:
http://www.hdsentinel.com/faq_repair_ha ... _drive.php
And for information about a common case which shows how diagnosing, fixing the logical volume by chkdsk does not help - but how the real hard disk tests fix problems:
http://www.hdsentinel.com/hard_disk_cas ... ectors.php
As you may see, all these topics are covered in the Support -> Frequently Asked Questions page - and also discussed in this forum numerous times.
Of course this is a very common situation - and exactly this is the purpose why Hard Disk Sentinel designed: to inform about the actual, real status and allow verification, testing, repairing and error-clearing in addition to the constant monitoring and reporting possible new issues.
If you use Report menu -> Send test report to developer option, I can check the actual situation and can give step-by-step information about how to clear the current error counters to remove the problems from the text description, restore the health to 100% and be notified only about possible new problems which may cause issues later.
Let me explain.
The "bad sectors" detected by the hard disk S.M.A.R.T. and thus reported in the text description are no longer used by the hard disk: they are already reallocated.
It means that a spare area is used for all reads and writes targeting those bad sectors, instead of the original sectors. This spare area is originally reserved, so the bad sectors (and the health decrease in general) does not affect the usable capacity.
This means that disk surface tests (even the surface test in Hard Disk Sentinel) do not access those sectors, but tests the remaining data area and the spare area. This is good, as this way you can be sure that the original (bad) area does not contain important data and can't risk data loss.
This is why the detected and reported bad sectors can NEVER cause problems, regardless of their position because that problematic area is never used any more.
This is why manufacturers (really shame but work this way) allow more or less bad sectors. And other tools may happily ignore them too because of the above.
But we can't say the drive is perfect. Without monitoring and without knowing possible change, possible new bad sectors (which likely happen when there are already 100's of such bad sectors) we'd not know that the hard disk is almost failing - or at least degrade.
This is why it is important to KNOW these and keep an eye on the status, exactly to be informed about any (even minor) further degradation and take the required actions (I mean backup - and consider replacement if required).
Having high number of bad sectors is risky. If your drive is still working without noticeable problems - then you're so lucky. Usually drives with so many bad sectors fail completely, data loss or "just" data corruption occurs - and we did not mention the possible unstable operation and performance degradation.
I completely agree the testing.
This is always recommended in such situations, it is very important to verify the status: to
- reveal any kind (even minor) problems, issues, degradations which may lead to more problems later and stabilize (repair) them
OR
- confirm that the hard disk now stable, all possible errors are detected, reported and there are no further issues, so the drive reallocated all bad sectors.
Then of course it is possible to acknowledge the problems, clear the error counter(s) in Hard Disk Sentinel and restore health, exactly to prevent these displayed (as these are already fixed) and be notified about only possible further problems (see below).
Just the method you wrote is not correct. Other tools are usually not sensitive enough to detect and reveal all kind of issues, problems with the drive.
For example, Chkdsk never finds or repairs problems with the hard disk, but "repairs" problem only with the logical volume / partition. Even if sounds surprising, this may be independent form the actual hard disk status.
In contrast, by using the surface tests in Hard Disk Sentinel, you can verify if the currently used data area is error-free, there are no further errors reported (no weak, damaged sectors, no unreadable sectors, no retries, no performance degradations, no further problems - during a controlled, managed test system, where all steps and the disk surface can be verified, examined). These are usually ignored by other test methods.
For more information about these "bad sectors", please click on the "?" next to the text description (the text area describing the issues) and check
http://www.hdsentinel.com/faq.php#health
For more information about the tests should be used to perform complete verification of the hard disk, to reveal and fix possible problems, please check:
http://www.hdsentinel.com/faq.php#tests
and information about how to clear the errors, eliminate the displayed problems after verified that the current status is really stable and the disk surface can be used without problems:
http://www.hdsentinel.com/faq_repair_ha ... _drive.php
And for information about a common case which shows how diagnosing, fixing the logical volume by chkdsk does not help - but how the real hard disk tests fix problems:
http://www.hdsentinel.com/hard_disk_cas ... ectors.php
As you may see, all these topics are covered in the Support -> Frequently Asked Questions page - and also discussed in this forum numerous times.
Of course this is a very common situation - and exactly this is the purpose why Hard Disk Sentinel designed: to inform about the actual, real status and allow verification, testing, repairing and error-clearing in addition to the constant monitoring and reporting possible new issues.
If you use Report menu -> Send test report to developer option, I can check the actual situation and can give step-by-step information about how to clear the current error counters to remove the problems from the text description, restore the health to 100% and be notified only about possible new problems which may cause issues later.