Doubts with this result

[Gioantonnello]

Hello, my name is Gioantonnelo and I have some doubts with this result. My disk said it had 72 weak sectors and was at 45%, but after doing the disk repair test (Read test with sector repair) it went down to 23% and I got this picture







I don't understand what happened. Nothing was solved. How to fix this problem?

Thanks

[hdsentinel]

Hello Gioantonnelo,

Thanks for the image and your message.

To be honest, I do not really understand why you have doubts - and why do you feel "Nothing was solved" and especially why do you feel there is a problem to be "fixed".

Everything seems worked correctly, as in an ideal case: all weak sectors fixed and stabilized according the image.


Not sure, but maybe you noticed that during the Disk Repair test, Hard Disk Sentinel did exactly what it should:
1) detected the problematic sectors (unreadable sectors) and displayed them in the log area below the disk surface map with red. Any file(s) saved in the appropriate sectors (if files stored there) were unreadable: when you may attempted to read those files, probably "file read error" could be displayed and/or "just" the disk drive and the system stopped/hardly respond.
Not sure, but maybe before completely closing this window, you reviewed the bottom log area for possible file(s) affected too, confirming that such files are now readable (repaired), so now you can save/backup such (previously unreadable) files.

2) successfully repaired these sectors. You may notice the darker green blocks, which represent the original location of the problems: one or more sectors in such darker green blocks were the pending (weak) sectors which required the repair procedure. As you can see, these could be completely and correctly repaired as should happen in an ideal situation (if the hard disk CAN be repaired at al): the Disk Repair test forced the hard disk drive to perform the repair procedure, so the appropriate blocks are now green: all further reads/writes should happen without problems. For example a further Read test will likely show no problems in such/similar blocks too.

3) the test results (see the right area of the window) confirms that now the complete disk surface (all 10000 blocks) are Good ("bueno"), so now all sectors of the hard disk drive are working correctly.

4) in addition to the previously reported weak/pending sectors, additional problems revealed and repaired (fixed) immediately. Generally when some weak/pending sectors appear, there is very high chance that further use (any disk operation, like file copy/move, disk testing or so) may reveal even further issues. As you can see, the Disk Repair test not only found the original problems but also revealed even others - and successfully repaired (fixed) them too.

During the Disk Repair function, the hard disk drive itself is forced to verify the status of the sectors and
- restore the sector status to normal (good) state.
OR
- if the sector may be physically damaged, perform the re-allocation: replace the original sector with a spare sector. Then the original sector is marked internally as "bad" and all further reads/writes are redirected to this spare sector. Then you may notice that "bad sectors" reported by the hard disk drive, but as they are no longer used, they will not cause any further troubles.
This section gives additional information about bad sectors in general: https://www.hdsentinel.com/faq.php#health


Generally in both cases, the result should be that the
- hard disk drive should be working better: all problems should be stabilized and repaired
- and ideally the hard disk drive should show no issues (no read errors, no substantial delays or so) because the original weak sectors are fixed and (if required) some sectors are replaced with a "fresh" sector from the spare area.

If no such sector-reallocation required, then ideally the Health % can go back 100% immediately after the Disk Repair function, but if the hard disk found and reallocated some (72 in your case) bad sectors, then it does happen. However, then (as the problems are now stabilized) it is possible to manually acknowledge the bad sectors, to ignore them (as they are already fixed) and restore the health value, to be notified about possible new issues only.

Your case is a typical IDEAL case when ALL problems could be repaired/fixed completely and the hard disk could be stabilized. Sometimes when the amount of weak sectors is higher and further problems revealed during the test, then complete repair is not always possible.

Generally the Support -> Frequently Asked Questions page describes the weak sectors:

What is a weak sector? How to repair weak sectors?
https://www.hdsentinel.com/hard_disk_ca ... ectors.php

And the other page describes how to clear the error counter(s) and restore the health when the appropriate disk test fixed the issues:

How to repair hard disk drive? How to eliminate displayed hard disk problems?
https://www.hdsentinel.com/faq_repair_h ... _drive.php

If you use Report menu -> Send test report to developer option, I can check the actual complete status of the hard disk drive and can send step-by-step details about how to clear the error counter(s) and restore the Health to 100%.

[Gioantonnello]

Greetings and thanks for your help. What worries me is that the disk used to say 45% and now it says 23%. and it turned red. I attach an image





I don't know how to use the HDManeger program well

[hdsentinel]

Yes, I can completely understand.

In your situation, while the previously reported problems repaired - other issues are also revealed (and stabilized too). This caused the change of the health.

Generally the purpose of the disk tests are to make the hard disk stable: to fix/stabilize the issues, so then (ideally) the hard disk can be used without delays, all files should be read/written and so.
This happened now - but because some other issues are revealed the health did not improve back automatically.

This is not rare, as problems can remain un-detected for longer time, sometimes even for years until the disk drive starts to access a problematic area.
A such/similar situation described at: https://www.hdsentinel.com/hard_disk_ca ... ectors.php
and this is generally why I always recommend to perform intensive testing, as described at: https://www.hdsentinel.com/faq.php#tests
(even on new hard disks/SSDs) exactly to reveal possible issues long before they can lead to data corruption/data loss - or confirm that there are no such issues.

Now, as with the test you confirmed that all sectors are GOOD, we can "ignore" these reported problems and restore the Health level to 100%.
I suggest to please use Report menu -> Send test report to developer option, as then I can send step-by-step details about how to restore the Health to 100% and be notified about possible new problems only (if there will be).

[Gioantonnello]

Thanks for your help. I read the page how to clear the error counters and restore health when proper disk testing solved the problems: It helped me a lot, now my disk is at 100%.

Thanks for your patience and help.