- hd-sentinel-wdc.-healthpng.png (126.75 KiB) Viewed 471 times
- hd-sentinel-wdc.png (93.75 KiB) Viewed 471 times
- hd-sentinel-hitachi-health.png (125.95 KiB) Viewed 471 times
Very low health but no bad/damaged sector was found after reinitializing disk surface
Very low health but no bad/damaged sector was found after reinitializing disk surface
I have 2 hardisk with 12% and 14% health. But there was no bad/damaged sector found after Reinitialize Disk Surface.
This one barely even used, only around 18 days.
Maybe the health number is false? Is the disk safe to use?
This one barely even used, only around 18 days.
Maybe the health number is false? Is the disk safe to use?
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hdsentinel
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Re: Very low health but no bad/damaged sector was found after reinitializing disk surface
If you're lucky then everything you see is completely normal and expected: the bad sectors (as they are already reallocated, replaced by spare sectors) should cause no further problems. So ideally disk tests will not show errors, maybe "just" slower areas (notice the darker blocks) which may also damage with later use. But we can't say the drive is perfect - as usually with so low Health % we can expect more issues with later use.
Similar situations explained many times, please check these for example:
https://www.hdsentinel.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=18544
https://www.hdsentinel.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=19361#p19361
Similar situations explained many times, please check these for example:
https://www.hdsentinel.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=18544
https://www.hdsentinel.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=19361#p19361
Re: Very low health but no bad/damaged sector was found after reinitializing disk surface
Thank you for the reply. However, I have copied around 500GB worth of files to the hard disk and then run the Surface Test > Read Test. The result is quite different from the previous Reinitialize Disk Surface test.
There are 4 bad blocks found. And plenty of darker green blocks that looks almost like a pattern. Maybe sign of physical defect on the disk?
This hard disk came from a PC with mainboard problem, so it restarted a lot during use. There were many damaged files, which I suspected due to lost clusters because the pc restarted during write. I was hoping Reinitialize Disk Surface will fix the problem. Seeing the previous result confirmed my theory. But after this test I am not sure. Should I Reinitialize again with different option? Or should I run another test to discover and mark all the bad sectors? What would you recommend? Thanks
- hd-sentinel-wdc-surface-test.png (73.78 KiB) Viewed 303 times
This hard disk came from a PC with mainboard problem, so it restarted a lot during use. There were many damaged files, which I suspected due to lost clusters because the pc restarted during write. I was hoping Reinitialize Disk Surface will fix the problem. Seeing the previous result confirmed my theory. But after this test I am not sure. Should I Reinitialize again with different option? Or should I run another test to discover and mark all the bad sectors? What would you recommend? Thanks
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hdsentinel
- Site Admin
- Posts: 3128
- Joined: 2008.07.27. 17:00
- Location: Hungary
- Contact:
Re: Very low health but no bad/damaged sector was found after reinitializing disk surface
Yes, I'm afraid what you see is not rare, but somehow expected: a very common, typical case.
Generally yes, while the Reinitialise Disk Surface test helped to stabilize the situation, according the experiences when the Health % is relatively low (under 25%, the RED category) usually we can't expect too much from the disk drive itself.
Usually in this situation with time we can expect new and new problems: sometimes sooner - sometimes later.
While the bad sectors in the text description are fixed, reallocated (so they no longer cause troubles, so in theory the drive should be "perfectly working") the count of bad sectors can indicate higher risks and possible further damages in nearby sectors.
Ideally after the first Reinitialise Disk Surface test all problems detected are fixed, stabilized. So far so good.
But if the Health % remains as low as 12-14%, we can't expect too much: we can see more and more problems with use (and/or a later test). Probably now if you'd start Reinitialise Disk Surface test again, it would again fix the current red blocks - and then later (probably one or more of the darker green blocks, which are currently GOOD just slower than expected, showing with darker green color) may begin producing errors too.
In this case, I'd recommend to replace the disk drive, this is the best you can do.
If the errors would appear at specific parts of the hard disk drive (for example at the end of the surface which described at https://www.hdsentinel.com/hard_disk_case_bad_sectors.php ) then you could make a smaller partition and use the hard disk with reduced capacity.
But in this case errors appear on the whole disk surface, so this is not really possible.
Interesting to see that while the drive shows numerous problems (that's why the Health is as low as 14%) the manufacturer-specific error threshold is still not reached, so the drive may be still considered as "healthy": warranty replacement is possible only if there would be even more problems, when the Health would be 0% ( https://www.hdsentinel.com/faq.php#health )
But as you can see, a drive with 12-14% can be longer working as expected, despite the best efforts to repair.
If you use Report menu -> Send test report to developer option, I'd be more than happy to check the complete status and advise if there is anything specifically to do.
Generally yes, while the Reinitialise Disk Surface test helped to stabilize the situation, according the experiences when the Health % is relatively low (under 25%, the RED category) usually we can't expect too much from the disk drive itself.
Usually in this situation with time we can expect new and new problems: sometimes sooner - sometimes later.
While the bad sectors in the text description are fixed, reallocated (so they no longer cause troubles, so in theory the drive should be "perfectly working") the count of bad sectors can indicate higher risks and possible further damages in nearby sectors.
Ideally after the first Reinitialise Disk Surface test all problems detected are fixed, stabilized. So far so good.
But if the Health % remains as low as 12-14%, we can't expect too much: we can see more and more problems with use (and/or a later test). Probably now if you'd start Reinitialise Disk Surface test again, it would again fix the current red blocks - and then later (probably one or more of the darker green blocks, which are currently GOOD just slower than expected, showing with darker green color) may begin producing errors too.
In this case, I'd recommend to replace the disk drive, this is the best you can do.
If the errors would appear at specific parts of the hard disk drive (for example at the end of the surface which described at https://www.hdsentinel.com/hard_disk_case_bad_sectors.php ) then you could make a smaller partition and use the hard disk with reduced capacity.
But in this case errors appear on the whole disk surface, so this is not really possible.
Interesting to see that while the drive shows numerous problems (that's why the Health is as low as 14%) the manufacturer-specific error threshold is still not reached, so the drive may be still considered as "healthy": warranty replacement is possible only if there would be even more problems, when the Health would be 0% ( https://www.hdsentinel.com/faq.php#health )
But as you can see, a drive with 12-14% can be longer working as expected, despite the best efforts to repair.
If you use Report menu -> Send test report to developer option, I'd be more than happy to check the complete status and advise if there is anything specifically to do.