Hard Disk Monitoring

Hello!

My primary hard drive has a weak sector. According to your website, I have to run Disk -> Surface test -> Reinitialise disk surface to fix it. However, I can't seem to find that feature. There are only two types of tests, Read and Write (DESTRUCTIVE) tests. Please help me fix my hard drive.

Thanks for the help!

Hello,

Yes: Hard Disk Sentinel standard version has only these two simpler tests.
Other tests (for example the Reinitialise disk surface test) are available only in Hard Disk Sentinel Professional.
However, as it is also a destructive test, it could not be used on a system drive where Windows is active and contains data.
Currently working on a safer and easier way to repair system drives which can't be cleared.

Now I'd recommend to try the Disk menu -> Surface test -> Read test, to verify if there is any problem which would require attention - or if the corresponding sector is already fixed by the hard disk.
I mean that (according the image) I saw that bad sector is also reported which means the hard disk already found and fixed the problem by re-allocation: the hard disk moved the contents of the sector to the spare area and now (instead of the original sector) the spare area is used for all reads and writes targeting that bad sector. (There is no need to manually fix it - already done by the hard disk).

So it is possible that now the status is stable, all data sectors can be used without problems.


Please try Disk menu -> Surface test -> Read test, which is 100% safe for the stored data. Hard Disk Sentinel will display a warning:

Warning
Unable to lock the disk for exclusive use.
Are you sure you want to test it anyway?
Accessing some arears of the surface during the test may be slower due to
the active o/s and apps, this can cause darker green blocks.


As this is not an error, you can safely proceed the test - just some darker green blocks may be displayed on the disk surface map.
The darker green areas are still perfect (there were no problems during access of data) just they may respond a bit slower than expected.

The question is: will you see damaged (yellow) or unaccessible, bad (red) blocks during the test and/or see the health decreasing (which means new, different problems detected)?
If yes - then yes, there would be good to perform the destructive test to repair, stabilize these problems.
If not - then the status is now stable, all problems are already fixed by the hard disk. Then you can acknowledge the reported problems in Hard Disk Sentinel, to clear the error(s) reported from the text description and restore the health to 100%.
That way the software will no longer display the current problems, just reports any possible new issues, errors (if there will be in the future).

For more information please check
http://www.hdsentinel.com/faq.php#health and
http://www.hdsentinel.com/faq.php#tests
http://www.hdsentinel.com/faq_repair_ha ... _drive.php

After running the read test, it found the error to be located on block 3761. If I use another hard drive as my boot drive and perform the operation on this hard drive with the option "Limit testing to block 3761 to 3761 only", will all data still be wiped from the drive?

No, of course that if you limit testing to that particular block, then only that block will be tested. However it may contain other data (for example other files, directory / MFT metadata and so) which may be cleared.

I hope it is okay to add to this thread...

I have a HD that seems to be dying. Number of weak/bad sectors is increasing. I have tried CHKDSK, which claimed to fix some, but more appear.

I have a data backup, but I would like to get a system image before the HD dies. So far, the imaging software has failed with read or write errors, so I'm stuck.

Because I have HDSentinel PRo, I tried running the Read + WRITE + read test, but it wouldn't do that on the C: (system) drive. That's what I need.

I wondered whether there is some way to put HDSentinel on a bootable CD or other media so that the C: drive would not be in use by Windows, then run the R+W+R test.

Is it possible, and would it be worth trying?

Thanks!

Excuse me, but it is important to know that chkdsk *never* repairs problems with the hard disks, just repairs the logical drives.
If you attempt, you'll get exactly the opposite what we'd expect: it marks the sectors as bad on the logical volume and if you image that, you will see bad sectors on the new drive too (!) even if it's completely perfect.
But this is clearly described at
http://www.hdsentinel.com/hard_disk_cas ... ectors.php

Yes, the write type tests (including the Read + Write + Read test) can't be performed on system drive, where Windows (and other applications) are active. It is possible to create bootable Windows pendrive/CD and use Hard Disk Sentinel Pro Portable to diagnose such drives, as then Windows will be active from an other media (not the drive itself).
For example this topic describes: viewtopic.php?f=9&t=10219

However, I must tell that the Read + Write + Read test will not help in this case. This test is designed for a completely different purpose: to refresh the data area. It starts with a Read and if the sector can't be read - then to preserve data, no write or repair attempted on the affected sector.
So it may not help in such situations.

To repair weak sectors, the best way would be the Disk menu -> Surface test -> Reinitailise Disk Surface test which performs complete overwrite.
(a faster, easier and safer method to repair the drive is under construction and will be available in the following version).

I completely understand and agree that you may prefer to make a backup - but if a drive is having lots of problems, there is high chance that the system areas, files etc... are also damaged. Creating an image about that system may be not work well and the resulting image may contain "virtual" bad sectors which will appear after restore on a new drive.
Because of the above, I'd more recommend to perform backup of FILES and FOLDERS (as much as possible) and try a clean reinstall.
Generally imaging is good idea about 100% perfect, working systems to get a stable point which we may recover.
Maybe this is the reason why the imaging tool may not want to create the image ...