Hard disk Bad sectors

How, what, where and why - when using the software.
Usman12345
Posts: 1
Joined: 2017.07.02. 10:26

Hard disk Bad sectors

Post by Usman12345 »

Hi everyone, I am worried because it's my second hard disk which is almost near its ending. Health is 20% while performance tab shows 100%
Overview says: "There are 45 bad sectors on the disk surface. The contents of these sectors were moved to the spare area.
Based on the number of remapping operations, the health of the disk was decreased in different steps.
There are 376 weak sectors found on the disk surface. They may be remapped any time in the later use of the disk.
It is recommended to examine the log of the disk regularly. All new problems found will be logged there."

Right now I am testing Surface test, which is stuck on 93%, maybe because in the review section it says " Error 1117 the request could not be performed because of an I/O
device error , Sector(some numbers, which keep on increasing), block 9383"
And under this, statement is repair successful error sector (corresponding values to those mentioned above)

I don't know what this means, it has been 150 minutes since I started this test but it hasn't ended and is stuck on 93%, while estimated showed it will take 90 minutes to finish this process.
So what should I do?? Please help me. Is there any way I can repair my hard disk. I am a student and can't afford to buy a new hard disk right now.
Attachments
Reallocated sector
Reallocated sector
Screenshot (54).png (145.96 KiB) Viewed 11359 times
Overview
Overview
Screenshot (53).png (124.63 KiB) Viewed 11359 times
surface test
surface test
Screenshot (52).png (109.13 KiB) Viewed 11359 times
S.M.A.R.T data
S.M.A.R.T data
Screenshot (51).png (190.94 KiB) Viewed 11359 times
User avatar
hdsentinel
Site Admin
Posts: 3128
Joined: 2008.07.27. 17:00
Location: Hungary
Contact:

Re: Hard disk Bad sectors

Post by hdsentinel »

Generally the problem is NOT the bad sectors.
As described numerous times here on the forum, the bad sectors are already fixed: they cause no further problems.

In general, you do not need to worry about those bad sectors as these are already fixed by the hard disk: now the disk uses the spare area instead of these bad sectors, all read and write operations are using the spare area.
So there is no need to fix them, as these are already fixed by the hard disk.

If you are interested, I recommend to click on the "?" button next to the text description area of the software or check
https://www.hdsentinel.com/faq.php#health
which describes the meaning of this situation: what are bad sectors.


The problems are in this case the WEAK sectors which are still in use: when the hard disk attempts to read/write them, the drive may "stuck" on them for longer time. This can be some minutes to many hours depending on the actual situation.

If you start the repair procedure (Disk menu -> Surface test -> Disk Repair test), then yes, Hard Disk Sentinel attempts to repair these sectors one by one.

How long it will run? Nobody can say for sure. The estimated remaining test time is calculated based on the assumption of the performance of the previous sectors already processed. But if one or more (and especially hundreds) of such weak sectors detected then it may take many hours (or even days) to complete.
This is completely normal - but as you see on the Log page, the amount of weak (pending) sectors slowly decrease, so the errors slowly repaired.

Generally this Disk Repair test is designed for situations when the amount of weak sectors is relatively low, there may be only some such problems. Then the software focuses on the stored data and attempt to repair in all possible ways by keeping the data stored in the affected sectors (and the drive in general).

Will it surely repair the drive? I'm afraid I can't say for sure. If it is possible to repair (to make it better and more usable and stabilize the system) then it will surely do.
I'm sorry to say but personally I'd not expect too much from a hard disk with 20% health only. But if possible, it may worth to try
- making a backup
- removing the hard disk and connecting to a secondary system as secondary hard disk (for example by an USB adapter / enclosure / docking station)
- perform Disk menu -> Surface test -> Reinitialise disk surface test

This would perform complete data erase and may be more effective in forcing the hard disk to repair the weak (pending) sectors as it does not "care" about the stored data. Simpler, less effective funtions may be (incorrectly) called as "low level format" in other tools/software.

Please check this section in Support -> Frequently Asked Questions:
https://www.hdsentinel.com/hard_disk_ca ... ectors.php
( What is a weak sector? How to repair weak sectors? )
which describes this situation, the above mentioned tests to repair the status and also gives information about how to avoid such problems in general - as such problems may be many times related to the operating environment (cables, connections, power source, etc..) not really the hard disk - and can happen again and again if the original source of the problem is not fixed.
Post Reply