Hard Disk Monitoring

I just had to pull a disk from a RAID and ran the Surface Test re-initialize function on it.

After 33hrs the test completed with one block marked orange and a message saying that there was a CRC check on sector number 7210516032.

Has HDS already re-allocated the sector in this case or are there further actions I need to take?

Can the disk be returned to use (as a spare for thre RAID), or should I not use it for critical data any more?

Thanks, David

The Reinitialise Disk Surface test generally forces the hard disk drive to reallocate the problematic sector(s) - if required. But the hard disk is responsible for the re-allocation itself. If you see that bad sectors reported in the text description (and the Reallocated Sectors Count on the S.M.A.R.T. page shows any change) then yes: reallocation happened.

With other words, NOT HDS performs the re-allocation. Hard Disk Sentinel just helps the drive with this test to make it if required. In some cases (depending on the disk drive), even more required to perform the re-allocation, so I'd attempt to run the Reinit. Disk Surface test specifically on the block of this particular sector.

For this, please open Disk menu -> Surface test and select the drive plus the Reinitialize Disk Surface function but before starting the test, select the Configuration tab. There you can specify first/last block to be tested, which should be the block of the sector (0-9999, it displayed also with the sector number). You may also increase the surface reinit. level at the bottom to make even more intensive.


Sorry, I do not really understand "orange". Hard Disk Sentinel does not use that color, it uses yellow or red to indicate if a particular block is damaged but still usable after a retry (yellow) or can't be read/written depending on the test (red). If I'm correct, it was "yellow" and no reallocation happened for now, so the above specific reinit. of the appropriate block may be useful: if the block will be green and there are no issues reported, then the status is stabilized, fixed.

Not sure about the current disk status / health, I'd also consider that also to determine if the disk should be re-used or not, especially in a mission critical environment.