Hard Disk Monitoring

Good day. I started a disk repair (the one that doesn't do a full overwrite) almost 19 hours ago on a WD-WXK1AA3T1888 drive with 52% health and (currently) 593 weak sectors. I was reassigned for work to a place with unstable electricity, so damage to my laptop and other peripherals was somewhat expected; I just did not expect it to be this quick.

Before I moved here in August 2021, health was at 100%. Same when I visited my actual current residence to check the drive with HD Sentinel on September 2021. It was a few days ago that I noticed the health drop to 52% for the first time.

The estimated time for the test is now up to 5871 hours (more than half a year)!

When I first noticed that the external hard drive was at 52% health, it only had 133 or so pending sectors, so what I did (being completely ignorant) was to copy the files to a brand new hard drive. I feel like that worsened the issues, because the initial surface test I performed only showed a red cell for block 4, and then the next red block was a few hundred blocks away, but starting this repair, even block 3 has very slow read times.

I would use the write/destructive methods if copying the files to a new hard drive didn't abort unexpectedly at 65% due to Windows Explorer restarting randomly. The reason why I tried to do a disk repair was so that I can possibly copy the remaining files to the new hard drive safely, but considering how SLOW the speeds are right now, I dread the integrity of my files. I am not financially well off, and most of the data in my HDD have something to do with my work (I am in the medical field), so I absolutely cannot afford to lose those files.

I am hoping to stop the disk repair for now, but after searching if it's fine to do so, I'm scared. Aborting chkdsk is apparently a bad idea because of the exclusive access lock given to the drive, and though I know HD Sentinel is different from chkdsk, surface tests also require exclusive access to the volume.

Thank you for anyone who may assist me.

Here are the current (as of the time of writing) data for the current disk repair:
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/zzlmjzb5uc0c ... SYLEa?dl=0

Generally yes, of course, it is completely safe to stop the Disk Repair test.

Did you check the page suggested in the text description about weak/pending sectors?

https://www.hdsentinel.com/hard_disk_ca ... ectors.php

This mentions that in most cases cables, connections can cause such/similar problems. This is especially true for 2.5" external disk drives powered from USB connection but can affect other drives (both internal and external) as well.

The most common error is to connect a 2.5" USB external hard disk to a simple USB 2.0 connection which does not provide enough power for proper operation.
The drive seems working - but only for short time and such/similar issues (weak sectors, unreadable files, damaged/lost data and even complete disk failure) is very common.

Not sure about your model (WD-WXK1AA3T1888 seems not a valid drive) but if you have a 2.5" USB external drive, then the above may be true.
And if this is true, then I'm afraid you may see more and more weak/pending sectors: this is why probably 100's of sectors already repaired - but more revealed during the test. The test attempts to automatically fix all of the new, revealed sectors too - but yes, if the test does not advance/complete in a reasonable amount of time, then it is not worth to continue (I'd surely not wait 5000+ hours)

In such cases, I'm afraid you'd need to use the Disk menu -> Surface test -> Reinitialise Disk Surface test - because the high number of KNOWN (and possible even higher number of currently not yet detected) weak sectors. But first please try to improve connection, maybe try with a different cable and (if the drive has external power supply) with a different power supply.
You may try a different USB slot too or connecting to a different system if possible.
Then hopefully the drive will work slightly better and you can copy most files before proceeding the Reinitialise Disk Surface test (which will clear all data - and most efficient in repairing. Simpler functions usually incorrectly called as "low level format" in other tools).

Yes, exactly as you wrote, chkdsk is designed for completely different purpose: to repair/fix the logical drive (volume). But it does not make your files better/readable and does not even fix the physical disk problems (this is also covered on the above link).

If you use Report menu -> Send test report to developer option, it is possible to check the actual drive model/status and advise.

Thank you very much for your swift response.
I detected the hard drive to be 52% in a different system from the one I am currently running the repair on. It's also 52% in this one.

I did check the page about weak/pending sectors, so here are things of note:
> My laptop's USB ports are both USB 3.0 so, no, it's not because I connected it to a USB 2.0 port. My desktop PC only has the hard drive plugged in the USB 3.1 port.
> I use centimetres, so it took me a while to find a ruler to measure this drive. It is 2.5".
> I am using a new connection/cord for the external hard drive. It does not have an external power supply. The new cord is from a brand new hard drive, so I don't think the issue is the connection, this time.
> "WD-WXK1AA3T1888" is what appeared in HD Sentinel, after checking again, there's a different model listed next to it: "WDC WD10JMVW-11S5XS1".

I will select the "Send test report to developer" option now, thank you!

Yes: if a drive reports problems (and 52% health) in a system - then usually we can see similar in an other system too.
Just the drive may perform better with a different system, for example (if the USB port could provide additional power and better connection) the disk test may find less additional problems on sectors less frequently read/written.

Thanks, I see - so generally there should be no problem with the USB ports if the drive always used with USB 3.0 (or 3.1) ports as they usually good enough to provide enough power for proper operation. If you tried with a new cable - then it is also fine.

I checked the report and according the S.M.A.R.T. page, the "192 Power off Retract Cycle Count" value is high. Usually this increases when the drive suddenly loses power, eg. by disconnecting from the system or if there is no proper connection with the USB slot. Then the drive may not able to finish a write operation and this is frequent cause of such weak sectors and damaged files.

As I see, "WD-WXK1AA3T1888" is the serial number (not the model) of the drive, but yes, this is a 2.5" external drive, now I see.

Personally I'd try to
- stop the test
- attempt to copy all possible files now
- and then, if there are still important file(s), maybe attempt a new disk repair test - but in order to really make the drive working correctly again, I'm afraid you'll need to use the Reinitialise Disk Surface test.

Thanks again for looking at the report.
I do remember that the laptop's USB ports used to auto-sleep at a certain number of hours; I was horrified to find this out since this laptop is new and I only started using this external hard drive with this laptop. I am not used to laptops in general so I didn't know that this was the default even for a laptop that is plugged-in to wall socket power.

I changed the setting when I found out that the drive was at 52% health (too late, the damage was already done.)

I'm still able to copy files, but it is much, much slower than my first attempt (before performing disk repair but AFTER surface test,) which only got aborted at 65% because File Explorer restarted the process without warning.

Reinitialisation is the end goal, but I'll try to get the files I need first, before that.