Hard Disk Monitoring

Hello

HD Sentinel reports the health is good (93%) and performance is good (100%) on my drive, with 7 bad sectors. However, the SMART short test fails (read element failure). Does this mean the drive is going bad, or is the self test just failing on the bad sectors? My understanding is the short test doesn't check for bad sectors? The extended test also fails. It IS an old drive (5 yrs old). The drive has been backed up, of course.

thanks!

Hello,

As you see, the drive status is still high (93%). Even if it has some problems detected, this may not mean that it is not usable.
The short and extended self tests are hardware self tests provided by the drive. Generally they analyse the disk surface for further problems (for example weak sectors). However (as you see) they may stop when they found even a small problem.

That's why File -> Surface test function is available: these software based surface tests can be used even in this situation and even recommended to use to verify if the drive has further problems, for example on less frequently used surface areas.

For more information about this situation, please check Support -> Frequently Asked Questions page:

http://www.hdsentinel.com/faq.php#health

and for more information about the disk tests:

http://www.hdsentinel.com/faq.php#tests

Thank you!