Holy Bad Sectors!! (Requiem for a HDD)

[Zoot]

So Windows started to give me issues reading from/writing to one of my 1TB Western Digital Caviar Greens that I have housed in an external USB enclosure.

In my exasperation I reverted back to trusty and ever dependable Debian and that had zero issues even though it's formatted to NTFS which is exclusive to Windows.

I dismissed it as Windows acting up as it can do from time to time, but sure enough I loaded up CrystalDiskInfo, knowing that can read the SMART data, and it's saying I've a rather large amount of Uncorrectable Sectors (5D2 in Hex or 1492). Then I went away and ran the Western Digital Diagnostic tool which too found bad sectors, but gave me the option of repairing them.

Oh well, the drive doesn't owe me anything, I've a 2TB one on the way to me now. I think this one is 7 years old at this stage, but it has served me quite well down throughout college for exchanging media, or I mean Linux ISOs.

Moral of the Story - Windows isn't always wrong even if Linux users like me would like to think it is. ^_^

And to tell the truth there's been some funnyness with this drive for quite some time now, I could have been using it with a large number of Bad Sectors for years.

EDIT: 1000 posts. It only took me nearly 6 years to do it. :lol:

 

[remember300]

ah, i love that wall paper on the crystal disk thing. and how was the drive after its sectors were sorted

 

[Zoot]

how was the drive after its sectors were sorted

I haven't corrected them yet via the Western Digital Diagnostic, copying crap off it at the minute. Linux ISOs, can't afford to lose them.

I'll try out the WD tool when all its data is safely backed up on a HDD with no bad sectors, I'll be intrigued to see the result.

 

[Wraith]

I haven't corrected them yet via the Western Digital Diagnostic, copying crap off it at the minute. Linux ISOs, can't afford to lose them.

I'll try out the WD tool when all its data is safely backed up on a HDD with no bad sectors, I'll be intrigued to see the result.

Let us know how you get on dude, I've had zero success with WDD in the past I much prefer the HDD Regenerator on the Hirens 13 Boot CD never had a fail with that..... yet :lol: touch wood.

 

[Zoot]

Hmmm... now here's what I get. Apparently my bad sector count has gone down. Must be magic or something. ^_^

Also I find it hard to believe it's been powered on for a whopping 730 days in total, but then again it was bought way back in 2007 I think. Off to try WD's tool I guess.

 

[yassarikhan786]

I personally use HD Sentinel to check the health of my drives and I've found it to be very reliable thus far.

 

[Zoot]

Well the drive is definitely due to be replaced given WD's Dataguard tool which I'd assume is the one to trust since it's a WD drive after finds problems.

As for HD Sentinel, I had a look at its website, and it doesn't seem there's a free version?

 

[yassarikhan786]

It probably is best using WD's solution. Although, it probably doesn't matter which software you use as the readings will likely be very similar. As for the HD Sentinel download:

http://www.hdsentinel.com/download.php

 

[CrazyTeeka]

Does using Parted Magic Secure Erase get rid of them, would be awesome if you tried it. Its a good opportunity to see how it handles bad sectors. ^_^