Solve : Hard Drive with Bad Sectors?

1.	Solve : Hard Drive with Bad Sectors?
Answer» Hi, I have fixed a lot on HDD's and was wondering at what point you decide just to replace the HDD because it has to many bad sectors. For example: I am working on an what was an infected computer. The HDD took quite a pounding from forced stopping (what is the proper terminology for this?). Computer freezing, being unplugged before it was shut down etc. I have run chkdsk \r \f a couple of times but the HDD has been left with 2 bad sectors. My question: In general or in your EXPERIENCE how many bad sectors would determine that you throw the hard drive out, keeping in mind that the repercussions mean buying a new HDD and installing the OS along with email database, documents, etc., etc., etc. Thanks, vlogg5Modern hard drives (HD) normally have many spare sectors, so when one or more become physicly damaged 'bad sectors' they get marked and can use a spare instead. It depends on the HD to how many they have. You should expect new HDs to rarely have any bad sectors, but an old one might get one or two along it's lifetime. When you have a bad sector, recheck the HD ever now and then. If the bad sectors continue to grow and your getting new ones APPEARING, there is probably damage floating around inside creating more errors as it spins, therefore you shouldn't attempt to repair anymore but nibble 'recovery software' the data off onto a clean drive and get rid of the old one. If your got a few bad sectors from bad use or power failure, but they stay the same, then it's safe to continue using it. Quote from: Azzaboi on September 05, 2010, 11:28:26 PM Modern hard drives (HD) normally have many spare sectors, so when one or more become physicly damaged 'bad sectors' they get marked and can use a spare instead. It depends on the HD to how many they have. You should expect new HDs to rarely have any bad sectors, but an old one might get one or two along it's lifetime. Utter rubbish Quote from: Allan on September 06, 2010, 04:25:02 AM Utter rubbish Actually, No it isn't. When a sector goes "bad" in a modern hard drive, you won't know- it won't show up from a chkdsk scan. The sector will be silently reallocated to one of many Spare sectors. This will be reflected in the S.M.A.R.T "reallocated sector count" field. Once that goes beyond a certain threshold, S.M.A.R.T will report failure. You will start seeing "bad sectors" the MOMENT the spare sectors (usually on a servo platter) are used up. By that time it's gone beyond failure, though. The "Damage floating around" paragraph doesn't make any sense though.Sorry - I was referring to the conclusion: "You should expect new HDs to rarely have any bad sectors, but an old one might get one or two along it's lifetime". There's no way of knowing how many bad sectors a HD will develop in its lifetime. And I thought I quoted the "damage floating around" paragraph. Guess I screwed up the whole post now that I look at it. Thanks for the correct BC At any rate most of it is "rubbish"...BC_Programmer said what I meant and trying to say in a much more structured way for the first bit and more, thanks. As for the floating around damage, I'm refering to one or more of the plates being cracked and chipped inside, you need some force to cause this such as the hard drive or computer falling off the table, etc. A very old HD I use to have a while back (which was a freebee give away from school) had this issue, new data would SLOWLY keep corrupting on it over time. I ASKED a tech about it and he said while the HD case is still sealed from dust, some fragments of damage are floating around inside causing more errors when the disc spins. The nibble software he used spin the disc slowly to grab as much damaged data as possible (forgotten the name of it but there's a lot of them to pick from). Sorry, it's not explained very clearly... Anyway the basic idea I got was if you have any bad sectors (and they are quite rare now), just recheck to see if more occur over time of still using the disc (rather than later finding a large chuck of important data is corrupted).

Answer»

Hi,
I have fixed a lot on HDD's and was wondering at what point you decide just to replace the HDD because it has to many bad sectors.
For example: I am working on an what was an infected computer. The HDD took quite a pounding from forced stopping (what is the proper terminology for this?). Computer freezing, being unplugged before it was shut down etc.
I have run chkdsk \r \f a couple of times but the HDD has been left with 2 bad sectors.
My question: In general or in your EXPERIENCE how many bad sectors would determine that you throw the hard drive out, keeping in mind that the repercussions mean buying a new HDD and installing the OS along with email database, documents, etc., etc., etc.
Thanks,
vlogg5Modern hard drives (HD) normally have many spare sectors, so when one or more become physicly damaged 'bad sectors' they get marked and can use a spare instead.

It depends on the HD to how many they have.

You should expect new HDs to rarely have any bad sectors, but an old one might get one or two along it's lifetime.

When you have a bad sector, recheck the HD ever now and then. If the bad sectors continue to grow and your getting new ones APPEARING, there is probably damage floating around inside creating more errors as it spins, therefore you shouldn't attempt to repair anymore but nibble 'recovery software' the data off onto a clean drive and get rid of the old one.

If your got a few bad sectors from bad use or power failure, but they stay the same, then it's safe to continue using it. Quote from: Azzaboi on September 05, 2010, 11:28:26 PM

Modern hard drives (HD) normally have many spare sectors, so when one or more become physicly damaged 'bad sectors' they get marked and can use a spare instead.

It depends on the HD to how many they have.

You should expect new HDs to rarely have any bad sectors, but an old one might get one or two along it's lifetime.

Utter rubbish Quote from: Allan on September 06, 2010, 04:25:02 AM

Utter rubbish

Actually, No it isn't. When a sector goes "bad" in a modern hard drive, you won't know- it won't show up from a chkdsk scan. The sector will be silently reallocated to one of many Spare sectors. This will be reflected in the S.M.A.R.T "reallocated sector count" field. Once that goes beyond a certain threshold, S.M.A.R.T will report failure. You will start seeing "bad sectors" the MOMENT the spare sectors (usually on a servo platter) are used up. By that time it's gone beyond failure, though.

The "Damage floating around" paragraph doesn't make any sense though.Sorry - I was referring to the conclusion: "You should expect new HDs to rarely have any bad sectors, but an old one might get one or two along it's lifetime".

There's no way of knowing how many bad sectors a HD will develop in its lifetime.

And I thought I quoted the "damage floating around" paragraph. Guess I screwed up the whole post now that I look at it. Thanks for the correct BC At any rate most of it is "rubbish"...BC_Programmer said what I meant and trying to say in a much more structured way for the first bit and more, thanks.

As for the floating around damage, I'm refering to one or more of the plates being cracked and chipped inside, you need some force to cause this such as the hard drive or computer falling off the table, etc.

A very old HD I use to have a while back (which was a freebee give away from school) had this issue, new data would SLOWLY keep corrupting on it over time. I ASKED a tech about it and he said while the HD case is still sealed from dust, some fragments of damage are floating around inside causing more errors when the disc spins. The nibble software he used spin the disc slowly to grab as much damaged data as possible (forgotten the name of it but there's a lot of them to pick from).

Sorry, it's not explained very clearly...

Anyway the basic idea I got was if you have any bad sectors (and they are quite rare now), just recheck to see if more occur over time of still using the disc (rather than later finding a large chuck of important data is corrupted).

Solve : Hard Drive with Bad Sectors?

Discussion

No Comment Found

Related InterviewSolutions

Reply to Comment