Is my HDD safe to use?

[jeff79]

WD black 640GB. Last month discovered that there were 2 curent pending sector count in crystal diskinfo, and just nice the warranty over by 1 weeks.

Then last week did backup, one photo cannot read. Lucky is not important. Did chkdsk /F and it found 3 bad clusters, current pending sector count increased to 5. 4 uncorrectable sector count and 5 write error rate also appeared, there were some value in read error rate but do not know what was the value previously. It failed the wd data lifeguard diagnostic quick test and the extended test found bad sectors but failed to repair.

Did the write zero test and later it can pass the quick test and extended test. Checked using seagate seatools also no problem. Crystal diskinfo showed that the current pending sector count, uncorrectable sector count, write error rate have all become 0. The read error rate remained the same.

It there other tools to test the hdd?

 

[Swiftbladez]

Failing soon.

 

[tk]

transfer all data out and throw away hdd liao lah...

 

[Kiwi8]

WD black 640GB. Last month discovered that there were 2 curent pending sector count in crystal diskinfo, and just nice the warranty over by 1 weeks.

Then last week did backup, one photo cannot read. Lucky is not important. Did chkdsk /F and it found 3 bad clusters, current pending sector count increased to 5. 4 uncorrectable sector count and 5 write error rate also appeared, there were some value in read error rate but do not know what was the value previously. It failed the wd data lifeguard diagnostic quick test and the extended test found bad sectors but failed to repair.

Did the write zero test and later it can pass the quick test and extended test. Checked using seagate seatools also no problem. Crystal diskinfo showed that the current pending sector count, uncorrectable sector count, write error rate have all become 0. The read error rate remained the same.

It there other tools to test the hdd?

"curent pending sector count" is a very serious warning that the HDD is about to fail, especially when the S.M.A.R.T. threshold for that has been crossed.

U are better off quicking copying all data that u wanna keep from the drive, to another drive. Try to do it before the HDD fails totally.

 

[jeff79]

"curent pending sector count" is a very serious warning that the HDD is about to fail, especially when the S.M.A.R.T. threshold for that has been crossed.

U are better off quicking copying all data that u wanna keep from the drive, to another drive. Try to do it before the HDD fails totally.

Already backup data. Problem is after the write zero test, the hdd seem to 'recovered'. No more warning in crystal diskinfo and the current pending sector count, uncorrectable sector count disappeared. There is also not reallocated sectors count.

 

[Kiwi8]

Already backup data. Problem is after the write zero test, the hdd seem to 'recovered'. No more warning in crystal diskinfo and the current pending sector count, uncorrectable sector count disappeared. There is also not reallocated sectors count.

By right S.M.A.R.T. statistics are not able to be reset. Are u sure those have disappeared?

Anyway, it's better to RMA the disk (if still have warranty).

 

[Louisloo]

"curent pending sector count" means that some bad sectors have been discovered and it is waiting for the system or the user to do a full checkdisk.

All hard disks have a certain threshold of bad sectors, up to tens of thousands, which are already marked as bad even as they are being newly released from the factories. These bad sectors are stored in a list and the disk will not use it to store any data and they are not counted as part of the disk capacity and it is hidden from the users.

During usage, new bad sectors are found and are temporarily mark and awaiting a full sector count and test, perform by a full checkdisk.

During checkdisk, some bad sectors are retested and repaired if they are still usable, otherwise it will be mark as bad sectors and store in another list of users bad sectors. This list of bad sectors will be shown as bad sectors when you do a disk check.

In your case, the bad sectors have been repaired when you did the zero test, it managed to salvage the bad sectors and now it has become '0'.

This disk should be still usable as long as you do not find new bad sectors appearing.

 

[jeff79]

I will run few more rounds of secure erase and write zero to test every sectors of the hdd.

 

[yusoffb01]

You did the right thing by zero writing. Once enough... why so many times?

It won't become worse, assuming no mechanical failure. So can continue using.

If one day when you try to zero write it hangs, you need to determine exactly at which disk size is the unreadable sector, then just remove that particular partition up to that size, and use the rest of the partition.

 

[jtjt00]

Do you think it worth spending hours and hours testing a failing drive?
And to throw away at the end.

 

[stay8899]

Do you think it worth spending hours and hours testing a failing drive?
And to throw away at the end.

Agreed totally. It's not worth the time trying to salvage something that might fail anytime and using it to store your valuable data such as photos. If you need to, use it as a cache disk for your torrent downloads.

 

[jeff79]

Update of the harddisk status. Still working fine without problem.

 

[mosmos]

did you send for RMA~? since still got 1 wk left warranty~

 

[Nakedtoes]

Better back up and sent for RMA. Now hDD can die suddenly.

 

[yusoffb01]

zero fill will solve bad sector problem. can try rma

 

[jeff79]

did you send for RMA~? since still got 1 wk left warranty~

Where do you check the warranty status? When i checked in january, it was over by just one week and bought on dec 2008.

 

[mosmos]

Where do you check the warranty status? When i checked in january, it was over by just one week and bought on dec 2008.

I think there is a serial number on your HDD~? That one can key into their website and check the warranty period~