HD Tune found 1 damaged block on laptop HD. What to do?

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DaRuSsIaMaN

[H]ard|Gawd
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Apr 22, 2007
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Is there anything I should do about this? Or just forget about it? Is it even possible to do anything?

This laptop has been acting up lately, especially like a couple days ago. I was getting constant hanging where really simple things like switching between firefox windows would make everything freeze for like half a minute. Right now everything seems fine, though. Weird. But I thought at the time when it was happening that it might be some kind of hard drive issue. Any thoughts?

Thanks
 
Backup your data and replace the hard drive. That's what I'd do. It's usually fairly simple so swap out a hard drive in a laptop. You could run a disc check and try to repair (chkdsk /r) but I'd be wary of that. You could at least try though, AFTER backing up any and all important data.
 
Personally, I'd recommend using HDD regenerator. It's worked wonders for me.
 
That should be a "pending sector" which means the drive cannot read reliable data from it. Usually that sector will go green again when it is written because the drive will replace it with a spare sector. The data currently in it is lost however. A lot of people will recommend to replace the drive and it is not a bad suggestion. But just for completeness please post the SMART data and lets have a look at the reallocated sector count.
 
Yeah its not the end of the world as the system has methods to cope with it.

Just keep an eye on it and if another goes then it may be time to look for a new drive and maybe relegate that one to a caddy as a junk drive for stuff.

It will happen more and more . I cant say that telling someone to buy a whole new drive due to one bad sector is a good idea especially if say it was a 2TB + drive.

We are not all made of money.
 
I got a HGST 7k3000 2TB disk as replacement for a failed Sammy HD204UI and it had a bad block too. I did a zero fill pass + verify and a new block scan showed the block as green. Just keep an eye on it. If the amount of bad blocks increases, then its definitely time to get a new disk. If you want to be 100% sure: RMA it.
 
omniscence said:
But just for completeness please post the SMART data and lets have a look at the reallocated sector count.
Click to expand...

Sorry about being dumb, but how do I do do this?

---

Another question: is the Windows Check Disk thing (right-click on drive > properties > tools) anything useful in this case? I ran it once (with both check boxes checked) before I ran the HD Tune, but it prompted a restart to do it (since it's the system drive), and I left the computer to go do something else, and when I came back it was back in Windows. So I didn't see any messages during the process, so I assume it did not even find any problems if it just booted back into Windows?
 
DaRuSsIaMaN said:
Sorry about being dumb, but how do I do do this?

---

Another question: is the Windows Check Disk thing (right-click on drive > properties > tools) anything useful in this case? I ran it once (with both check boxes checked) before I ran the HD Tune, but it prompted a restart to do it (since it's the system drive), and I left the computer to go do something else, and when I came back it was back in Windows. So I didn't see any messages during the process, so I assume it did not even find any problems if it just booted back into Windows?
Click to expand...

Click on the 'Health' tab in HDTune to see the health values. If it doesnt appear, then use CrystalDiskInfo.

As for the chkdsk, IMO, I would first backup my stuff before I run any extensive disk tools in an attempt to repair it, only because if you somehow have severe physical disk problems without knowing it, chkdsk can theoretically make the situation worse. For the boot-time chkdsk, Windows SHOULD dump the logs in the Event Viewer.

That being said, I need to requisition a new drive for my work computer, it has more then 200+ reallocated sectors! :eek: Should arrive in about 6 months.
 
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evt said:
Click on the 'Health' tab in HDTune to see the health values. If it doesnt appear, then use CrystalDiskInfo.
Click to expand...

Ok, when I click the Health tab in HD Tune, it's completely blank. Says at the bottom that "Health Status: n/a" What does it mean that it's blank? Why is HD Tune not able to provide any info?

Now, CystalDiskInfo:

crystaldiskss_zpsda0cfbf4.png


What should I do with this? Thank you for the help.
 
Can you increase the window size so we can see which parameter causes the caution status (I guess it is the pending count). The reallocated sector count is at zero which is a positive sign for the drive health.

If the pending count shows one sector, I would keep the drive. This can be caused by a power loss while the drive was writing and does not necessarily indicate a bad sector.
 
I got carried away with other things (grad school), but here it is:

crystaldiskss.png


When you say that the reallocated sector count is at zero... you're looking at the "raw values" column, right?

Thanks for the help.
 
Yes. You can put the values in decimal if you can't read hexadecimal.
 
There are 19 sectors that the drive lost data on because they were written in the past but could not be read the last time the drive tried to read them.

Here is a description of current pending sectors:

Count of "unstable" sectors (waiting to be remapped, because of read errors). If an unstable sector is subsequently read successfully, this value is decreased and the sector is not remapped. Read errors on a sector will not remap the sector (since it might be readable later); instead, the drive firmware should remember that the sector needs to be remapped, and remap it the next time it's written.[28] However some drives will not immediately remap such sectors when written; instead the drive will first attempt to write to the problem sector and if the write operation is successful then the sector will be marked good. This is a serious shortcoming, for if such a drive contains marginal sectors that consistently fail only after some time has passed following a successful write operation, then the drive will never remap these problem sectors.
Click to expand...
 
drescherjm said:
There are 19 sectors that the drive lost data on because they were written in the past but could not be read the last time the drive tried to read them.

Here is a description of current pending sectors:
Click to expand...
Count of "unstable" sectors (waiting to be remapped, because of read errors). ... However some drives will not immediately remap such sectors when written; instead ...This is a serious shortcoming, for if such a drive ...
Click to expand...
I'd be interested to know where this description came from. I agree with the factual part, but dispute the editorial part. (It is obviously not written by someone who understands modern disk drives.
 
UhClem said:
Thanks.

--UhClem "I read it on the Internet; it must be true."
Click to expand...

At least with wikipedia someone can go and correct the wrong information. Although I guess that does not stop the original editor from putting it back..
 
Anyway, so what is the correct interpretation of the pending sector count?

2.) What does it mean that the drive lost data on these 19 sectors? I don't notice any of my files missing or corrupted... as far as I know.

3.) Is 19 a lot? Is this a bad situation or not really?
 
drescherjm said:
At least with wikipedia someone can go and correct the wrong information. Although I guess that does not stop the original editor from putting it back..
Click to expand...
Yes ... and Wikipedia is usually a reliable source. Still, it suffers from a lack of accountability. (Not, in a "liability" sense, but because of anonymity ...)

[Roll "nostalgia" music ...]
Back in the good old days of the net, when access was granted, not sold, and everyone used their real name, not only was there a much higher level of competence, but also, you knew that your (professional) reputation was (potentially) at stake.

--UhClem "You can't kiss the past's ass."
 
DaRuSsIaMaN said:
2.) What does it mean that the drive lost data on these 19 sectors? I don't notice any of my files missing or corrupted... as far as I know.
Click to expand...

These were sectors that were once written but at last read they were not readable. That does not mean there was valuable data on them. If the sectors were fully formatted when the drive was installed years ago that would also count.

3.) Is 19 a lot? Is this a bad situation or not really?
Click to expand...

19 is not a lot however it is something to watch. This could indicate a localized media defect or a more serious problem. However from your first pic I would tend to believe it was just a media defect since there was only 1 red block not red blocks scattered throughout the disk.
 
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