Solved Fix/Hide Bad Sectors

JAM83 · Mar 21, 2022

@Ghot If it's taken 7-8 years for it to get like it is, surely it will last at least another 5 years.

Ghot · Mar 21, 2022

JMedlock83 said:
I hope mine doesn't go out before I get another one.

Yours has been running way past it's warranty. A LOT more "Power On Hours" than mine.

Yours has been running 2,353 days. (6.5 years)
My 4TB has only been running 439 days.
My 8TB only 343 days.

Bree · Mar 21, 2022

JMedlock83 said:
Right now, the Reallocated Sector Count is 0, and the Pending Sector Count is 52. Do you want me to use Windows Built in Format to do a "format (not quick format)". . Would that work as well?

Yes, using the Window built in format will do the job as long as you do a full format. It will take a very long time though, a full format always does.

When (eventually) finished the pending sector count should be zero. If you are lucky so will the reallocated sector count. Pending sectors are only potentially weak sectors. The full format will test them all and decide one way or the other. If you are unlucky, then some or all the pending sectors will need to be reallocated. Either way, all all sectors will now be known good ones, either as the original sectors, or having been remapped.

After that you want to keep an eye on the pending sector count and hope that it doesn't start to increase again.

JAM83 · Mar 21, 2022

Ghot said:
Yours has been running way past it's warranty. A LOT more "Power On Hours" than mine.

Yours has been running 2,353 days.
My 4TB has only been running 439 days.
My 8TB only 343 days.

I've had mine since 2015. Sounds about right.

Ghot · Mar 21, 2022

JMedlock83 said:
@Ghot If it's taken 7-8 years for it to get like it is, surely it will last at least another 5 years.

Uh yeah... that "must" be true. LOL

My body has been running 65.5 years... surely it'll last another 40 years.

JAM83 · Mar 21, 2022

Bree said:
Yes, using the Window built in format will do the job as long as you do a full format. It will take a very long time though, a full format always does.

When (eventually) finished the pending sector count should be zero. If you are lucky so will the reallocated sector count. Pending sectors are only potentially weak sectors. The full format will test them all and decide one way or the other. If you are unlucky, then some or all the pending sectors will need to be reallocated. Either way, all all sectors will now be known good ones, either as the original sectors, or having been remapped.

After that you want to keep an eye on the pending sector count and hope that it doesn't start to increase again.

Full Format started.......10:44pm Central Time

JAM83 · Mar 21, 2022

Ghot said:
Uh yeah... that "must" be true. LOL

My body has been running 65.5 years... surely it'll last another 40 years.

I'm 39. I might have 20 years left, if not less.

Ghot · Mar 21, 2022

JMedlock83 said:
I'm 39. I might have 20 years left, if not less.

If I make it to 70-72... I'll be lucky.
I already had one heart attack, 2.5 years ago.

JAM83 · Mar 21, 2022

Ghot said:
If I make it to 70-72... I'll be lucky.
I already had one heart attack, 2.5 years ago.

oh geez man! Heart Disease runs in my family. I have my BP. No heart attacks, thank the Good Lord. I suffer from epilepsy though

Ghot · Mar 21, 2022

JMedlock83 said:
oh geez man! Heart Disease runs in my family. I have my BP. No heart attacks, thank the Good Lord. I suffer from epilepsy though

Yep... everyone in my family dies of heart attacks or strokes. 100%
Nothing but the usual cigarettes, coffee, and cholesterol. :)

My record BP so far, was 247/138

JAM83 · Mar 22, 2022

Ghot said:
Yep... everyone in my family dies of heart attacks or strokes. 100%
Nothing but the usual cigarettes, coffee, and cholesterol. :)

My record BP so far, was 247/138

Mine's been up and around that.

Ghot · Mar 22, 2022

JMedlock83 said:
Mine's been up and around that.

Yeah, but I was 62 when it happened to me.

JAM83 · Mar 22, 2022

@Ghot @Bree This full format gonna take a little over 6 hours. . lol

Ghot · Mar 22, 2022

JMedlock83 said:
@Ghot @Bree This full format gonna take a little over 6 hours. . lol

I wondered why you didn't just do a quick format.

Bree · Mar 22, 2022

My laptops have had three experiences with pending or reallocated sectors. One good, one OK, and one in terminal decline.

One was a used Toshiba external usb HDD that I bought. On testing it showed several hundred pending sectors. My research on-line suggested that sometimes heavy continuous writes could trigger false positives for pending sectors, particularly when torrents were the source of the data. Judging by some of the contents that seemed likely, and after a full format all the pending sectors were gone and none of them needed reallocating. I've used that drive reliably for years since with no more pending or realocated sectors appearing.

The second is the hard drive in my old main machine. Chkdsk /R had found just one bad sector. After taking an image I did a full format. Just one sector got reallocated. That was some six years ago and no further sectors, pending or reallocated, have appeared since. Despite my best efforts to grind it into the ground it seems remarkably hard to kill. It's the laptops original HDD from 2011 and has been powered up and running for more than three and a half years now.

The third was a mere youngster in comparison, but a significant and growing number of reallocates sectors meant that laptop's HDD was swifly replaced with an SSD.

JAM83 · Mar 22, 2022

Ghot said:
I wondered why you didn't just do a quick format.

I thought @Bree told me I needed to do a Full Format (not a quick one)

Bree · Mar 22, 2022

Ghot said:
I wondered why you didn't just do a quick format.

Only a full format will get the drive's internal controller to test all the pending sectors. A quick format won't do that. It's only quick because it skips writing to each sector.

JAM83 · Mar 22, 2022

Bree said:
Only a full format will get the drive's internal controller to test all the pending sectors. A quick format won't do that. It's only quick because it skips writing to each sector.

I need to test all the sectors, and have them reset and reallocated to get everything back to normal until the IRS sends me my $700 or so. Then I can order a new one.

JAM83 · Mar 22, 2022

@Bree Took a little over 6 hours, to complete the full format. I let it do while I was sleeping. Just got up, and looked at it. Seemed to work. Here's the updated CrystalDisk Information.

Bree · Mar 22, 2022

JMedlock83 said:
@Bree Took a little over 6 hours, to complete the full format. I let it do while I was sleeping. Just got up, and looked at it. Seemed to work. Here's the updated CrystalDisk Information.

That info shows the best of all possible expected outcomes. Not a single pending sector was found to be bad or needed reallocating. All your pending sectors seem to have been false positives.

Now that the drive's internal controller has had a chance to test the whole drive it appears that it has given it a completely clean bill of health. Keep an eye on the SMART date from now on, but it appears you have nothing to worry about for now.