How long does system re-image process usually take?

Hi,

OK. The Rellocated Sectors count is approaching the recommended threshold specified by the disk manufacturer - this can indicate imminent failure of the disk. As the count increases, the read & write speed of the disk decreases - this is what may be causing the slow backup since the disk drive head has to do more work to find remapped sectors on the disk - perhaps this is the noise you hear, but I'm unsure. Do you find that general copying to/from this drive is slower than expected?

It may be time to exercise some caution and invest in a replacement external drive since this one sounds like it holds all your backup information.

Regards,
Golden

Hi,

Every drive has more than its stated number of sectors - these are spare sectors. My understanding is that when the disk finds information on bad sectors, it moves (reallocates) them to the spare sectors. Once the number of spare sectors starts running low, the S.M.A.R.T system warns you that the number of spare sectors is running low. If you are attempting an operation on a bad sector and the disk has no more spare sectors to move information too, then the trouble starts.

You can read more about S.M.A.R.T here:

S.M.A.R.T. - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Regards,
Golden

Golden said:

Hi,

Every drive has more than its stated number of sectors - these are spare sectors. My understanding is that when the disk finds information on bad sectors, it moves (reallocates) them to the spare sectors. Once the number of spare sectors starts running low, the S.M.A.R.T system warns you that the number of spare sectors is running low. If you are attempting an operation on a bad sector and the disk has no more spare sectors to move information too, then the trouble starts.

You can read more about S.M.A.R.T here:

S.M.A.R.T. - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Regards,
Golden

This is correct. It is common for a hard drive to accumulate a small amount of bad sectors over heavy usage. However, when a drive starts to fail due to a mechanical problem involving the head of the drive (the head is what reads each sector), the number of bad sectors grows much faster due to physical damage to the sectors. This eventually results in a hard disk failure as the bad sectors surpass the spare sectors. The noise heard may be a combination of the drive trying to find spare sectors, and the head rubbing against sectors as it moves to do so, further damaging sectors as it moves. If the mechanical damage is severe enough that both are occurring, move any important data on the drive to another drive ASAP before the drive fails outright.

Further reading: http://www.ntfs.com/hard-disk-basics.htm

I'm afraid it happens. If it's less than a year it may be worth checking your warranty.