need advice formatting drives

tgfyhre · 22 Jun 2015

ignatzatsonic said:

tgfyhre said:

When "repairing" bad sectors with Seatools, is it fixing bad sectors or is it just marking them bad like full format does? That's what I'm still confused about.

See my post 16.

That's the best I can do.

Where I come from, "repair" and "fix" are synonyms.

But I don't think bad sectors are ever actually "fixed" or "repaired". They are identified and sent out of the game, permanently, and cannot later be used for data or Windows or at all.

Ah, okay - that's what I'm trying to understand. It seems then that running Seatools will let me know if there are bad sectors, and then if I run repair it will mark them as bad, whereas full format will do the same thing automatically, but not tell me if it found any?

Should I be concerned if Seatools finds any bad sectors? From what I understand it won't say bad sectors - it will just say failed. So then if it does fail should I replace it to be safe? Some people say they replace the drive if a single bad sector is found, others say every drive has some bad sectors.

ignatzatsonic said:

tgfyhre said:

Does Seatools fix the bad sectors as in, they aren't bad anymore, or does it just mark them as bad like full format so they aren't used?

See my previous post.

I seriously doubt that bad sectors are ever truly "fixed" or "repaired". If you raked a screwdriver across a disk platter, how could software possibly fix it?

That's what confused me - they say it repairs bad sectors but I don't see how that's possible. I wish it would be more upfront and just say it marks the bad sectors if that's what it's doing.

EDIT: I read CHKDSK /R can attempt to recover a bad sector, so maybe they can be repaired? I wish full format would just give a report if it found any bad sectors. That would make it easy on me.

ignatzatsonic · 22 Jun 2015

see comments

tgfyhre said:

Ah, okay - that's what I'm trying to understand. It seems then that running Seatools will let me know if there are bad sectors, and then if I run repair it will mark them as bad, whereas full format will do the same thing automatically, but not tell me if it found any?

I'm not sure of the finer points of that distinction. It may be a distinction without a practical difference.

Should I be concerned if Seatools finds any bad sectors? Form what I understand it won't say bad sectors - it will just say failed. So then if it does fail should I replace it to be safe? Some people say they replace the drive if a single bad sector is found, others say every drive has some bad sectors.

My understanding is that if Seatools finds X amount of bad sectors and there is at least X replacements on the sidelines that can be substituted, it will make the substitution (if in repair mode) and likely tell you it found and repaired X bad sectors. If it finds X amount of bad sectors and there is X minus 1 replacement sectors, the test will fail.

Any bad sectors is not a good sign. I've never had a drive with any bad sectors, but I have had drives just drop dead and not start spinning at all. Bad sectors can be a sign of problems developing, so watch to see if they increase. If they do, I'd get rid of the drive. You could wait for outright failure if you want. That's up to you. I would not.

Since drives can drop dead right now with no bad sectors, I don't know that I'd obsess over that issue.

No big deal if they do fail. All devices do eventually. You just buy another and move on.

tgfyhre · 22 Jun 2015

Okay so then I guess I can either run Windows quick format and then a checkdisk with the option "Scan for and attempt recovery of bad sectors", or run a quick format and then run Seatools? Either one would tell me if it finds bad sectors?

I don't want to just run a full format because apparently it won't give me a log so then I won't know if it found any during format. I want to now because i think I'd feel better just exchanging the disk if it's already got bad sectors brand new out of the box.

ignatzatsonic · 22 Jun 2015

If all you want to do is find out if there are any bad sectors, run something like Crystal Disk Info.

Do a quick format.

If it shows bad sectors, send the drive back.

If it doesn't show bad sectors, put it to work and move on.

tgfyhre · 22 Jun 2015

Crystal Disk Info will show if there are any bad sectors without doing a full disk scan? Is that "05 Re-allocated sectors count"? My 4 current disks in my tower all say 200 current, 200 worst, 140 threshold, 0 raw values - for all 4 drives.

So if raw values is greater than 0 in "raw values", then that means a bad sector was found and mapped?

ignatzatsonic · 22 Jun 2015

tgfyhre said:

Crystal Disk Info will show if there are any bad sectors without doing a full disk scan? Is that "05 Re-allocated sectors count"? My current discs in my tower all say 200 for that entry - all 4 drives.

Look at the raw values for pending sector count and reallocated sector count and uncorrectable sector count.

My drives show zero on all cases for those 3 attributes.

Yes that is SMART data.

Go to function/advanced feature/raw values and set that to 10 DEC.

Then read the raw values.

It may be set to 16 Hex by default.

tgfyhre · 22 Jun 2015

Excellent - I just set it to 10 DEC - it was set to 16 Hex.

So then I can just run a full format to let Windows check and mark any bad sectors, and then run crystal disk info to see if any are marked. If I have a bad sector, exchange the drive.

That's what I wanted to do - check to see if any bad sectors are marked after the full format. This is perfect. Thank you very much!

AddRAM · 22 Jun 2015

I would hope there are no bad sectors on a brand new drive.

There`s no reason to do a full format on a brand new drive, just create and format the partitions however you want, then run check disk

tgfyhre · 22 Jun 2015

Yeah, me too. But after reading so many horror stories about acceptable drive failure rates, I'd feel better putting the new drives through its paces first thing and verify that all is well instead of finding out later.