HDD Advice: Bad Sectors Found...

Well... all the story begins when I buy a new external hdd to store my stuff, along with my current external, which is a 250 GB Western Digital Scorpio Blue in which I enclosed on an Airlink case, and work wonders.

But, I felt like 250 GB were kinda low, basically to store ISOs and some DVD backups (movies I bought a time ago) along with my personal folders and software collections I store. So I decided to buy a used Western Digital Scorpio Blue hard drive, this time a 500 GB drive, that came on a very cheap external enclosure, which I replaced with a Trascend StoreJet Classic 2.5 USB 2.0 case. All of this was less than $40 in total.

Since the beggining, this drive had a warning about relocated bad sectors (Relocated sector count), data I obtained on Everest, so, I decided that maybe a chkdsk full scan could do the trick. Unfortunately, after that, the warning didnt go away, so I tried with HDD regenerator using Prescan, that found 4 bad sectors only... But seems that Everest found more than that, now the warning became a "Inminent failure" warning, and in the data column for the number of bad sector relocation, shows 561, which I assume is a pretty bad number, taking in mind my desktop HDD, my current laptop HDD and my 250 GB external show all 0.

Reading about this on google, I learned that bad sectors are generaly caused by either falls or factory problems, sometimes can be generated if your disk works on low power conditions (?), so in ths last case I can blame that generic case it was enclosed before I purchased the trascend one...-because I felt that it didn't handle power as it should, just because the 250 GB disk works wonders either on my destop and laptop...- I had cases of hdd's falling, but they really never exhibited problems or bad sectors... so I can only assume is more frequent to see factory issues rather than accident related issues, I dont really know.

So, taking in mind this, will it really worth to perform a full scan and repair on HDD Regenerator on this disk, or better assume that it will die eventually and sell solely the disk maybe for spare parts or something? -logical card and other components may be good for that...-.

I ask you because you have the wisdom in this regards, and also, to save my self hours of scanning in a usb interface if this won't fix the problem.

Thanks in advance for your help guys

See ya!! :)

Bad sectors can`t be fixed so windows doesn`t write data there, you`ll be fine for awhile, but ya I`d save for a new drive, check to see if it`s still under warranty, who owns it doesn`t matter. I had a 1 TB Seagate drive with some bad sectors, I sent it to Seagate and they shipped me out a brand new drive.

Backup your data now.

You can check the drive with this also.

http://crystalmark.info/software/Cry...o/index-e.html

Well, that answers all for me... seems that I'd better not loose my time with HDD Regenerator then...
I really suspect this was more a factory defect more than anything else XD... but meh.

I ran CrystalMark, and the condition of the drive is bad in there too, it has 18 pending relocations and 561 bad sectors, values are ranged from 133 to 140 (taking in mind threshold), so I guess this disk is mostly dying... fortunately, it has nothing saved on it since I still use my 250 GB external for all, so is not a biggie.

I'll try what you say with WD, maybe with a bit of luck, even if I don't have a purchase ticket (its a used disk bought from a dude that changed HDD on a laptop), if not, I know some dudes would buy it cheap at least for spare and replacement pieces for another disks -logical card and everything else is fine-.

I just have a final question: how do you rate this enclosure?
External Hard Drives - StoreJet 2.5 SATA (USB 2.0) - Transcend Info
This is the one I'm currently using on this 500 GB disk, is this a yay or nay?

Thanks for the tips :)

Well... I decided to give a one more chance, because I'm a compulsive "never-give-up" dude... I ran a Prescan on HDD Regenerator again, only to find it got more bad sectors (now on the pending ones) and the current bad sectors cannot be repaired... CrystalMark still shows it as a bad drive, so I can confirm this thing is dying...

I cheked if this was under WD warranty, but seems it's not, since it was shipped on a laptop, so I cannot ask for a replacement, not a big issue, I know a pair of buddies will buy it for spare parts.

Kinda fun how luck works on this things, you have one drive that even had a fall and works wonders without bad sectors, you have another one that is almost new and you get a failure all of a sudden XD... The enticing world of hard drives.

Thanks again for the support... -My last question is still up... do you reccomend that HDD enclosure? Or better return that to the store I bought it from?-

Cheers! :)

One more test you can do mate is a physical surface test with Partition Wizard https://www.sevenforums.com/subscript...n&folderid=all

see pic

Took a shot at this as soon as I saw it... but detects lots of red blocks (bad sectors)... so maybe this is either bad from factory, or somehow, the header just scratched or damaged the surface... Maybe that's why HDD regenerator cant fix this sectors...

Thanks again for the support guys :)

See ya!! :)

FerchogtX said:

Took a shot at this as soon as I saw it... but detects lots of red blocks (bad sectors)... so maybe this is either bad from factory, or somehow, the header just scratched or damaged the surface... Maybe that's why HDD regenerator cant fix this sectors...

Thanks again for the support guys :)

See ya!! :)

I reckon that is exactly what has happened - it's like anything really always a lemon at times when you can do without it.