One Little Bad Sector

[gregrocker]

Resinstalled 7 on Dell Inspiron 1545 which had just passed Dell Diagnostics run from partition, which I saved on HD.

OS runs fine but I wanted to confirm Diagnostics still ran from F12 so booted in to run it while I went out. Upon return I find dell diagnostics error code 8146 MSg Error code 2000-0146 which research shows could be a false positive when choosing AHCI mode instead of SATA (as I did) - some users got same error after replacing drive, but didn't after reinstalling in SATA.

But to be sure I ran HD Diagnostics boot scan. Since it's Samsung HD there's no OEM diagnostics for it so I ran Partition Wizard boot CD Surface scan and it found one lone bad sector in the middle of the HD. :huh:

Here's my question: Since I only did a quick format during install on the C partition (having deleted SysReserved, Recovery and C to recreate C and SysReserved) just to be sure the sector is quarantined should I reformat it with Diskpart full Format so I know the bad sector is quarantined? Any other suggestions of precautions?

Thanks in advance.

 

[AddRAM]

I`ve found that with a bad sector ( I have 2 1TB drives each with 1 bad sector ) no more data has been written to those areas and it`s never been a problem and they`ve been running for 2 years. If it`s for a company and they want to pay to get the drives replaced, then they should. I will look into seeing if formatting does anyhting, but I highly doubt it. A bad sector is a bad sector.

 

[gregrocker]

I have a hard time believing the Quick Format done during install is really quarantining all the bad sectors as a full format is supposed to do. I'd rather be safe than sorry unless there's really no reason to bother.

 

[Brink]

Usually chkdsk will mark a bad sector so that it will no longer be used as well.

It's really nothing to worry about unless you start getting bad sectors often, or get a message from S.M.A.R.T..

 

[gregrocker]

Thanks, Shawn. How about these results:

.

I'm a bit wary of HD Sentinel trial because it always seems to report bad sectors so I wonder if it's not a sales ploy. So I cross-check it with this:



Running full Disk Check again

 

[NoN]

Perhaps you could give a try to HDD Regenerator 2011 . The version up there is made for repairing one sector only unless you buy. But at least it does the job for One.

I've used it successfully on a IDE Drive early 2011.

This is what it tells me now and since it had never annoyed me really.

 

[essenbe]

Greg, Samsung was bought out by Seagate so I suspect seatools will run fine on it. I think I would run chkdsk on it. As shawn says, that will usually mark any bad sectors so the drive des not use them. I honestly would not be concerned with 1 bad sector, although I would be sure to do regular backups, as I know you do already. I seriously doubt dell would replace the drive unless it failed their diagnostic test. And, I still have the Samsung diagnostic test, EStool. I could zip it up and send it if you like.

 

[gregrocker]

Thanks. Running Seatools now.

I'm also running HDD Regenerator on my test box from flash.

Will see if Seatools will do the same job first.

Would love to have Samsung utility which I've never come across, Steve! Can it be made bootable which surely is required to fix sectors?

 

[essenbe]

Greg, the only reason I have it is because I'm a pack rat. I rarely throw anything away. Here is the ESTOOL ISO.
View attachment ESTOOL301v - Samsung HD testing.zip

 

[Brink]

Greg,

9% isn't so bad, but I would keep backups of the drive to be safe.

I'd also keep an eye on the drive to make sure it's not getting worse.

 

[TVeblen]

My rule is: one bad sector is too many. That does not mean it has to be thrown out, but it is suspect. And not to be trusted with sensitive/important data. If any additional bad sectors start popping up then that is the end (at least for me).

That said, sometimes bad sectors happen for other reasons than a bad disk drive. What I will do is do a complete wipe of the drive (writing all zeros or all ones) using Diskpart or PW. This is very different than a format, as it actually writes data to every sector. If the bad sector goes away after a wipe then it is just an anomaly. But if it stays, and in the same place, then start digging the hole.

 

[gregrocker]

I hadn't heard that zeroing the drive could recoup bad sectors, just formatting to quarantine them from having data written there. I didn't even Clean the drive since as I said in first post I wanted to preserved the bootable OEM Diagnostics partition. However this seems important enough that I'd like to test it by running Clean All on the drive now and reinstalling.

 

[TVeblen]

Can you image that OEM Partition?

Also: this procedure will not fix a truly bad sector. It will only recover it if it was an anomaly.

 

[King Arthur]

My rule is: one bad sector is too many. That does not mean it has to be thrown out, but it is suspect. And not to be trusted with sensitive/important data. If any additional bad sectors start popping up then that is the end (at least for me).

That is my philosophy as well, if an HDD starts having bad sectors then it's getting replaced and the data cloned out ASAP! I've so far had around 3~4 HDDs of mine develop bad sectors over the years, but I've never experienced data loss because I always replace/clone at the first sight of bad sectors.

I recently had one of my WD Caviar Black 1TB internal SATA HDDs develop bad sectors and a whole buttload of "pending" sectors (aka "weak" sectors) such that the SMART value for "Current Pending Sector Count" was an eye-popping 1 out of 200. Needless to say I had an "oshi--" moment and that was replaced and cloned the very next day which was the earliest I could procure a replacement HDD.

With ~5400 bad sectors and ~1400 pending sectors on your drive, I'd just grab a replacement HDD if the choice is available to you and clone the data off to deal with it once and for all.

 

[gregrocker]

The combination of Clean All and full format via Diskpart should give me everything that can be done prior to reinstall, right? Doing that now. I'll then run the SMART tools again. Do you trust HDD Sentinel? Seems it always report bad sectors quarantined in trial version.

This is a reinstall I'm doing for a friend who doesn't have anything on it he cares about losing. It was given to him with Dell BIOS locked which took a good part of yesterday to get past, to find the HD also locked, then a Windows password.

 

[TVeblen]

Yikes! That sounds like a "fun" project!

I only trust the major HDD diagnostic Utilities. I have more faith in ChkDsk than a lot of anything else. And I have found that Seatools works pretty well with almost any brand of HDD.

 

[gregrocker]

Check Disk came back clean twice.

Seatools Long Test said One Bad Sector.

Seatools Short Test then said not a Seagate HD.

 

[essenbe]

The combination of Clean All and full format via Diskpart should give me everything that can be done prior to reinstall, right? Doing that now. I'll then run the SMART tools again. Do you trust HDD Sentinel? Seems it always report bad sectors quarantined in trial version.

This is a reinstall I'm doing for a friend who doesn't have anything on it he cares about losing. It was given to him with Dell BIOS locked which took a good part of yesterday to get past, to find the HD also locked, then a Windows password.

I think he should take whoever gave it to him off his Christmas card list.

 

[Golden]

just formatting to quarantine them from having data written there

Greg,

If the bad sector/s are contiguous, could you not created an unallocated space across these sectors, sitting between two partitions, preventing data being written to them?

In other words, create a partition eitherside of the bade sctors?

Regards,
Golden

 

[gregrocker]

Just finished writing zeroes and full format.

Same readings as before. I'll warn the owner.