1 Bad Sector, Can I still use the drive?

[Sparsh Bhatli]

My External WD Hard drive got corrupted yesterday don't know how , it was showing error that it needs to format so I removed the drive tried plugin it in few time but doesn't work... I somehow manage to get some of important data with the help of EASEUS data recovery (took me like 10 hours with deep search and all)and after that I format the drive using EASEUS Partition Master and check for bad sectors using it... I found only 1 bad sector and it took 7 hours to check...
I found this article it says it fixed the bad sector
https://www.easeus.com/resource/repair-bad-sector.htm

It was 1 bad sector but after the check is complete it shows 0 bad sectors

What do you guys think should I continue to use this and will it works fine or throw it away?
I was thinking to go to computer repair shop and ask him how much he will buy it for?
What do you guys suggest?
Does that software repair the drive?

here's what drive check shows
Before the task is complete it shows 1 bad sector:

After the Check:

 

[SkyNetRising]

Can you post screenshot from Hdtune health?

 

[Sparsh Bhatli]

Can you post screenshot from Hdtune health?

Sure how do I test it there?
here's heath tab screenshot:

 

[Solandri]

Yeah, you need to use a tool that shows you the drive's S.M.A.R.T. stats HDTune or CrystalDiskInfo. Bad sectors are normal - every drive gets them as they get older. Normally they're just remapped to a bunch of reserve sectors put aside by the drive manufacturer just for this purpose (which is why your second scan showed no bad sectors). You may have just gotten unlucky with the bad sector in a very important part of the partition table which made data recovery extremely difficult. But they can also be a symptom of a bigger problem. The S.M.A.R.T. stats will tell you more.

In the meantime, make regular backups and monitor the drive's S.M.A.R.T. stats every few days for changes.

Edit: Yeah, a warning on the current pending sector stat is bad news. It means the drive has detected a large number of sectors which *may* be going bad. It will try to scan them later to see if the sector (and data) are salvageable. If not, you're going to have a repeat of the problem you had with the first bad sector. There's a small chance the drive is ok and will recover from this (maybe it just got knocked a bit and the alignment is a little different now). But it's far more likely your drive is in the early stages of dying. If this is your system drive, I'd skip to the chase and order a replacement.

 

[SkyNetRising]

Yeah, a warning on the current pending sector stat is bad news. It means the drive has detected a large number of sectors which *may* be going bad.

It's not large number of sectors that have "pending" status, but just one.

Pending status can be resolved by overwriting the sector. After overwrite, pending status gets cleared. If overwrite was successful, then all is considered good. If unsuccessful, then relocated sectors count gets increased.

You can resolve pending sectors with MHDD ( operation - scan with relocate option).

 

[Solandri]

Yeah, a warning on the current pending sector stat is bad news. It means the drive has detected a large number of sectors which *may* be going bad.

It's not large number of sectors that have "pending" status, but just one.

The numbers in the stats are usually normalized, in this case to a 0-200 scale. So what it shows as "1" could actually be thousands of individual sectors which are pending.

Whatever the degree of normalization, pending sectors and bad sectors are normal. But the number of pending sectors has exceeded some threshold the HDD manufacturer decided should change the drive's S.M.A.R.T. status from OK to Warning. So in the manufacturer's opinion, the drive is potentially in danger of failing.

Also, the fact that he just did two full surface tests and the drive is still showing pending sectors is worrying.

 

[SkyNetRising]

Data column is not normalized. Current, Worst, Threshold are.
1 in data column means exactly 1.

 

[RolandJS]

Please continue making restorable OS and Data partition full images onto external media -- restorable backups are one of the finest lines of one's OS and Data partitions recovery (ok perhaps the most accurate word is restoration ).

 

[Jonathan_Steadman]

To anyone that is having the same issue. One bad sector is not a problem.
Keep an eye on it if it increases rapidly then you need to replace the drive.

 

[ex_bubblehead]

To anyone that is having the same issue. One bad sector is not a problem.
Keep an eye on it if it increases rapidly then you need to replace the drive.

However, one bad sector that close to the front of the drive can cause the drive to become completely unusable if it happens to be within the first 128 or so sectors. In addition, every drive comes with a rather large supply of spare sectors which are swapped in as bad ones are located and marked out. That supply of spares is intended to last the life of the drive. Under normal operating conditions one will never actually see bad sectors as the controller will handle them invisibly. It's only when the spares have been exhausted that the bad ones become visible. At that point it's time to replace the drive. It will only get worse after that.