1TB HDD CrystalDiskInfo: Caution (C5) current pending sector count: 41

[pizzalatte]

So CrystalDiskInfo shows that warning, is there anything I can try to fix it that doesn't wipe all my data away? My OS is on an SSD but all my games and other stuff is on the HDD so I'd rather not format unless there's no other way.

 

[Boogieman_WD]

Hey there, pizzalatte.

I'm afraid that formatting the drive won't help with the bad sectors. The first thing you should do is to backup your important files right away (files like photos, video, documents, projects, etc). Leave the games as they are downloadable/reinstallable, you could just save your Save Game files so that you don't lose your progress.

Have you gotten any issues from that drive yet? Any unusual sounds/noises coming from it, freezing/hanging your system, etc?

Unfortunately when bad sectors start to occur, this will continue until the drive inevitably dies. And to make it even worse, there's no way to know how long it's going to take. It could be days, weeks, months or even more.

Once you've backed up your data, I'd advise you to get in touch with the reseller you got it from or the HDD manufacturer's customer support and ask about RMA if it's still under warranty.

Hope that helps. Please let me know how everything goes.
Boogieman_WD

 

[pizzalatte]

Hey there, pizzalatte.

I'm afraid that formatting the drive won't help with the bad sectors. The first thing you should do is to backup your important files right away (files like photos, video, documents, projects, etc). Leave the games as they are downloadable/reinstallable, you could just save your Save Game files so that you don't lose your progress.

Have you gotten any issues from that drive yet? Any unusual sounds/noises coming from it, freezing/hanging your system, etc?

Unfortunately when bad sectors start to occur, this will continue until the drive inevitably dies. And to make it even worse, there's no way to know how long it's going to take. It could be days, weeks, months or even more.

Once you've backed up your data, I'd advise you to get in touch with the reseller you got it from or the HDD manufacturer's customer support and ask about RMA if it's still under warranty.

Hope that helps. Please let me know how everything goes.
Boogieman_WD

I haven't seen really any issues with the HDD yet, it works pretty much as you'd expect. It's an 5 year old drive so I don't have warranty. Nothing helps with the currently pending sector count? I've heard zero fills can help but I was wondering if there's something else I can try that doesn't wipe away my data.

 

[SkyNetRising]

Pending sectors are not necessary bad ones. It just means, that drive could not read them at some moment.
To fix pending sector, it must be overwritten. Only then depending on success or failure it is marked bad&relocated or cleared of pending status.

You can use tool MHDD with scan/relocate to fix pending sectors and also relocate bad ones.

 

[pizzalatte]

Pending sectors are not necessary bad ones. It just means, that drive could not read them at some moment.
To fix pending sector, it must be overwritten. Only then depending on success or failure it is marked bad&relocated or cleared of pending status.

You can use tool MHDD with scan/relocate to fix pending sectors and also relocate bad ones.

Alright, I'll try the MHDD tool and report back.

Edit: MHDD seems to be kind of an hassle to use. I guess I'll just keep an eye on the drive for now and potentially try zero fill if it gets worse. Thanks for the answers though, I was slightly worried.

 

[nukemaster]

I have a feeling they will just be remapped(You can use HDTune to scan the drive and it will show the bad sectors as well[not just in smart, it will confirm that it can not read back. It takes LONG]).

Since CDI uses HEX by default 41 is actually 65 sectors that are pending(and will be reallocated when the drive next works with them if they can not be read/written to). If you had a single, I could see the drive being able to maybe read/write it in the future(almost like a fluke that it did not in the first place). I had a Seagate that had 1 pending and after a full scan of the drive it was able to read and write from it without issues(and never had an issue with it after, but I was keeping an eye on it for sure.).

Anyway 65 is quite a few so I think the drive will start getting more and more of these sectors. What will happen is the drive may hang sometimes trying to read or even drop from the OS if it gets bad enough. As the number grows it could or may already be starting to encroach on your data and cause some corruption(because the drive can not read the sector).

If this is DATA you are not worried about because it can be downloaded again, you can use it until it dies, but if you care about the DATA on the drive, you should back it up before running any more scans and things.

 

[SkyNetRising]

Edit: MHDD seems to be kind of an hassle to use.

You can download mhdd iso image and then create bootable usb flash drive from it.
With rufus you should be able to do that.

 

[pizzalatte]

Edit: MHDD seems to be kind of an hassle to use.

You can download mhdd iso image and then create bootable usb flash drive from it.
With rufus you should be able to do that.

Ahh, I see. Guess I'll try it afterall. Is there any potential harm from using the scan/relocate? I'm fairly sure my HDD is not so unstable that it would fail from simple reading.

 

[SkyNetRising]

If drive has simple pending sectors problem, mhdd can't harm anything.

But if your drive is already failing, giving clicking sounds, locking up your computer, then mhdd can kill it completely.

 

[pizzalatte]

So I tried to add the .ISO file of MHDD through the "create a bootable disk using ISO image option in Rufus and it says that "this image is either non-bootable, or it uses a boot or compression method that is not supported by rufus"

 

[SkyNetRising]

Ok, then you can create bootable cd from that iso.

Or a bit more tricky way - creating bootable usb with ms dos and copying unzipped mhdd files onto that.
Get Windows 98 boot disk
https://staff.washington.edu/curreri/windows-98-boot-cd-download-this-iso/
Mount it with deamon tools.
Use HP USB Disk Storage Format Tool
http://download.cnet.com/HP-USB-Disk-Storage-Format-Tool/3000-2094_4-10974082.html
Run it as admin and create dos startup disk using system files from mounted cd.
(Some files need to be copied manually like himem.sys and config.sys)
And copy unzipped MHDD executable files to it
http://hddguru.com/software/2005.10.02-MHDD/

After that - boot from usb and run mhdd executable.