[SOLVED] Advice on a drive with a bad block

[crimsonnight]

Hey, So I just migrated a drive to an Asustor NAS and ran Disk Doctor. A bad block was found and now it says 'HDD Bad Block' under Status.
If there's a dead block or 2, I'm not really bothered (plus can't afford to replace it), all my data's synced to the cloud anyway, but if it's more serious I'd like to know before transferring all my data over. I've attached pictures of the attributes labelled as 'Bad' in the SMART info, could someone please let me know how serious the issue is?
My other question is regarding best practices, if the drive is usable, apart from running Disk Doctor, is there anything else I should do before using it?

 

[mundial]

Not really...

There is Checkdisk in Windows - but sometimes this can do more harm than good.

I'm sure there are programs out there to re-allocate bad sectors but that is just sweeping the problem under the carpet!

I think you understand already that the disk could fail at any stage or just be a headache to use by throwing up read/write errors.

 

[vov4ik_il]

could someone please let me know how serious the issue is?

Serious. It is a first call for getting a backup immediately and a new drive on order.

My other question is regarding best practices, if the drive is usable, apart from running Disk Doctor, is there anything else I should do before using it?

Back it up.

 

[crimsonnight]

But based specifically on the report, is it a case of it failing within say a few months, or is it just a bad block or 2 and it'll be fine for a little while longer yet?

The drive's already wiped so not worried about losing data yet, just need to know whether to use it in my NAS or not - like I said, I can't afford a replacement right now so fingers crossed she's still got some life in her!

 

[USAFRet]

But based specifically on the report, is it a case of it failing within say a few months, or is it just a bad block or 2 and it'll be fine for a little while longer yet?

The drive's already wiped so not worried about losing data yet, just need to know whether to use it in my NAS or not - like I said, I can't afford a replacement right now so fingers crossed she's still got some life in her!

No way to tell. 5 minutes, 5 weeks, 5 years.
I've had drives go from seemingly perfect to absolutely dead in 36 hours.

 

[SkyNetRising]

if the drive is usable, apart from running Disk Doctor, is there anything else I should do before using it?

8 relocated sectors. Not good, but not critical either.
216 pending sectors - this needs to be addressed. Pending sectors need to be resolved. Those most likely will get converted to relocated sectors.

You can resolve pending sectors with mhdd - scan with relocate on.

HDDGURU: MHDD

MHDD is the most popular freeware program for low-level IDE, Serial ATA and SCSI HDD diagnostics.

hddguru.com

This looks like some Seagate drive. What model is it?

 

[crimsonnight]

8 relocated sectors. Not good, but not critical either.
216 pending sectors - this needs to be addressed. Pending sectors need to be resolved. Those most likely will get converted to relocated sectors.

You can resolve pending sectors with mhdd - scan with relocate on.

HDDGURU: MHDD

MHDD is the most popular freeware program for low-level IDE, Serial ATA and SCSI HDD diagnostics.

hddguru.com

This looks like some Seagate drive. What model is it?

That's helpful, thank you. It's a ST8000DM004. Is there a Windows alternative to MHDD?

 

[popatim]

Warranty it after you ensure the backups are complete.
The issue isn't the 8 reallocated secotrs nor the 216 pending. Reallocated is failed sectors where data was successfully moved to a spare sector. Pending sectors are awaiting a retest after reading took longer then it should have.

Your main issue is the 216* failed sectors on line 198. Your drive is already toast and needs to be replaced.


* I assume because the line # is 198 instead of C6 (hex) that the raw values are also in decimal format, otherwise you'd have over 500 failed sectors.

 

[crimsonnight]

Warranty it after you ensure the backups are complete.
The issue isn't the 8 reallocated secotrs nor the 216 pending. Reallocated is failed sectors where data was successfully moved to a spare sector. Pending sectors are awaiting a retest after reading took longer then it should have.

Your main issue is the 216* failed sectors on line 198. Your drive is already toast and needs to be replaced.


* I assume because the line # is 198 instead of C6 (hex) that the raw values are also in decimal format, otherwise you'd have over 500 failed sectors.

I can't unfortunately as it was taken from an external drive

 

[popatim]

Hopefully is a WD and they sometimes wont care. Especially if its an enterprise drive.
https://support-en.wd.com/app/warrantystatus

 

[SkyNetRising]

Hopefully is a WD and they sometimes wont care.

Seagate ST8000DM004.

 

[popatim]

https://www.seagate.com/support/warranty-and-replacements/
Good Luck

 

[crimsonnight]

Thanks, they could provide warranty information so have contacted customer support, not holding out much hope though.

Have ran some more tests/repairs, how's it looking now, better/worse?:

 

[SkyNetRising]

Have ran some more tests/repairs, how's it looking now, better/worse?:

Same 8 relocated sectors. Pending sectors not visible in the screenshot.

 

[crimsonnight]

Same 8 pending sectors. Relocated sectors not visible in the screenshot.

I think they were relocated no? They were moved during the check I ran. That screenshot contains all the data marks yellow and red, the other few lines were green

 

[SkyNetRising]

I think they were relocated no? They were moved during the check I ran. That screenshot contains all the data marks yellow and red, the other few lines were green

Can't see in the screenshot. Show remaining parameters too.

 

[crimsonnight]

Can't see in the screenshot. Show remaining parameters too.

This is the rest of it:

 

[SkyNetRising]

Yes - pending sectors got resolved. None of them became relocated.
Good job.

 

[crimsonnight]

Yes - pending sectors got resolved. None of them became relocated.
Good job.

Cheers! So in layman's terms, I'm good to use the drive in the short-term without expecting any immediate errors, but can expect it to fail at some-point in the not-too-distant future? (Although I'm hoping to get another couple years out of it)

 

[SkyNetRising]

Well - deterioration process has started. It has higher chance of failure than before.
It can die in couple of days or it might as well live several years more.
Keep an eye on it and have backups.