HDD with Bad Sectors | Win10

[Plasma Deoxys]

To Whom It May Concern:

I encountered a problem with my desktop. I believe its my secondary drive which is a year old 1TB WD Blue HDD. I have Windows 10 installed in a SSD. The problem happened when I was playing "Tera" (which is installed in the secondary drive) The computer froze completely with a creepy glitched sound, not even Ctr + Alt + Del worked. I immediately depressed the reset button and Windows started normally. I started the game again and when it was loading it happened again, it froze with creepy sound. I restarted again and did some diagnosis. I did the error check for the drive. It encountered problems but supposedly fixed them then I ran a 2 hour extended diagnosis with the WD Data Lifeguard tool. The results were that it had bad sectors and could not be fixed. Please contact WD. This situation actually happened to me last year. I was playing GTA V and this happened but windows was slow and the icons loaded very slow and had a lot of delays. It happened to have bad sectors as well, I mailed it to WD and they sent a replacement with a new warranty. So before I contact WD for RMA I would like to hear some suggestions, for example is it safe to factory reset this drive?, write zeroes with the Data Lifeguard tool? Or should I check if the cables are correctly plugged. I tried factory reset the computer and do a full clean on all drives but it failed not twice but 3 times in row at 2%. I hope it has to deal with the drive and nothing else... I also would like to know the procedure for removal of the drive. This drive has all libraries like Documents, Pictures, etc... in it. Do I just unplug it and go or is there steps? I did it last year but I forgot how. Thanks in advance

P.S. Do WD Blue HDD has a span of 1 year if its abused for 24/7 gaming ? If so is there any HDD that could live longer?

 

[Shaun o]

Just return the drive again if it is still under its warranty period Plasma.
And hard errors cannot be fixed.

They can only be flagged as bad to make sure the hard drive never tries to write anymore data to the drive on the sectors effected.

Your WD data life guard tool should of lagged the failed sectors that had hard errors of the disk platter not to use the sectors ever again.

All hard drives come with a set number of extra sectors for data redundancy and error correction.
But if you get a message of could not be fixed it means the sector in question is totally damaged by a physical aspect of the magnetic disk platter used in the mechanical hard drive.

Or that the drives read and write heads have sustained some sort of damage.
In any case when you get a message like it as an error report, rather than messing around just get the drive replaced if still under warranty, or at the very least don`t store data on the drive anymore that is very important.

A hard drive with a lot of use of it from day to day should last at least 3 to four years.
Before it shows any hard bad sector errors.

So I would consider a years use pretty poor if it has failed within a time period of just a year Plasma.

 

[Chicano]

The creepy sound comming from the HDD is of mechanical nature, probably the motor bearing... Disk errors are on the disk platter, they are either or both; bad disk sectors and/or file system NTFS errors... File System erros can be fixed and bad disk sectors can be isolated and their contained information is moved to somewhere else in the disk... but badly damaged sectors can't be repaired, so data can't be saved on them either, and if their number keeps increasing the HDD eventually becomes unusable.

Factory resetting it can be done with the Low Level Format Tool but that resets the disk platter, but the noise is probably due to the motor bearing... so it's most likely not restorable to normal functionallity.

To backup personal files off the HDD, the Windows Easy Transfer app would be helpfull... it's not included in Windows 10 but there are third party replacements such as PCmover Express
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/instantanswers/d4872cf1-5854-a363-2e14-2497f56f1505/windows-easy-transfer-is-not-available-in-windows-10

One year of HDD life is to short so your computer may have an issue that's killing HDDs... Maybe the PSU, failing and bad quality PSUs can cause HDD failure. Information at some website said replacing a PSU made a failing HDD recover normal function. So the PSU would have to be replaced before removing the HDD, which may not fully recover but if it improves, you'll know the PSU was responsible.

 

[Plasma Deoxys]

Just return the drive again if it is still under its warranty period Plasma.
And hard errors cannot be fixed.

They can only be flagged as bad to make sure the hard drive never tries to write anymore data to the drive on the sectors effected.

Your WD data life guard tool should of lagged the failed sectors that had hard errors of the disk platter not to use the sectors ever again.

All hard drives come with a set number of extra sectors for data redundancy and error correction.
But if you get a message of could not be fixed it means the sector in question is totally damaged by a physical aspect of the magnetic disk platter used in the mechanical hard drive.

Or that the drives read and write heads have sustained some sort of damage.
In any case when you get a message like it as an error report, rather than messing around just get the drive replaced if still under warranty, or at the very least don`t store data on the drive anymore that is very important.

A hard drive with a lot of use of it from day to day should last at least 3 to four years.
Before it shows any hard bad sector errors.

So I would consider a years use pretty poor if it has failed within a time period of just a year Plasma.

The creepy sound comming from the HDD is of mechanical nature, probably the motor bearing... Disk errors are on the disk platter, they are either or both; bad disk sectors and/or file system NTFS errors... File System erros can be fixed and bad disk sectors can be isolated and their contained information is moved to somewhere else in the disk... but badly damaged sectors can't be repaired, so data can't be saved on them either, and if their number keeps increasing the HDD eventually becomes unusable.

Factory resetting it can be done with the Low Level Format Tool but that resets the disk platter, but the noise is probably due to the motor bearing... so it's most likely not restorable to normal functionallity.

To backup personal files off the HDD, the Windows Easy Transfer app would be helpfull... it's not included in Windows 10 but there are third party replacements such as PCmover Express
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/instantanswers/d4872cf1-5854-a363-2e14-2497f56f1505/windows-easy-transfer-is-not-available-in-windows-10

One year of HDD life is to short so your computer may have an issue that's killing HDDs... Maybe the PSU, failing and bad quality PSUs can cause HDD failure. Information at some website said replacing a PSU made a failing HDD recover normal function. So the PSU would have to be replaced before removing the HDD, which may not fully recover but if it improves, you'll know the PSU was responsible.

Hey Shaun, thanks for taking the time to reply to my thread. So far I have already removed the HDD which WD Data Lifeguard detected with unrepairable bad sectors. Before removing the drive I tried to factory reset the computer with a FULL CLEAN on all drives. Unfortunately it did not worked, and I attempted 3 times. It always stoped at 2% and undid changes and a message in a blue screen appeared saying that there was a problem resetting the computer, no changes were made. Then I proceeded to remove the drive. After removing the drive I attempted factory reset again, FULL CLEAN on all drives, at first it appeared to be working but after 15% it does "undoing changes" same thing as before. I thought I couldn't factory reset it because of the bad drive but that's not the case. I attempted 5 times and always does the same. Do I need the Windows 8 CD to be able to factory reset it? Does this mean I have additional malfunctioning hardware? Is there a diagnosis I could run on the hardware to see if there is something else? A virus scan? Thanks once again!

To Chicano: Thanks for replaying to my thread but the sound I was referring to was that of the game I was playing during the event I mentioned. The sound glitched like when you remove the cassette from an old console like Sega Genesis. And nothing worked, it literally froze...Also do you have any idea as to why I cant factory reset my computer?

Pictures
Resetting at 15%

Undoing Changes

Blue screen

After login back to Windows 10

The pictures were taken with my phone, so they will have poor quality...

 

[USAFRet]

The results were that it had bad sectors and could not be fixed. Please contact WD.

It is still under warranty. It is failing. Send it back. You cannot 'fix' it.

 

[USAFRet]

Before it actually dies completely, and before you send it back, simply save all of your critical files off that drive.

 

[Chicano]

To Chicano: Thanks for replaying to my thread but the sound I was referring to was that of the game I was playing during the event I mentioned. The sound glitched like when you remove the cassette from an old console like Sega Genesis. And nothing worked, it literally froze...Also do you have any idea as to why I cant factory reset my computer?

OK I stand corrected on the screeching sound.. but the failed Windows resets are clear indication the HDD is about to fail. It may happen in hours, days, weeks, or immediately.. so there's no way of telling when but with the Windows reset issues, it's clear it can't be restored. The PSU suggestion was to make 100% sure it's not related, as it may be the cause of the short lived HDDs.

The "factory reset" I meant was for the HDD, and in the understanding you wanted your data completely erased before RMA'ing the HDD... a Windows Factory reset can't continue due to the HDD issues... Windows will cancel any method or resetting or installation as soon as it detects disk issues. And I suggested before to backup your data, so do it as soon as possible as the HDD can become inaccessible sooner than you'd expect.

 

[Plasma Deoxys]

To Chicano: Thanks for replaying to my thread but the sound I was referring to was that of the game I was playing during the event I mentioned. The sound glitched like when you remove the cassette from an old console like Sega Genesis. And nothing worked, it literally froze...Also do you have any idea as to why I cant factory reset my computer?

OK I stand corrected on the screeching sound.. but the failed Windows resets are clear indication the HDD is about to fail.

The "factory reset" I meant was for the HDD... a Windows Factory reset can't continue due to the HDD issues... Windows will cancel any method or resetting or installation as soon as it detects HDD issues... And I suggested before to backup your data, so do it as soon as possible as the HDD can become inaccessible sooner than you'd expect.

Hey Chicano thanks for replying! But the failed Factory reset attempt persist even when the drive was removed...Does this mean also my SSD is failing? Also I don't care about the data on the HDD because its already been backup months before the HDD failed , so I have no problems of losing the data inside the removed HDD

 

[Chicano]

The problem may be another hardware component has issues. Complete freezes to the point you have to use ctrl+alt+del, are usually caused by defective hardware. A bad CD/DVD drive, a RAM issue, PSU, SSD file system errors... SSDs don't get bad sectors but they do get bad blocks which are said to be repaired automatically, and they do get file system errors. And Windows 10 includes the recovery files in the OS partition (there's no recovery partition anymore), so you can't format if you want to do a factory reset of Windows 10, that means the file system can't be rebuilt with a format, you need to run a chkdksk even though SSDs don't get bad sectors but they can get file system errors.

1. From SSD Windows drive properties > Tools > Run a File System error check.
2. Reset your RAM modules on the mobo slots. Run Memtest if necessary.
3. If you have another PSU available, see if it makes a difference.
4. If you still need to, see if now the Windows Factory Reset completes.

 

[Plasma Deoxys]

The problem may be another hardware component has issues. Complete freezes to the point you have to use ctrl+alt+del, are usually caused by defective hardware. A bad CD/DVD drive, a RAM issue, PSU, SSD file system errors... SSDs don't get bad sectors but they do get bad blocks which are said to be repaired automatically, and they do get file system errors. And Windows 10 includes the recovery files in the OS partition (there's no recovery partition anymore), so you can't format if you want to do a factory reset of Windows 10, that means the file system can't be rebuilt with a format, you need to run a chkdksk even though SSDs don't get bad sectors but they can get file system errors.

1. From SSD Windows drive properties > Tools > Run a File System error check.
2. Reset your RAM modules on the mobo slots. Run Memtest if necessary.
3. If you have another PSU available, see if it makes a difference.
4. If you still need to, see if now the Windows Factory Reset completes.

Hey Chicano thanks for replying! I did a factory reset using the Windows 10 media tool. I installed Windows 10 successfully and also installed Radeon. I ran some diagnosis on RAM and SSD and no problems. I ran Fire strike benchmark and everything was okay. I re downloaded the game I was playing and after 30 minute of doing nothing/idling in the game, the computer froze again.Could it be the GPU or the PSU causing the problem? How can I diagnose them? Unfortunately I don't have a spare PSU or GPU to test...[

 

[Chicano]

Hey Chicano thanks for replying! I did a factory reset using the Windows 10 media tool. I installed Windows 10 successfully and also installed Radeon. I ran some diagnosis on RAM and SSD and no problems. I ran Fire strike benchmark and everything was okay. I re downloaded the game I was playing and after 30 minute of doing nothing/idling in the game, the computer froze again.Could it be the GPU or the PSU causing the problem? How can I diagnose them? Unfortunately I don't have a spare PSU or GPU to test...

It's probably the SSD... PSU or GPU*, I haven't seen them cause freezes... So, it's more likely the SSD but not the hardware itself more like the SATA Controller driver... Go to the BIOS and change the SATA Controller** to AHCI and if already in AHCI, change to IDE Mode... If it makes a difference, update the SATA Controller driver from the Windows Device Manager, and set the BIOS SATA Controller back to the mode it was previously on.


*The GPU message makes reference to an unexpected System failure, not to an error of it's own.

**You may want to take note of the initial SATA controller setting to correctly restore it afterwards.

 

[Plasma Deoxys]

Hey Chicano thanks for replying! I did a factory reset using the Windows 10 media tool. I installed Windows 10 successfully and also installed Radeon. I ran some diagnosis on RAM and SSD and no problems. I ran Fire strike benchmark and everything was okay. I re downloaded the game I was playing and after 30 minute of doing nothing/idling in the game, the computer froze again.Could it be the GPU or the PSU causing the problem? How can I diagnose them? Unfortunately I don't have a spare PSU or GPU to test...

It's probably the SSD... PSU or GPU*, I haven't seen them cause freezes... So, it's more likely the SSD but not the hardware itself more like the SATA Controller driver... Go to the BIOS and change the SATA Controller** to AHCI and if already in AHCI, change to IDE Mode... If it makes a difference, update the SATA Controller driver from the Windows Device Manager, and set the BIOS SATA Controller back to the mode it was previously on.


*The GPU message makes reference to an unexpected System failure, not to an error of it's own.

**You may wan to take note of the initial SATA controller setting to correctly restore it afterwards.

Hi Chicano thanks for the suggestion! I changed the configuration in BIOS for the Sata Port to IDE but Windows did not start and prompt with blue screen with sad emoji 🙁. I reverted it back to AHCI and went to Windows normally. I also have to mention that I have observed that every time I turn on the computer after a normal shutdown, Radeon prompts with the Wattman...unexpected system failure. Also I went to the game to recollect some values on temp and usage but did not stay long for it to crash..here is a screenshot.

 

[Chicano]

Hi Chicano thanks for the suggestion! I changed the configuration in BIOS for the Sata Port to IDE but Windows did not start and prompt with blue screen with sad emoji 🙁. I reverted it back to AHCI and went to Windows normally. I also have to mention that I have observed that every time I turn on the computer after a normal shutdown, Radeon prompts with the Wattman...unexpected system failure. Also I went to the game to recollect some values on temp and usage but did not stay long for it to crash..here is a screenshot.

1. Well, doesn't look like updating the SATA controller driver would do much good.
2. The PSU is not know to cause freezes, but it may be indirectly responsible if some component freezes from inadequate or interrupted current supply. In that sense it could be any component receiving current from the PSU or motherboard...
3. That's where the GPU may be getting a power interruption and it would explain the Radeon Wattman settings being restored. You havent mentioned the motherboard model.. so, does it have onboard graphics so you can temporarily connect the monitor to it?

 

[Plasma Deoxys]

Hi Chicano thanks for the suggestion! I changed the configuration in BIOS for the Sata Port to IDE but Windows did not start and prompt with blue screen with sad emoji 🙁. I reverted it back to AHCI and went to Windows normally. I also have to mention that I have observed that every time I turn on the computer after a normal shutdown, Radeon prompts with the Wattman...unexpected system failure. Also I went to the game to recollect some values on temp and usage but did not stay long for it to crash..here is a screenshot.

1. Well, doesn't look like updating the SATA controller driver would do much good.
2. The PSU is not know to cause freezes, but it may be indirectly responsible if some component freezes from inadequate or interrupted current supply. In that sense it could be any component receiving current from the PSU or motherboard...
3. That's where the GPU may be getting a power interruption and it would explain the Radeon Wattman settings being restored. You havent mentioned the motherboard model.. so, does it have onboard graphics so you can temporarily connect the monitor to it?

Mobo: Asus M5A97 R2.0
CPU: AMD FX-8350
RAM: G.SKILL F3-17000CL9D-8GBXM RipjawsX Series 8GB (2 x 4GB)
GPU: Gigabyte AMD Radeon R9 280 OC 3GB GDDR5 (GV-R928WF3OC-3GD)
PSU: Corsair CX750M
SSD: ADATA Premier SP600 128 GB 2.5 Inch SATA III (ASP600S3-128GM-C)

 

[Chicano]

I had hopes integrated video would be a testing resource but seems the only possibility will be a different GPU. Have you disabled the GPU overclocking just for testing purposes?... If not disable it. Next would be using a different GPU.. any, even borrowed one or a inexpensive legacy GPU would help diagnose it.

Other suggestions are testing with a different PSU, and updating the motherboard drivers for optimal performance... something else I noticed in the HWMonitor report is the Power Options are downclocking the CPU... so, select the High performance power plan even if temporarily.

https://www.asus.com/Motherboards/M5A97_R20/HelpDesk_Download/

EDIT
Other inconsistencies I noticed in the HWM report:

1. is the CPU cores were at 0% un minimum... as far as I know, the CPU can't ever be at 0%.. if you check the taskmanager the system idle process can only get up to 98% (CPU 2%) maybe 99% (CPU1%) momentarily, but never up to 100% (CPU at 0%)... and so is the 0% on the GPU at minimum... that would mean there is no video at that moment.

2. The CPU fan running at 6000+RPMs? I've never seen third party cooler specs with that speed.

I can't figure out what this figures would mean.. unless they are HWMonitor errors.

 

[Plasma Deoxys]

I had hopes integrated video would be a testing resource but seems the only possibility will be a different GPU. Have you disabled the GPU overclocking just for testing purposes?... If not disable it. Next would be using a different GPU.. any, even borrowed one or a inexpensive legacy GPU would help diagnose it.

Other suggestions are testing with a different PSU, and updating the motherboard drivers for optimal performance... something else I noticed in the HWMonitor report is the Power Options are downclocking the CPU... so, select the High performance power plan even if temporarily.

https://www.asus.com/Motherboards/M5A97_R20/HelpDesk_Download/

EDIT
Other inconsistencies I noticed in the HWM report:

1. is the CPU cores were at 0% un minimum... as far as I know, the CPU can't ever be at 0%.. if you check the taskmanager the system idle process can only get up to 98% (CPU 2%) maybe 99% (CPU1%) momentarily, but never up to 100% (CPU at 0%)... and so is the 0% on the GPU at minimum... that would mean there is no video at that moment.

2. The CPU fan running at 6000+RPMs? I've never seen third party cooler specs with that speed.

I can't figure out what this figures would mean.. unless they are HWMonitor errors.

Hey Chicano thank you for replying! As far as I know I have never tried overclocking the GPU, if it is OC I don't know how to disable it. It scares me that you noticed the power plan was down clocking the CPU since It has always been on High Performance on Windows ever since 3 years, unless you mean the BIOS option which is set on Normal but also has modes for Performance or Energy Saver, but that also has remained same throughout the years. The CPU Fan is stock an is 150mm and is loud when it is at those speeds... I would like to update some drivers in the mobo but the downloads are so confusing, as do i download all of them? I don't have spare PSU or GPU

Here is a screenshot when idling in desktop

 

[Chicano]

The GPU is not overclocked it's just reading 0% on Minimum usage, same as the CPU on the minimum percentage being used.
I meant the the CPU and GPU, as read by CPUID HWMonitor... not the BIOS... so that's strange being on the High Performance power plan... It may be another aspect of the bug in the Windows 10 power options.. I've read a few posts in the forum and I personally experienced one similar to those, where Hibernation was disabled and still it went from Sleep to Hibernation. I've read about 3 plus mine in the span of a couple weeks, so it's definetly a common Win 10 bug, and your's though different seems like variation.

FX-8350 Maximim stock clock speed is 4.0 GHz and on Turbo it's 4.2 GHz (4000 and 4200 Mhz) and your HWMonitor report shows speeds at 4113 Mhz on Value, 1395 Mhz on minimum and 4220 Mhz averge on Maximum.

Drivers; I hoped the chipset driver would be included to improve the GPU performance but it's not. .. the rest are not so important, and you could download them at your convenience. Other downloads such as Hotfix, BIOS and Utilities;
1. Hotfix > APRP Utility V1.0.030 (Asus Product Registration Program) http://www.shouldiblockit.com/aprp.exe-6528.aspx
2. BIOS, I'd suggest it only if your BIOS is long outdated or when it has issues,
3. Utilities include ASUS CPU-Z and PC Diagnostics.. which may give better readings than the CPUID HWMonitor.

Something else I noticed is the Radeon R9 280 GPU is much lower performance than what the FX-8350 needs for gaming... check the benchmark figures on your GPU and the GPU you should be running for perfect compatibility between GPU and the FX-8350.

Here is the HWMonitor image with the odd readings selected

 

[Chicano]

I want to make a correction on my comment on the CPU running at 0%: I checked mine with a tool named Core Temp and CPUs do run into 0% load momentarily. When at idle the load keeps fluctuating between 0% and 1 to 5%... it just happened to coincide that both your images were taken when it was at 0%. So that's one less issue to worry about. I was basing the idea on what I've always seen on the Taskmanager which never gets to system idle process at 100%, the most it gets to is 99% (momentarily) so either the taskmanager has flaws or the flaws are on these type of tools (which are similar to CPUZ).

1. is the CPU cores were at 0% un minimum... as far as I know, the CPU can't ever be at 0%.. if you check the taskmanager the system idle process can only get up to 98% (CPU 2%) maybe 99% (CPU1%) momentarily, but never up to 100% (CPU at 0%)... and so is the 0% on the GPU at minimum... that would mean there is no video at that moment.