How to fix a bad-sector ?

Saber_1

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Mar 7, 2017
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Hello Guys,
I have 2 questions about hard disk, first as this image shows , my current main hard disk has a 19% health and 107 bad sectors. so I tried a program called "Data lifegurad" from the manufacture website (WesternDigital) and it scanned the hard and told me everything is okay , also the windows built-in chkdsk tool results with OK status . so why this one show me a different result ?! after all how can I resolve those bad sectors , and after fixing is health gonna get increased again ?

Second, the second disk (465Gb) shows a 100% health with no temp. which is very weird , may this result isn't true ? I mean may that hard also has a lower health percentage ? since the software cannot access the hard's temp. so maybe the 100% is just a filler for the data , since another app called "HDD health" shows the same for that hard .


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You don't 'repair' bad sectors. That drive is failing and you need to back it up and replace ASAP. It could go total failure at any time so do not delay. If you wait, or try any of the 'voodoo' magic you see on YouTube you may place the drive in a condition that even a data recovery center can't help.
 

Saber_1

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Mar 7, 2017
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Yeah , I made a backup on the other hard for insurance , so about the other hard , any idea why no app can access the hard temp ? maybe because I put it on a slave SATA slot ?
 
Bad sectors are normal. All hard drives develop them with age. They're so expected that HDD manufacturers include thousands of reserve sectors. These are extra unused sectors. When a bad sector is detected (a sector which the drive determines cannot reliably hold information), it will map one of these reserve sectors to that bad sector. From that point on, any time the computer reads or writes data to that sector, it is instead automatically redirected to the reserve sector.

That's the dichotomy you're seeing. Your first program is reporting 107 bad sectors, which is correct. There are 107 sectors which have been determined to be unable to hold data. But those sectors have all been mapped to reserve sectors. So the WD Data Lifeguard tool is also correct - that everything is OK. The 19% health is probably just an indication that most of the reserve sectors have been used, and the drive only has 19% of its original quantity of reserve sectors remaining.

While the occasional bad sector is normal, the thing you want to watch out for are rapidly developing bad sectors. If the drive was working fine for years with only a few bad sectors, then suddenly it develops 100 in a span of a few weeks, that's usually a sign the drive is dying. Maybe the bearings are going bad so the platter is wriggling slightly, making it impossible for the read/write heads to consistently position themselves over each data track. Or maybe debris has gotten inside and is bouncing around, gouging pits on the platter surfaces as they spin. Or maybe the read/write heads are failing. Whatever the cause, a rapid increase in the number of bad sectors is usually a sign that the drive is going to fail soon.

If this drive is a few years old, then blowing through 81% of its reserve sectors that quickly is a sign that the disk is failing. Replace it ASAP. But if this is an old drive (which at 300 GB capacity it probably is), then it may not be unusual that 81% of its reserve sectors have been used. Backup any data you have on the drive. Monitor it for a month or so. If the health remains at 19%, then it's probably good to use for a few more years. If the health drops a few more percent, then the drive is probably dying and you should replace it.
 

Saber_1

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Mar 7, 2017
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Thank you , you cleared a lot of things to me , about the other drive (465gb) I tried about 6 apps til now , and no one can access the temperature of it , so I believe it displaying a false health and temp. just for filling the GUI , so why this happens ? maybe because I use it as a Slave not a master on sata slots ? maybe the SATA Cable ?