Question "Repair Drive Errors"; Stuttering; Freezing

[LostLuggage]

Hello all. A few weeks ago I got a Windows notification (which is why I'm posting under Windows 10) to "Restart to repair drive errors". I did so, and my computer spent the next roughly 17 hours "fixing". Seemed nothing was resolved, because the error came up again. I didn't want to risk my computer getting stuck forever on the "fixing" process at that moment, as I've heard can happen, and I didn't seem to be having any issues anyway, so I figured I'd continued using my computer. Since then though I have had more issues. My Steam client has issues with speed constantly and I have games (both Steam and non-Steam) having intermittent but repeated stuttering and crashing issues. One of my Steam games said it had a file issue when I tried to load it and so I tried to verify the integrity of the files and update it, and I repeatedly get "Update Failed" with the reason given being "Corrupt disk". I tried to put my computer to sleep last night and instead it slowly moved to go to sleep before entering the aforementioned "fixing" process as if I had restarted it, and that took approximately 15 hours. Upon restart things worked alright, but same error message and aforementioned errors with verifying files on Steam and crashing in the non-Steam game I tried playing. Tried repairing library on Steam, and it froze up into "Not Responding". Pulling up the task manager to close Steam it would take unusually long or refuse to close at all, and in this most recent session task manager itself would freeze into "Not Responding" and I'd have to force that process to end. Also in this most recent session even my Windows file explorer froze almost immediately upon attempting to use it, entering "Not Responding". I tried to put my computer to sleep again, and same process as yesterday, though I managed to catch it and press a key before it entered disk checking again.

I can do alright with putting computer components together, but I know far less about the software side of things or if a hardware or software problem is causing these issues, or what to do from here. I have my OS on an SSD, two other SSD's for storage, and 2TB HDD for storage as well. The HDD is about ten years old at this point. If I had to venture an uneducated guess, I'd say the HDD is having a mechanical issue and needs to be replaced, but I've no real idea and the initial cause for concern was a Windows notification so I chose to post here as it may be better known what issues cause that message to appear. I've resigned to having to pick up a new drive (SSD this time of course) and do a full data transfer from my HDD to then remove it from my computer. That said, if this is a software/file issue, then transferring all the data won't do anything to solve the problem I assume.

I'd appreciate any knowledge and suggestions on how to proceed you can provide.
If this post is more appropriate under a different topic like one of the hardware ones let me know and I'll be sure to move it.

 

[SkyNetRising]

now the hexadecimal number is '49C' instead of '499'. I assume that means the issue is now worse?

That means - 3 additional pending sectors.
So you haven't run Victoria software yet?
What are you waiting for?

 

[LostLuggage]

Your hdd has 1177 pending sectors (hex 499).

You can resolve pending sectors with victoria software.
Run victoria - test&repair with remap option.
Download link here:
https://www.majorgeeks.com/files/details/victoria_for_windows.html

Alright I've investigated, installed a new 2TB M.2 SSD, moved files over to that and an external drive, run a scan with Victoria, moved more files off as I found out that Macrium does not skip over unreadable sectors, and then finally run another scan with Remap.

I've attached images of the most problem sections I saw during the second scan, the one with Remap. These are different from the first scan's results, and clearly the drive got worse as I moved things off of it.

https://imgur.com/a/Us3f5QZ

View: https://imgur.com/a/Us3f5QZ


Whenever it hit a red block, and I think an orange one, the event log would say:
Warning! Block start at XXXXXXXXXX (X.X TB) = XXXX ms
Of course with the 'X''s describing where in the read the warning occurred and (I think) how long it took to read the sector.

Whenever it hit a blue block, of which there were only three or so in the first scan, it would say:
LBA XXXXXXXXXX try REMAP... Error: Access is denied (FAQ #6, https://hdd.by/victoria_faq )
Going to that FAQ link, it suggests that the "main boot record" on the disk be deactivated to allow the required permissions for the program to do what it would need to do to "treat the defects". What are your thoughts on that suggestion?

The final two lines of the scan contain the following:
*** Scan results: Warnings - 1292, errors - 1450. Last block at 3907029167 (2.0 TB), time 10 hours 26 minutes 38 seconds.
0 of 1450 defects successfully remapped.

Other new info is CrystalDiskInfo now displays '5B1' where it once displayed '49C', and '499' before that.

 

[SkyNetRising]

Going to that FAQ link, it suggests that the "main boot record" on the disk be deactivated to allow the required permissions for the program to do what it would need to do to "treat the defects". What are your thoughts on that suggestion?

Yeah. Sure. You can do that.
MBR can be turned off in Victoria - Disk Editor section.

Make sure you do not have pagefile on the drive before deactivating MBR (drive E: ).
Note - after you deactivate MBR, the drive will appear as unallocated.
It may be necessary to reboot your pc after changing MBR on/off.
1. deactivate MBR
2. run scan with relocate
3. enable MBR

All pending sectors should get resolved.
If there are still pending sectors, then repeat scan with relocate.

 

[LostLuggage]

Yeah. Sure. You can do that.
MBR can be turned off in Victoria - Disk Editor section.

Make sure you do not have pagefile on the drive before deactivating MBR (drive E: ).
Note - after you deactivate MBR, the drive will appear as unallocated.
It may be necessary to reboot your pc after changing MBR on/off.
1. deactivate MBR
2. run scan with relocate
3. enable MBR

All pending sectors should get resolved.
If there are still pending sectors, then repeat scan with relocate.

Is it advisable to even use the drive anymore at this point? Or even with reallocated sectors would you recommend against that?
I can run the process when I return home from work later today if you think it's worthwhile.

What is "pagefile"?
Will turning off MBR wipe the drive clean?

 

[SkyNetRising]

Is it advisable to even use the drive anymore at this point? Or even with reallocated sectors would you recommend against that?

Your hdd is probably 11-12 years old.
It may have reached end of usable life.

What is "pagefile"?

You can check pagefile location in Disk Management.
Usually pagefile is located in C: partition. Unless you have changed pagefile settings and moved it to a different partition.
Partition containing Page file will have it written in description.
Like here:

Spoiler

Will turning off MBR wipe the drive clean?

It will appear as wiped clean.
But after you turn MBR back on, it will return to being full with data.

 

[LostLuggage]

Your hdd is probably 11-12 years old.
It may have reached end of usable life.

Yeah that's what I'm thinking, given the results of these scans and such. Even if Victoria is able to correct for every single error it encounters, I still wouldn't feel comfortable storing anything irreplaceable on the drive. With the data I needed copied off to the new replacement drive, and backed up to an external drive, and since I'll also be registering with a cloud-based backup service to keep my irreplaceable files even safer against potential loss, it seems any potential damage now is strictly limited to this HDD, and the ability to fix that damage and have the drive be usable in any capacity is out of my hands at this point since it'll just be whatever Victoria is able to correct. I'm tempted to just toss the drive at this point but I'll run the scans and such anyway.

Does all that sound reasonable and correct?