Repeated corruption in hard disk. Is it permanently damaged?

[raunak62]

Chkdsk was giving multiple errors indicating corrupt locations in my C drive. A prompt appeared for restarting to repair corruption, but after restarting, the scan and repair never completed successfully. It restarted without reaching 100%. I logged in to windows and this time the interface was sluggish and mouse movement was noticably laggy. I somehow managed to backup my data on another device and then attempted to reinstall windows. I have 2 partitions on my hdd: one where windows 10 is installed (91GB) and another 365GB partition. I deleted the windows partition only(C: ) during windows intallation setup and attempted to create a new partition using the unallocated space but encountered the error: we couldn't create partition. So, I ran the CLEAN command on disk0 in diskpart and then reinstalled Windows 10 by repartitioning into the my earlier partition confguration. This time I didnt encounter any partition errors and windows installation completed successfully.
I proceeded to install softwares and drivers. I installed steam and was downloading CS GO but after about 500mb of download steam stopped the download showing: disk write error. I restarted the download and it occured again after about 800mb was downloaded. Repeating this frustating process I managed to download about 1.7GB after which the error became so frequent, steam almost stopped download as soon as I started it. I then ran chkdsk on D drive, where my steam library is located. It gave 0 bad sectors and no errors. I then ran chkdsk on C drive and got mulltiple corruption errors. Some were repaired online while for the rest, a prompt appeared to restart my PC, which I did. Again this time, the "scanning and repairing drive(C: )" got struck, specifically at 71% and my PC just rebooted from there. But unlike before, I couldn't login to windows by skipping disk check. It started the scan and repair process and again rebooted at 71%. After rebooting this time, "diagnosing your PC" showed up, which didn't complete successfully either and the PC again rebooted. After that it was sort of an infinite loop of reboots, where either "diagnosing your PC" or "scanning and repairing drive(C: )" showed up, at alternating reboots.
I couldn't even boot into my windows 10 bootable USB drive after that where I encountered an error shown in attached image.
Luckily I had manjaro live cd in a usb drive, which I am using now to write this post. Earlier, when I encountered errors on drive C, i.e before I formatted and reinstalled windows, I was able to access C drive from manjaro live cd. This time around, file explorer(or whatever it is called in linux 😛 i'm a rookie in linux) would crash as soon as I attempted mounting it, although I can still access the D drive from manjaro. I then installed GSmartControl and ran both "short self test" and "extended self test", the results of which I am adding to the post.
In the Attributes section of the software, "END TO END ERROR" showed as failed, while the rest of the parameters showed NEVER under "failed" column.
Is my hard disk physically damaged? How do I determine if there is some permanent hardware damage and my only option is to replace the hard disk OR if formatting/ some other steps can help me make my HDD reusable again? Should I try removing all the partitions from gparted in manjaro and then attempt to reinstall windows? Should I uncheck "quick format" while formatting partitions during windows installation? Any suggestions please.

My system specs in brief:
CPU: AMD Phenom II X2 550
Motherboard: Gigabyte MA74GMT-S2
RAM: 4 + 2 GB Corsair DDR3 1333Mhz
GPU: Sapphire Radeon R7 260X OC Edition
HDD: Seagate Barracuda ST3500413AS 500GB 7200PRM
OS: Windows 10 pro x64 Build 15063

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B9NIY90_epSnVFlzTFczaUd3WTg
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B9NIY90_epSnVDE3MDExa2kwSkk
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B9NIY90_epSnRF9ZdWRFUG9JdFU
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B9NIY90_epSnblg0TkItNHgwYUU
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B9NIY90_epSnWDU4RU10bTh1aE0
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B9NIY90_epSncEpweS1zVEpVY2M

 

[SkyNetRising]

Replace the drive.

End-to-End error S.M.A.R.T. parameter is a part of HP's SMART IV technology and it means that after transferring through the cache RAM data buffer, the parity data between the host and the hard drive did not match. For detailed information see SMART IV Documentation from HP.
Recommendations
This is a critical parameter. Degradation of this parameter may indicate imminent drive failure. Urgent data backup and hardware replacement is recommended.

https://kb.acronis.com/content/9119

 

[mbarnes86]

Hi

Go into bios or uefi and look for option of SMART test of hard disks at startup
This is often off, if off turn on
At next reboot expect SMART error message if drive has serious problems

To confirm this Get hold of bootable hard disk diagnostics cd or usb
HIRENS boot CD has a large collection of bootable diagnostic programs including Seagate diagnostics

Alternatively WD datalifeguard 4 Windows is available from XP option

This diagnostics will tell you if you have a few or many bad sectors

Other things to try
Sometimes a bad connection on sata data cable can be curred by replacing cable or removing then re connecting at both ends

Occasionally bad ram can cause strange problems
Memtest86 or memtest86+ Will test your ram for you
Is also on HIRENS boot CD

(mains power must be removed before opening the case)

Regards
Mike Barnes

 

[raunak62]

Replace the drive.

End-to-End error S.M.A.R.T. parameter is a part of HP's SMART IV technology and it means that after transferring through the cache RAM data buffer, the parity data between the host and the hard drive did not match. For detailed information see SMART IV Documentation from HP.
Recommendations
This is a critical parameter. Degradation of this parameter may indicate imminent drive failure. Urgent data backup and hardware replacement is recommended.

https://kb.acronis.com/content/9119

I checked this website while initially searching a fix for my problem on google. This website pretty much just tells me my case is hopeless. I just want to confirm that is indeed the case. Maybe some test so that I can confirm there are indeed unrepairable bad sectors on my disk, before I go about replacing it. Also since I can pretty much access D drive, maybe not the entirety of my hard disk is damaged. If I can maybe isolate the bad sectors, I can make do with 400gb for now and leave the corrupted section unallocated. Eventually I would get a hdd but I just need a working hard disk for now.

 

[Tom Tancredi]

Yeah the drive is bad, no there is no 'software' fix or such, but honestly you need to buy a new drive, nothing will work when the hardware is broken.

Think of it this way, of the tires on the car are worn or flat, changing gas stations and refilling the the gas tank over and over won't change the physical problem.

 

[SkyNetRising]

This website pretty much just tells me my case is hopeless. I just want to confirm that is indeed the case.

Yes - it is indeed the case. Your drive is bad and needs to be replaced.
It is not problem about bad sectors. It is problem with ram cache on the drive.

 

[raunak62]

Hi

Go into bios or uefi and look for option of SMART test of hard disks at startup
This is often off, if off turn on
At next reboot expect SMART error message if drive has serious problems

To confirm this Get hold of bootable hard disk diagnostics cd or usb
HIRENS boot CD has a large collection of bootable diagnostic programs including Seagate diagnostics

Alternatively WD datalifeguard 4 Windows is available from XP option

This diagnostics will tell you if you have a few or many bad sectors

Other things to try
Sometimes a bad connection on sata data cable can be curred by replacing cable or removing then re connecting at both ends

Occasionally bad ram can cause strange problems
Memtest86 or memtest86+ Will test your ram for you
Is also on HIRENS boot CD

(mains power must be removed before opening the case)

Regards
Mike Barnes

Well I did all the stuffs u recommended. I swapped my hdd's SATA cable with my DVD drive's SATA cable and also connected it to a different SATA port on mobo.
Memtest didn't return any errors after 2 passes.
SMART was already enabled in my BIOS and it wasn't giving any errors while booting up my PC.
I downloaded and burned Hirens boot CD on a CD but couldn't get it to boot up. Maybe I downloaded the wrong file or maybe just burning the ISO wasn't enough. There might have been some others steps to be followed (I didn't quite read the readme file 😛 ).
Next I tried something on my own: I downloaded Darik’s Boot and Nuke, burned it onto a CD and then ran the QUICK ERASE command after booting from the CD. It overwrote every location on my HDD with zeroes. Took about 3 hours to complete. After it completed, I reinstalled windows 10 and voilà! Problem gone!!!!! Ran chkdsk multiple times, after about 2 hour intervals: no errors or corruptions! I am replying after using my PC for a full day. Encountered no performance issues at all.
I then installed diskcheckup and on running it, it still showed end-to-end error as FAILED, so I guess I will eventually have to get a new HDD, but for now my drive is working a-ok 😀
Thanks! I don't know which of the above actions did it, but something clicked!

 

[SkyNetRising]

You're just delaying the inevitable. Your drive has failed and is unreliable.
Your data will get corrupted and you'll have to replace it anyway. Better sooner than later.

 

[raunak62]

You're just delaying the inevitable. Your drive has failed and is unreliable.
Your data will get corrupted and you'll have to replace it anyway. Better sooner than later.

True that. Its just that I'm in no position to replace the HDD right now. Maybe in a month's time. I just need my current HDD to last until then.

 

[Tom Tancredi]

There isn't a way to last. Think of it this way, it is like your asking a tire which is showing the metal threads and keeps leaking air not to blow for a month because your in no position to replace it right now. It doesn't care, and everytime your using it your RISK of it just suddenly BLOWING increases with every time you DRIVE the car. The only TWO answers are A) don't drive the car / use the computer OR B) replace the tire / hard drive.

There is no 'third' or "get by for now' answer.