Replace HDD now?

[shining eagle]

few months ago i backed up the HDD during the backup
part of the last partition didn't get backupped and windows reported the problem is because of Corrupt Clusters
however today a ran a CHKDSK /R to it and reported 2 files to be corrupted(but they got repaired)
anyway
the result was

"
90272767 KB total disk space.
70946160 KB in 8501 files.
3196 KB in 247 indexes.
8 KB in bad sectors.
141739 KB in use by the system.
65536 KB occupied by the log file.
19181664 KB avaliable on disk.

4096 bytes in each allocation unit.
22568191 total allocation units on disk.
4795416 allocation units avaliable on disk."
so i wanted to know should i replace it or it was just got corrupted from normal usage?

 

[John_VanKirk]

Hi there,

Important thing is - is your computer running normally now or are you having any problems with any application or service running?

Just for completeness, you had mentioned 'part of the last partition didn't get back up'd'. Is this HDD a 1 TB drive with a single partition, or does it have more than 1 partition? Possibly a hidden recovery partition at the end of the disk?

I'd run Chkdsk /R a second time to see if it reports any more bad sectors. After chkdsk /R recovers data and marks bad sectors, it should be clean. The /R switch recovers data & mark bad sectors - which implies /F & /P. It also runs 2 additional phases which checks the status of clusters in use and all the rest of the clusters on the drive that are not in use - a much more thorough interrogation

If it finds more bad sectors, I'd be concerned.

Also download and run the HD Tune program against this drive. Specifically check the 'Health' tab for reports of a Not OK Status, and run the Error Scan to see if it reports a significant number of bad sectors (takes a while)

If both look OK, I wouldn't worry since you know you had a problem several months ago. If either spots a problem, or if you run HD Tune now and in a week and it shows more bad sectors, then it's time to replace the HDD.

 

[bigbang]

a bad sector is a part of ur harddrive that can no longer be controlled by the magnetic reader head of ur hdd. the trouble with this is that once its there, it means there has been some way for electrons to get on ur disc, and there is no way of telling if more of them will get there in the next couple of days or not. once they are there, they can move in any direction or spread without anyway of knowing once again. so ur hdd is kind of like a russian roulette, the sooner u change it the less chance of losing your data.

 

[photonboy]

obtain and run the diagnostics for your hard drive from the manufacturer.

If it's your Windows drive, I highly recommend you create an IMAGE of the drive using imaging software. If any one of your drives (even USB) is a Western Digital drive you can use it's free version of Acronis True Image.

If the diagnostics software reports an issue, you should be able to RMA it under Warranty. Western Digital even has an option to send the drive out first so you can do your backup.

Assuming you need to return a drive AND you have a drive to use:

CLONE THE DRIVES:
You can use Acronis True Image from Western Digital to do this (or other cloning software). Acronis requires a WD drive installed.

Before cloning, run a complete diagnostics on the drive you will be using as the new Windows drive.

After cloning, return the defective drive.

 

[John_VanKirk]

Hi again,

You have to remember that all HDD's have or will develop bad sectors, Just like most people, they are not perfect! Sectors that are marked as bad, even on a new drive are hidden so you don't see them and drive manufacturers keep available good sectors that can be used when bad sectors are found.

Chkdsk doesn't show you where bad sectors are, but marks them as 'bad' so they are not used. You can, with Chkdsk use the /B swicth that unmarks all the bad sectors and lets the application re-identify them.

When you run a HDD analysis tool like HD Tune (Pro) it will show you those marked as bad on the 'Error Scan' and the 'Health' report shows you the reallocate sector count.

If you really want to 'hard core' analyze, remove data from questionable sectors, or reclaim bad sectors, and repair a problem partition, you can use Steve Gibson's Spin Rite DOS program ($89) which analyzes and manipulates every bit on the disk. It is considered by most to be the gold standard.

It probably not something you need at present, but it's worth knowing about. Here is Spin Rite's web site link.

http://www.grc.com/spinrite.htm

The basic concept is that all HDD's have or will have a few bad sectors, and just because you identify them does not mean the disk is defective. They may have been there from the beginning. If they are increasing in number or ID's at an alert level by one of the HD analysis applets, then it's time for action.

The last point to mention is that HDD's are temporary storage areas, and you should Always have a good backup in case something happens to your disk.