understanding S.M.A.R.T. results.

[ranganitesh]

So my wd500 caviar blue is suspicious. And as it is out of warranty, i want to use it as long as possible for storage. I already have backup of my important data.
Below is S.M.A.R.T. results.

Current pending sector count: 4 and
Offline uncorrectable sector count:1
Other values are normal.
all (4+1) bad sectors are on c drive.(all other partitions are clean, and i am doing chkdsk from past two week result is always same)
So please tell me what should i do???
Is a low level formatting necessary????
If yes then is it possible to doing that on same machine. I have win7.
Thanks

 

[scout_03]

use data lifeguard diagnostic from wd it will tell you the health of this hdd this is the toll the use to test there hdd .

 

[ranganitesh]

Yes there is a WD tool but it is not dos based or anything like ''bootable".And i do not have a separate system for checking.

 

[scout_03]

on this link for dos or windows one http://support.wdc.com/product/download.asp?wdc_lang=en&fid=wdsfDesktop_Blue

 

[ranganitesh]

But in provided link, product is different from mine.( it is wd blue 1tb sata2, but mine is wd caviar blue 500 gb sata3 . is it ok to use that tool with my hdd??
Thanks.

 

[scout_03]

from the same link all blue one size http://www.wdc.com/en/products/products.aspx?id=770#Tab3 so you could use it .

 

[ranganitesh]

Ok i tested it and showing same results in both quick test and smart test. So do i need to do a low level (zero writing) format???

 

[scout_03]

what does it show pass or fail the zeroing will only erase the data and not resolve the bad sector issue .

 

[ranganitesh]

It showed FAIL. But i read somewhere that zeroing not only wipe hdd but also reset all sectors and their allocation entries as well, is that true??

 

[scout_03]

when the test said fail this means you need a new drive i was never able to reset bad sector with zeroing the drive and if someone got it with succes he should made a fortune and company wont sell any new drive .

 

[ranganitesh]

I did a full zero write, and then a extended rest from WD tool, now reinstated OS and now.....
unrecoverable sector count:1
And pending sector :0 🙂
So i think probably problem is there but hidden for now.
Thanks for assistance brother.

 

[scout_03]

just remade the short and long test to see if it fail again or pass if it fail i would save all the needed data .