[SOLVED] WD test shows 4 repairable bad sector.

[wabale97]

I did the extended test. It says 4 bad sectors reported. The repair option says "you may lose data" Is there way to know how much data? What if it were system files, It could break my windows?
Given that I have 1 HDD with the system on it.
WD Blue 1TB 7200rpm

 

[Darkbreeze]

Once you start having bad sectors, the writing is not only on the wall, but the wall is falling down. Get a new drive. Don't do anything else with that drive, at all, until you have a new drive and have backed up every single important thing on the drive someplace else.

Whether that is to a thumb drive, or blank DVDs, or an external drive or a different internal drive, is up to you, but if you don't act now it's likely you'll find that you end up not being able to recover some or all of the data and if you think there is a magical way to get it back later, there's not. Recovery labs cost 1500 dollars, to start, and that's if they don't even get any of your data back. That's just to make the attempt. Not worth the risk IF you have any important data on this drive.

Personally, when I see any signs of bad sectors, I back up everything immediately, and THEN run tests to see if there is an actual physical problem with the drive or if the bad sector readings are due to a software problem. Usually, they are not software, they are actual hardware failures.

Having to reinstall Windows is probably a foregone conclusion at this point, so expect to have to do that as well.

 

[wabale97]

..

Thanks for the reply,
I didn't expect that much scary stuff.
It is just 5-month-old drive still has warranty intact up to 2020. Also, the system is running really fine. I just happened to come across WD data lifeguard so I decided to run a test out of curiosity.
Is it eligible to return? What do I say them?
The health meter in Sentinel HD shows health at 94% and says
"The drive found 4 bad sectors during its self-test.
There are 4 weak sectors found on the disk surface. They may be remapped any time in the later use of the disk.
At this point, warranty replacement of the disk is not yet possible, only if the health drops further."

 

[Darkbreeze]

There shouldn't be ANY bad sectors on a five month old drive. I would contact WD regardless of what data lifeguard says. And I'd back your data up. Any personal files, folders, music, movies, pictures, documents, etc. that you have that can't be replaced, get those saved onto other media now, while you can, just in case. It never hurts to play it safe AND you should ALWAYS have EVERYTHING important saved to more than one distinctly different location at ALL times anyhow, because sometimes, often in fact, hardware simply fails "poof" with no warning of impending failure.

It's not meant to be a scare tactic, it's simply a fact, and common sense. If it's important, put it in more than one place so you don't lose it if you have a catastrophic failure. THEN, after you do that, you can start playing around with testing to see if there is an ACTUAL problem, or a false reading. I can guide you through that as well, but I won't do it until I know you've taken steps to back up important files because every SINGLE time you do anything on that system, it is accessing that hard drive and if there IS a problem, it's making it worse and worse. At some point, that data will be unrecoverable or the drive could simply fail outright.