Health 100% but drive won't initialize
Health 100% but drive won't initialize
Health is showing as 100% but the repair surface scan has flagged the first 28 blocks bad so far and is still running. The scan is running at 0.05 MB/s. So far it's been running for over 20 hours. I'm going to let it finish the scan and hope for the best but I thought I'd post something here to see if there were any suggestions.
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hdsentinel
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Re: Health 100% but drive won't initialize
Can you please use Report menu -> Send test report to developer option?
Would be nice to see the complete, current status of the drive.
Generally the Disk Repair test designed to repair some, minor problems, for example 1-2 weak sectors, without the need to perform complete reinitialization, as described at
https://www.hdsentinel.com/hard_disk_ca ... ectors.php
But it seems, in this case, the drive may experienced some problems (for example a mechanical shock, vibration, over-voltage or so). When this happens and we begin using the drive, yes, 100% may be displayed - as previously no problems recorded and the drive seemed perfect.
However, as we begin using, more and more problems revealed - and yes, on problematic sectors, the drive can advance only very-very slowly or may even stuck for very long time. During that, the surface test also seems "stuck", waiting for the response of the drive.
It is hard to tell how long it will take, how big area is affected. It is possible that the whole surface is so seriously hard (slow) to process - but it is possible that the drive will pass the problematic area very soon and begin working correctly.
If there is no real advance for 20 hours, personally I'd try to stop and try
1) connecting the drive differently, to eliminate possible issues with cables, connections, power source.
If it's an internal drive, I'd connect with external USB adapter/docking station.
If it's an external drive, I'd try to connect on different USB slot, maybe a powered USB hub (as it is very common that USB drives may not receive enough power on a single connection) or try to remove from the enclosure and connect to internal port.
2) try starting the test backwards, to start on the last sector and advance to the first one, to verify if the end of the drive is better - or things are similar. Alternatively you may limit testing to specific blocks, for example only last 50% of the drive (by configuring first block = 5000)
For this, please select Disk menu -> Surface test and (after selecting the drive and the appropriate test method) select Configuration tab.
In this panel, you may enable the "Sequential backward test" and then unselect the default "Sequential test" option.
This way you can verify if the end of the drive is better or not.
3) if there is no change, I'd recommend to try the Disk menu -> Surface test -> Reinitialize disk surface test
It is a destructive one (performs complete overwrite numerous times with initializaion patterns and then clearing) but generally the best way to force the hard disk to stabilize the problems, even problems which are currently not yet detected (if they located on sectors not really used where they could remain hidden for long time).
Hopefully with that, the drive can be better: its health will likely degrade as new problems will be detected - but the important is to make it stable, better to use, reveal and stabilize problems.
Would be nice to see the complete status of the drive, as in such cases, 100% health sounds really weird and interesting.
So please use Report menu -> Send test report to developer option. You may even use multiple times: now and/or after some tests, just to verify if the status changes at all, error-counters increase or not.
(there is very small chance, but found on some older drives that they could not update the error-counters at all, so the S.M.A.R.T. information "stuck". But these were in the 5-10% health range, so already recorded numerous problems).
Would be nice to see the complete, current status of the drive.
Generally the Disk Repair test designed to repair some, minor problems, for example 1-2 weak sectors, without the need to perform complete reinitialization, as described at
https://www.hdsentinel.com/hard_disk_ca ... ectors.php
But it seems, in this case, the drive may experienced some problems (for example a mechanical shock, vibration, over-voltage or so). When this happens and we begin using the drive, yes, 100% may be displayed - as previously no problems recorded and the drive seemed perfect.
However, as we begin using, more and more problems revealed - and yes, on problematic sectors, the drive can advance only very-very slowly or may even stuck for very long time. During that, the surface test also seems "stuck", waiting for the response of the drive.
It is hard to tell how long it will take, how big area is affected. It is possible that the whole surface is so seriously hard (slow) to process - but it is possible that the drive will pass the problematic area very soon and begin working correctly.
If there is no real advance for 20 hours, personally I'd try to stop and try
1) connecting the drive differently, to eliminate possible issues with cables, connections, power source.
If it's an internal drive, I'd connect with external USB adapter/docking station.
If it's an external drive, I'd try to connect on different USB slot, maybe a powered USB hub (as it is very common that USB drives may not receive enough power on a single connection) or try to remove from the enclosure and connect to internal port.
2) try starting the test backwards, to start on the last sector and advance to the first one, to verify if the end of the drive is better - or things are similar. Alternatively you may limit testing to specific blocks, for example only last 50% of the drive (by configuring first block = 5000)
For this, please select Disk menu -> Surface test and (after selecting the drive and the appropriate test method) select Configuration tab.
In this panel, you may enable the "Sequential backward test" and then unselect the default "Sequential test" option.
This way you can verify if the end of the drive is better or not.
3) if there is no change, I'd recommend to try the Disk menu -> Surface test -> Reinitialize disk surface test
It is a destructive one (performs complete overwrite numerous times with initializaion patterns and then clearing) but generally the best way to force the hard disk to stabilize the problems, even problems which are currently not yet detected (if they located on sectors not really used where they could remain hidden for long time).
Hopefully with that, the drive can be better: its health will likely degrade as new problems will be detected - but the important is to make it stable, better to use, reveal and stabilize problems.
Would be nice to see the complete status of the drive, as in such cases, 100% health sounds really weird and interesting.
So please use Report menu -> Send test report to developer option. You may even use multiple times: now and/or after some tests, just to verify if the status changes at all, error-counters increase or not.
(there is very small chance, but found on some older drives that they could not update the error-counters at all, so the S.M.A.R.T. information "stuck". But these were in the 5-10% health range, so already recorded numerous problems).