Conflicting reports external disk

Experiences with hard disks, SSDs, USB devices, hard disk controllers, motherboards and so.
HARD_DRIVEN
Posts: 17
Joined: 2015.12.19. 21:13

Conflicting reports external disk

Post by HARD_DRIVEN »

hd2go.jpg
hd2go.jpg (80.45 KiB) Viewed 23211 times
hd2go.jpg
hd2go.jpg (80.45 KiB) Viewed 23211 times
This is the report of an external disk.This disk https://www.medion.com/gb/service/_ligh ... p?did=6092

i think it turns off if the pc is idle. Could that explain it



There are 214 bad sectors on the disk surface. The contents of these sectors were moved to the spare area.
Problems occurred during the spin up of the disk 24 times. This can be caused by the disk itself or huge power load (weak power supply).
At this point, warranty replacement of the disk is not yet possible, only if the health drops further.
It is recommended to examine the log of the disk regularly. All new problems found will be logged there.

It is recommended to backup immediately to prevent data loss.

says disk is dead in 10 days

I ran windows check disk and it says there are no problems at all with the disk
Attachments
hd2go2.jpg
hd2go2.jpg (108.73 KiB) Viewed 23211 times
User avatar
hdsentinel
Site Admin
Posts: 3010
Joined: 2008.07.27. 17:00
Location: Hungary
Contact:

Re: Conflicting reports external disk

Post by hdsentinel »

Thanks for your message and excuse me for the confusion. Yes, I must say it can happen - and not rare.

I can confirm that if chkdsk finds problems, it does not really mean that the hard disk is about to fail - and vice versa: if chkdsk finds no problems, it does not mean that the hard disk is perfect.

First of all, chkdsk never finds spin up problems and other issues which are not directly related to the stored data.
Spin up problems are hard to find without proper monitoring: when the drive is spinning, there are absolutely no issues, no slowness, no weird noises, no bad sectors. Just it's possible that the hard disk may spin up harder and harder - and one day it can't spin up (can't start) at all.

Even if this may sounds surprising, chkdsk does not check/verify/repair the hard disk itself, but verifies (and repairs) the logical drive, the partition (logical drive) only.

The problems chkdsk finds (and fixes) are in most cases different than the actual hard disk problems: Windows may find, report and "fix" problems on a perfect hard disk - and may not find anything on an almost failing hard disk.

For example a very frequent cause of chkdsk to find (and "fix") problems if a sudden power failure / power loss occur. This can frequently lead to damaged partition (file system) and cause orphaned files, file000 entries and so - and this can happen even on a perfect hard disk.

Many cases, chkdsk may report problems also when the operating environment is not stable. Power and data cables, connections, drivers are relatively frequent cause of such problems (and even "bad sectors" reported by chkdsk - which are not really bad sectors and may be reported incorrectly even on perfect hard disks).

If you are interested in more details, please check
http://www.hdsentinel.com/hard_disk_cas ... ectors.php
as it shows a relatively common situation when chkdsk detects, reports and "fixes" bad sectors, but they are not actually fixed and they can cause further problems - while Hard Disk Sentinel can really fix the problems - and then chkdsk will no longer reports "bad sectors" of course.


In the current situation chkdsk finds no problems. But this is not surprising, this is exactly what we expect from it.

The "bad sectors" reported by Hard Disk Sentinel in the text description are no longer used by the hard disk: they are already reallocated.

It means that the hard disk moved the contents of these sectors to the spare area and now (instead of the original sector) the spare area is used for all reads and writes targeting those bad sectors.

Generally, these sectors can no longer cause problems, as this way you can be sure that the original (bad) area can not contain important data and can't risk data loss. By this reallocation, the hard disk can still usable - even if it's not perfect. So chkdsk will never find / report these bad sectors.
And ideally, if all such sectors found and repaired this way, no other disk testing methods (for example the Disk menu -> Surface test functions in Hard Disk Sentinel) will find problems with the hard disk.

This is why manufacturers (really shame but work this way) "allow" some bad sectors and may not offer warrantly replacement until the error-level threshold reached.

However, if the health is lower and larger amount of bad sectors reported, it may be an indication that other problems, data corruption, data loss may happen in the future. This is especially true if the amount of bad sectors is high (so the health % value is low) and especially if there are other problems with the hard disk drive (for example spin up problems).
In such situations, there is high risk that the hard disk will fail competely before reaching the error-level threshold.

So by using the surface tests in Hard Disk Sentinel, you can verify if the currently used data area is error-free, there are no further errors reported (no weak, damaged sectors, no further problems).

As these tests monitor the complete operating environment (self-monitoring data, temperature, increasing error count and so), verifies retry count, damaged and sectors slower than should, they are more sensitive to problems than other methods, especially chkdsk - which would ignore these.

For more information about these "bad sectors", please click on the "?" next to the text description (the text area describing the issues) and check
http://www.hdsentinel.com/faq.php#health

For more information about the tests should be used to perform complete verification of the hard disk, to reveal and fix possible problems, please check:
http://www.hdsentinel.com/faq.php#tests

And if you run the tests and confirm that now there are no new problems, you can clear the error-counter and restore the health of the hard disk as described on this page:
http://www.hdsentinel.com/faq_repair_ha ... _drive.php
so then Hard Disk Sentinel will report only any future problems (if there will be).

But on any (even minor) new issue, increased error count and decreased health value, I'd perform a complete backup to an other, possibly better hard disk drive.
HARD_DRIVEN
Posts: 17
Joined: 2015.12.19. 21:13

Re: Conflicting reports external disk

Post by HARD_DRIVEN »

Thanks for your message and excuse me for the confusion. Yes, I must say it can happen - and not rare.
I am not sure whta can happen? You mean the turn off if the pc is idle may look like spin up problems?


Here are the other tests I did. I did all the tests that do not write over the disk. Do you think the disk is OK?

Acronis http://www.acronis.com/en-us/personal/h ... ealth/said they were corruptions but did not give much detail.

Active Hard Disk Monitor http://disk-monitor.com/ said it was OK no problems

Thanks
Attachments
HARD_DRIVE.jpg
HARD_DRIVE.jpg (416.32 KiB) Viewed 23200 times
User avatar
hdsentinel
Site Admin
Posts: 3010
Joined: 2008.07.27. 17:00
Location: Hungary
Contact:

Re: Conflicting reports external disk

Post by hdsentinel »

> I am not sure whta can happen? You mean the turn off if the pc is idle may look like spin up problems?

No. I mean that it can happen that chkdsk finds no problems - while the hard disk has problems.
Chkdsk designed to examine the logical drive only, so it is completely "normal" that it does not find or never report spin up problems or issues not directly related to the data area.

The spin up problems are not really related to the "PC idle" and the automatic power off feature.
Spin up problems may indicate that the power supply is weak and can't provide enough power for proper operation. But they may indicate problem with the hard disk itself and as a result, it is possible that one day it can't spin up at all.


> Here are the other tests I did. I did all the tests that do not write over the disk. Do you think the disk is OK?

Without the write test, I can't say for sure.
Personally I'd surely do the Reinitailise Disk Surface test too - or if you can't backup the data - the Disk menu -> Surface test -> Read+write+read test (refresh data area).
And if this test (or the Reinitialise disk surface test, so generally a write-type test) would show no problems, then yes, we can say that now the hard disk is stable and usable. We can't say it's perfect but if the error counters do not change (which means that all bad sectors found and reallocated, so the hard disk is now working correctly when it uses the spare area instead of the old bad sectors) then you can even clear the error counters and restore the hard disk health in Hard Disk Sentinel. Then the health will improve and Hard Disk Sentinel will only display possible new problems, for example new bad sectors and/or new spin up problems (if there will be) or other kind of problems.

For more details about how to restore the hard disk health, please check this page from the Support -> Frequently Asked Questions:
http://www.hdsentinel.com/faq_repair_ha ... _drive.php

and you may find more information about bad sectors:
http://www.hdsentinel.com/faq.php#health
(and by clicking on the "?" next to the text description)

Also about spin up problems, I'd recommend to check Support -> Knowledge base -> Hard disk cases -> Spin retry errors:
http://www.hdsentinel.com/hard_disk_case_spin_retry.php


> Acronis http://www.acronis.com/en-us/personal/h ... ealth/said they were corruptions but did not give much detail.
> Active Hard Disk Monitor http://disk-monitor.com/ said it was OK no problems

These are nice tools, but I can't really say anything about them or the results they provide.
Maybe this can help: http://www.hdsentinel.com/faq.php#difference
HARD_DRIVEN
Posts: 17
Joined: 2015.12.19. 21:13

Re: Conflicting reports external disk

Post by HARD_DRIVEN »

Here is the result of the
Disk menu -> Surface test -> Read+write+read test refresh data area test

It says no new reallocated sectors. Does that mean there may be old reallocated sectors? It says WRITE in orange as it was flashing read/writes when i took screenshot
Attachments
readwriteread.jpg
readwriteread.jpg (216.59 KiB) Viewed 23176 times
User avatar
hdsentinel
Site Admin
Posts: 3010
Joined: 2008.07.27. 17:00
Location: Hungary
Contact:

Re: Conflicting reports external disk

Post by hdsentinel »

> It says no new reallocated sectors. Does that mean there may be old reallocated sectors?

Yes, this is exactly the situation.

If the test completed without reporting problems, without reporting NEW reallocated sectors (as you see), then the hard disk already found, reallocated all possible bad sectors. Those are no longer used, the spare area is used instead of the original sectors for all read/write operations (including the test of course).
Ideally, if there will be no new problems, we can assume that the hard disk is now usable: so we can even clear the error counter to
- clear the errors from the text description
- restore the hard disk health (even to 100%)
- be notified about only possible new problems. Because the hard disk drive seems stable but not perfect, constant monitoring and immediate reaction for possible new problems is highly recommended.

This is described exactly in the Support -> Frequently Asked Questions -> How to repair hard disk drive? How to eliminate displayed hard disk problems? page ( http://www.hdsentinel.com/faq_repair_ha ... _drive.php )

> It says WRITE in orange as it was flashing read/writes when i took screenshot

Yes of course. During the test, it shows the test type (WRITE) in this case, indicating that write operations performed, so an accidental removal, power loss / reset may cause data corruption.
And when the test completes, that field flashes to increase attention that the test is completed. Useful if the test window is moved to a secondary display adapter.
HARD_DRIVEN
Posts: 17
Joined: 2015.12.19. 21:13

Re: Conflicting reports external disk

Post by HARD_DRIVEN »

Here is a screenshot of the write test that wipes the disk. i had to wait until I had copied the content to another disk. I am formatting the disk now, is that OK? Should i have cleared the error-counter first or does it matter. Thanks for your time
Attachments
writetest.jpg
writetest.jpg (252.76 KiB) Viewed 23165 times
HARD_DRIVEN
Posts: 17
Joined: 2015.12.19. 21:13

Re: Conflicting reports external disk

Post by HARD_DRIVEN »

hd_values.jpg
hd_values.jpg (321.9 KiB) Viewed 23164 times
Here is the result of the writes test which wiped the disk. I formatted it and it took about 10 hours for 500GB disk and said could not format all or some such expression. Would that be the bad sectors. Now it is blank and i want to correct the values befire using it again

What do I change the values to? Should reallocated sectors be minus 215. I made some changes but only got to 15% good. The values are different to your example. Your smart data has 00000000008 which needs to be corrected to -8. Mine had a D at the end i think. I changed the value back to 0 but have no screenshot of the original data readings

Sorry if i uploaded this already. Thanks
HARD_DRIVEN
Posts: 17
Joined: 2015.12.19. 21:13

Re: Conflicting reports external disk

Post by HARD_DRIVEN »

hd_repaired.jpg
hd_repaired.jpg (132.98 KiB) Viewed 23163 times
Here is an image after the repair. Thanks
User avatar
hdsentinel
Site Admin
Posts: 3010
Joined: 2008.07.27. 17:00
Location: Hungary
Contact:

Re: Conflicting reports external disk

Post by hdsentinel »

> What do I change the values to? Should reallocated sectors be minus 215.

Yes: if previously 215 problems were reported in the text description, then you'll need to specify -215 in the Offset column.

> I made some changes but only got to 15% good.

Yes, as there were other problems too and they all need to be corrected by the offsets.

> The values are different to your example. Your smart data has 00000000008 which needs
> to be corrected to -8. Mine had a D at the end i think. I changed the value back to 0 but have no screenshot of the original data readings

By default, Hard Disk Sentinel displays the "Data" field in hexadecimal format (there is good reason for this: as the different parts of the data field may contain different kind of information an this way these parts of the numbers can be quickly checked).
But if you right click on the S.M.A.R.T. table and select "Decimal data fields" then the proper decimal values displayed.
As I see on the screenshot, you already found this option as the numbers are displayed in decimal format.
HARD_DRIVEN
Posts: 17
Joined: 2015.12.19. 21:13

Re: Conflicting reports external disk

Post by HARD_DRIVEN »

Got it back to 100% performance and 99% health. Thanks

The slider on the left hand side of the GUI is very slow and goes from all the way up to all the way down? Is there any way not to show generic flash drives?
User avatar
hdsentinel
Site Admin
Posts: 3010
Joined: 2008.07.27. 17:00
Location: Hungary
Contact:

Re: Conflicting reports external disk

Post by hdsentinel »

Thanks, glad to hear things are better now.

I'm not really sure if I understand the issue with the slider correctly....
I do not see the Hard Disk Sentinel version you have, but from some images I suspect you may use an older version.
Please use the automatic update from File menu to get the latest version as there were some fixes / changes related to "slider", the hard disk selector.

Yes of course, just right click on the upper left area, where the devices (hard disks, flash devices and so) are listed and then you can un-check any device to hide from the list.
This is also not available in very old versions, so you may need to update for this.

If you still experience problems with the latest version, please use Report menu -> Send test report to developer option and maybe send some images to info @ hdsentinel . com to illustrate as then it is possible to check.
HARD_DRIVEN
Posts: 17
Joined: 2015.12.19. 21:13

Re: Conflicting reports external disk

Post by HARD_DRIVEN »

This disk is now overheating very quicky. It is an external e sata 500GB and sits on top of the case on the outside. In two hours it has gone from 18 degrees to 42 degrees and hardly been used. So I have to unplug it now. Should I be looking to replace it. it is back up for photos and movies so I do not have to have it connected all the time but I am worried it may fail
User avatar
hdsentinel
Site Admin
Posts: 3010
Joined: 2008.07.27. 17:00
Location: Hungary
Contact:

Re: Conflicting reports external disk

Post by hdsentinel »

42 degrees is not really a big problem.
Most external enclosures due to smaller space, limited airflow (or no airflow at all...) can operate in higher temperature ranges.
As long as it remains under 50 Celsius even during high load (long, intensive copy operation, disk testing, anti-virus scan, etc.) there should be fine.
User avatar
Muad'Dib
Posts: 35
Joined: 2011.12.19. 17:25

Re: Conflicting reports external disk

Post by Muad'Dib »

hdsentinel wrote:42 degrees is really a big problem.
Don't you mean "42 degrees is not really a big problem." (at least it seems that's what your next sentences say)?
User avatar
hdsentinel
Site Admin
Posts: 3010
Joined: 2008.07.27. 17:00
Location: Hungary
Contact:

Re: Conflicting reports external disk

Post by hdsentinel »

Muad'Dib wrote:Don't you mean "42 degrees is not really a big problem." (at least it seems that's what your next sentences say)?
Yes, sorry, exactly as you wrote, I wanted to mean is NOT a really big problem.

To prevent confusion (while keeping this post for reference) I edit the original post.

Thanks for your attention and excuse me for the troubles, sorry!!
Post Reply