Failed sectors at end of laptop drive

[mattbrad2]

Re: Failed sectors at end of laptop drive

MHDD doesn't work with SATA drives in AHCI mode. I use Victoria, does pretty much the same thing.

HDD Regenerator actually fixes the sectors but if the drive really is damaged they come back. With the 400 or so sectors it did on my laptop drive till i stopped it, the folder i was unable to access came back. I copied the stuff in it on a flash drive, and restarted it. I'm curious on how many it'll find bad till the end.

Just FYI, no program actually "fixes" the bad sectors. They just remap them to one of the reserved sections of the drive. Regenerator is probably doing this same thing but like Victoria and MHDD, you probably have to explicitly tell it to do this before scanning the drive.

I used to use Victoria exclusively but the latest MHDD has been able to read most AHCI devices without problem, especially Intel controllers.

[mattbrad2]

Re: Failed sectors at end of laptop drive

hm I don't remember where I heard that. but the air inside it is not the normal 'air' we breathe. most breather holes appearently have a carbon filter

This is funny stuff. I purchased a clean bench a few years ago because you can only get lucky so many times opening those drives up. I too, used to do it a lot but you quickly realize these drives fail start to fail prematurely. That breathing hole has a micron filter that keeps dust size particles out. Heck, most Western Digitals can't be opened and reassembled without special tools to re-align the lid (the lid screw is also the head stack alignment screw).

[Th3_uN1Qu3]

Re: Failed sectors at end of laptop drive

I want to clarify, the 250GB laptop drive is a Hitachi not a WD. The drive in my other laptop is WD and that one is holding fine.

No problems with this one since then either.

[kc8adu]

Re: Failed sectors at end of laptop drive

you missed board donor for a data recovery.

A drive with that many errors should only be used for the following:

Doorstop
Paperweight
Target Practice

[kc8adu]

Re: Failed sectors at end of laptop drive

i dont get the logic of trying to use such a cheap device when it is dieing and may cause loss of important data or a os reload.i guess if you have more time than money its ok.
i do data recovery and it is very time consuming and expensive.i sure wont allow important data to reside on a sick drive even with a good backup.it sucks to have to work on my own stuff.cant bill myself!new drives are cheap!

[Th3_uN1Qu3]

Re: Failed sectors at end of laptop drive

i guess if you have more time than money its ok.

Well it certainly didn't need anymore of my time since. And if i get to buying HDDs... well, i have to buy at least three of them. My main machine needs some bigger drives. And on that i'll certainly have to do an OS reinstall... there goes both my money AND time.

[Th3_uN1Qu3]

Re: Failed sectors at end of laptop drive

Here we go again. The whole area at the end of the drive has gone bad now... Time for a new drive. When i'll get around to buying one that is.

[momaka]

Re: Failed sectors at end of laptop drive

Well, not too bad, you got a full month of service using it before it failed. Of course it could still be better - like not fail in the first place .

Speaking of failed HDDs, there's one computer at work that has around 1000 bad sectors. It's the only computer from 35 or so desktops of the same type that has a Hitachi drive (160 GB, I think). All the others have Seagate or WD. No bad sectors for any of the WDs, but there are 2 Seagates that are just starting to develop them (one as ~40 and the other ~100). Told my boss about it.
Also got a failed 80 GB Seagate to keep from another computer.

[Th3_uN1Qu3]

Re: Failed sectors at end of laptop drive

~2000 bad sectors corrected by the HDD regenerator... this is already too much.

[momaka]

Re: Failed sectors at end of laptop drive

Speaking of failed HDDs, there's one computer at work that has around 1000 bad sectors. It's the only computer from 35 or so desktops of the same type that has a Hitachi drive (160 GB, I think).

My memory has failed me. Here are parts of the SMART log:

Hitachi HDS721616PLA380
Description -------------------- Raw Value --- Status
----------------------------------------------------
Raw Read Error Rate ----------- 851968 ------ OK
Spin Up Time ----------------- 10813605ms -- OK
Start/Stop Count -------------- 1059 -------- OK
Reallocated Sector Count ------ 1376278 ----- OK
Power On Time ---------------- 19584 ------ OK
Spin Retry Count ----------------- 0 --------- OK
Power Cycle Count -------------- 1058 ------ OK
Load/Unload Cycle Count -------- 1485 ------ OK
Temperature -------------------- 24 C ------ OK
Reallocation Event Count -------- 22 -------- OK
Current Pending Sector Count ----- 1 -------- OK

The number of Reallocated Sectors seems very unreal to me. Is it possible that the hard drive is not properly reporting its SMART attributes? Because with that many sectors, I'd imagine the hard drive should be stone-dead, but it's not. If anything, it seems to work just fine.
----
I was also using my junker laptop the other day to clean up a flash drive. That laptop has an old 10 or 12 GB Hitachi Travelstar. Seems to be working fine, although it does click a lot when not used. In fact, SMART reports that the Load/Unload Cycle Count attribute has failed. Apart from that, guess how hot the hard drive was running?
40C? 45C? 50?...
Nope, the hard drive was running at 59C. At first I though no way. But a minute after I shut down the laptop, I took out the hard drive and placed it in my hand - it really was that hot! Almost at the point of burning actually. And then someone might wonder why these older Hitachis failed so much.
Well, when you have many cycles between room temperature and 59C, something's bound to fail in that drive.

[Th3_uN1Qu3]

Re: Failed sectors at end of laptop drive

What you have there is the raw value which may contain a number of things apart from the real count of reallocated sectors. Use a piece of software that can interpret that value.

As for temperature, welcome to laptop land. Most laptop HDDs see that kind of temps. But it's possible on desktop computers too... A few years back i ran a 120GB Western Digital in an old PC that had a HDD cover to prevent it from making noise. Basically it closed up the drive in a metal box with sponge on the sides. Guess how hot it ran in the summer? 63C. No problems at all. It ran for an year like that then i gave it away as a gift.

[momaka]

Re: Failed sectors at end of laptop drive

What you have there is the raw value which may contain a number of things apart from the real count of reallocated sectors. Use a piece of software that can interpret that value.

I was using Disk Checkup v1.1 which can be ran off of a flash drive. On all computers I've tested so far, the "Raw Value" of Disk Checkup is exactly the same as "Data" for HD Tune.
When I go to work again next Friday, I'll run HD Tune and post the results again.

As for temperature, welcome to laptop land. Most laptop HDDs see that kind of temps. But it's possible on desktop computers too... A few years back i ran a 120GB Western Digital in an old PC that had a HDD cover to prevent it from making noise. Basically it closed up the drive in a metal box with sponge on the sides. Guess how hot it ran in the summer? 63C. No problems at all. It ran for an year like that then i gave it away as a gift.

63C!
I hope you didn't power cycle that hard drive too many times. Such temperature changes are bound to ruin the magnetic "pixie dust" coating on the platters eventually.
40C is already at the top of my comfort level. Most of my hard drives are ran between 30C and 40C, with the IBM Deskstars running 40C to 45C in the summer when it's 27C in the house.