Current pending sector count error

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billubakra

Conversation Architect
whitestar_999 said:
Then 1MB/s is normal,it is called random 4K read write speeds & these are the speeds that matters for OS operation & the reason why SSDs are much faster than HDDs for OS/running usual tasks.

Typical HDD:
View attachment 17996

Typical ssd:
View attachment 17997
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sling-shot said:
As you had seen errors earlier, and the warranty is short just go for RMA.

Peace of mind.
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Thanks Guys. Last question, before I send it for rma, I will try to dock it tomorrow and use that eraser software mentioned above. Should I select the same settings as mentioned in the ss here-
Current pending sector count error

Also about the external hdd, how can a full erase correct the pending sector count, even if temporarily? It reached to 2 before erasing few nights back.
 
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whitestar_999

Super Moderator
Staff member
billubakra said:
Should I select the same settings as mentioned in the ss here-
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Don't use 10 passes,use 3 passes.

All hdd come with some 'spare sectors' meant for reallocating bad sectors & this can be triggered sometimes by chkdsk/low lever format/full erase so in your case those 2 bad sectors got replaced by 2 'spare sectors' after hdd detected them during full erasure.Pending sector count means this only: pending to replace a bad sector with a spare sector.
 
patkim

patkim

Cyborg Agent
Also about the external hdd, how can a full erase correct the pending sector count, even if temporarily?
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Bad sectors can be soft or hard. Soft bad sectors might be temporary. There are different scenarios here and depending upon the situation bad sectors are treated differently.

When disk sector become bad, it may reflect under Current pending sector count, as what was seen in your first snapshot. This means that the sector is bad and is waiting to be remapped. However firmware has not yet reallocated it. Here since it's not a good sign, disk status becomes Caution. If after a few more attempts the sector is read properly (mostly being a soft issue) then it need not be remapped and is reversible. Most of these propitiatory tools (as well as third party tools like HDD Re-generator) attempt to read again and again from the bad sector to see if it can be reversible. If it works well then pending sector count decreases, reallocated count remains unchanged and if there are no more pending sectors, the value is restored and disk can in fact become from Caution to Good as what is seen in your next snapshot.

On the other hand when the sector is bad and can not be read anymore, firmware reallocates it to the spare area and then the Reallocated Sector count increases and disk status becomes Caution.

Generally reallocated bad sectors are not reversible and disk status does not change from Caution to Good. However in case of soft issues the process may be reversible.

I had a similar issue with my Seagate laptop HDD. It developed 96 pending sectors. I took a snapshot and mailed it to their RMA team. Before however sending the HDD to the service center, I did a low level format and everything was restored perfectly. All 96 pending sectors were recovered. I still decided to RMA it and got a replacement though.
 
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billubakra

Conversation Architect
patkim said:
Bad sectors can be soft or hard. Soft bad sectors might be temporary. There are different scenarios here and depending upon the situation bad sectors are treated differently.

When disk sector become bad, it may reflect under Current pending sector count, as what was seen in your first snapshot. This means that the sector is bad and is waiting to be remapped. However firmware has not yet reallocated it. Here since it's not a good sign, disk status becomes Caution. If after a few more attempts the sector is read properly (mostly being a soft issue) then it need not be remapped and is reversible. Most of these propitiatory tools (as well as third party tools like HDD Re-generator) attempt to read again and again from the bad sector to see if it can be reversible. If it works well then pending sector count decreases, reallocated count remains unchanged and if there are no more pending sectors, the value is restored and disk can in fact become from Caution to Good as what is seen in your next snapshot.

On the other hand when the sector is bad and can not be read anymore, firmware reallocates it to the spare area and then the Reallocated Sector count increases and disk status becomes Caution.

Generally reallocated bad sectors are not reversible and disk status does not change from Caution to Good. However in case of soft issues the process may be reversible.

I had a similar issue with my Seagate laptop HDD. It developed 96 pending sectors. I took a snapshot and mailed it to their RMA team. Before however sending the HDD to the service center, I did a low level format and everything was restored perfectly. All 96 pending sectors were recovered. I still decided to RMA it and got a replacement though.
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Thanks for that detailed post. Your posts are so informative. Did you get a refurbished one?
 
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billubakra

Conversation Architect
An update, my external hdd which was showing as good to go is giving errors like 90% of the times while copying even a 1 gb file. It cannot be used as a second backup drive now :( but still in crystal disk info its health is shown as good. In my free time should I use WD tool to erase it again and try my luck again or use Eraser?

How much time will Eraser take for a 2tb hdd?

@whitestar_999
3 passes of any option? Army, Airforce?
 
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whitestar_999

Super Moderator
Staff member
US DoD 3 passes is enough. For a 2TB hdd when connected to usb 3 port with avg write speeds of ~40MB/s it should take ~12-13 hours for 1 pass.
 
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billubakra

Conversation Architect
Docked and Erasing. Wish me luck. Unfortunately I will have to erase drive by drive as I cannot erase for the external hdd as a whole.
What is this system reserved drive for? Never saw the same in my other drives.
Dock.jpg
 
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whitestar_999

Super Moderator
Staff member
sling-shot said:
May be if you delete the partition structure it will be possible to erase the drive as a whole.
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Partition structure is just like directory of files,if deleted all it results in disappearance of data from OS but data is still there & can be easily recovered by any data/partition recovery software.
 
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whitestar_999

Super Moderator
Staff member
billubakra said:
What is this system reserved drive for? Never saw the same in my other drives.
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This is a system partition created by windows during install.It is hidden during normal OS running & can be seen only in partition management softwares(within OS or outside OS via bootable media) or when you attach hdd as secondary to another system.
 
sling-shot

sling-shot

Wise Old Owl
whitestar_999 said:
Partition structure is just like directory of files,if deleted all it results in disappearance of data from OS but data is still there & can be easily recovered by any data/partition recovery software.
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My point was that he said he is only able to erase partition wise. I suggested that if he had no partitions, the disk as a whole could be visible as the only option making selection easier.

Even otherwise there should have been an option to erase the disk as a whole.
 
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whitestar_999

Super Moderator
Staff member
sling-shot said:
My point was that he said he is only able to erase partition wise. I suggested that if he had no partitions, the disk as a whole could be visible as the only option making selection easier.

Even otherwise there should have been an option to erase the disk as a whole.
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The thing is,this hdd contains OS & to fully erase it he either needs to use a usb dock with laptop or as a secondary hdd in some friend's pc.That is why this dilemma,anyway he went with usb dock method.
 
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billubakra

Conversation Architect
sling-shot said:
I suggest you use this tool to take a backup to a new large drive so that at least your important personal files are saved. This will copy whatever is possible skipping any unrecoverable files behind.

FreeFileSync

After that on those pesky files which could not be copied you can try Unstopable Copier, a utility from Roadkill.net (I have not personally used it with Windows 10 yet) by keeping settings such that it will skip only the error filled sector after 1 try. After you have extracted whatever you can with this setting, you can try multiple effort settings so that it will try the maximum to recover any bad sector.

Roadkil.Net - Roadkil's Unstoppable Copier Program Download
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Tried FFS, it did help in copying few folders. Thanks but there is a little difference in the number of files etc.
FFS.jpg


Can it be ignored? It has zillions of files, no time to manually check every file. Now there are other folders mainly 20+gigs which will stop the process or cause FFS or Unstoppable copier to hang. Copying one file at a time is not possible

+ @whitestar_999
 
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billubakra

Conversation Architect
sling-shot said:
This picture shows success. Why do you say it got stuck?

TeraCopy is good. I use it regularly as a replacement of Windows' copy function.
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Check the completion bar below, the green one stuck from the past 4 hours so I cancelled it and there were like 400 more files it did not skip this one and moved to the next. All settings are default.
 
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