Bad Sectors on HD

sep9001

sep9001

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Kev
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I RMA'ed a hd to Wd and they sent me another one. This was some time in 2011 and I just let the hd in the box unused. I have just installed it and got some smart errors, so I ran a fill hd tune and it has come up with 0.9% bad sectors.

Is there anyway to fix the issue or should I just bin in and buy another one. I do have the photos backup to another drive and don't want to use the drive if in the future it could die on me.

Thanks
 
Thanks Neil, anything in particular I need to start looking at? It was put in a vostro 200.
 
Type the serial numbers in at the warranty section on the WD site. It may still be under warranty.

It wasn't a WD green drive was it? I've had nothing but trouble with some of those.
 
Yes the machine shuts down and works fine. This was a secondary drive I was using to store the photos on with the os being on the first one.
I am not sure if it is the we green one as it says wd RE2.

Thanks
 
As soon as any HDD displays any kind of error it should go in the bin or back for RMA.
 
Thanks, going to get another one.
 
mid_gen said:
As soon as any HDD displays any kind of error it should go in the bin or back for RMA.
Click to expand...

:thinking: What an odd thing to say.
System restarts unexpectedly corrupting a file - HDD error: BIN IT
Dodgy SATA controller corrupting files on HDD or giving HDD errors: BIN IT
Dodgy cable: BIN THE HDD NOW!!!
One sector dodgy, instead of using MHDD or other software to make that sector be ignored so you can continue using the drive - just BIN IT.
:bonk:
 
joesmith said:
:thinking: What an odd thing to say.
System restarts unexpectedly corrupting a file - HDD error: BIN IT
Dodgy SATA controller corrupting files on HDD or giving HDD errors: BIN IT
Dodgy cable: BIN THE HDD NOW!!!
One sector dodgy, instead of using MHDD or other software to make that sector be ignored so you can continue using the drive - just BIN IT.
:bonk:
Click to expand...

to be fair, bad sectors can be a symptom of a failing drive.

better to be safe than sorry.
 
neil_g said:
to be fair, bad sectors can be a symptom of a failing drive.

better to be safe than sorry.
Click to expand...

It's better to be sensible than silly.
You obviously have to put it into context - someone wanting to store very important information isn't going to (well, shouldn't) leave it on a single drive that is showing some symptoms of possible failure, but there are plenty of uses for hard drives that may have one or two bad sectors where you aren't storing hugely important data on it. Someone just using their laptop to browse the web with shouldn't be spending out on a new hard drive because one sector has gone bad, or one file has gone corrupt.

It's like when people say you need to backup EVERYTHING. Why would you back up Google Chrome when you can just download and re-install it?
Then you get people storing their dissertations on a single, clicking, hard drive with no backups :bonk:
 
neil_g said:
try to be proactive not reactive.

as for backing up everything, thats normally called "imaging" and is often quicker.
Click to expand...

I'm perfectly aware of imaging, but that's not what I'm on about. Fair enough if you are just imaging your whole system. I'm talking about people not imaging, just backing EVERYTHING up, even completely useless stuff when copied.

And some things it's silly to be proactive rather than reactive - my example of just using a laptop for web browsing, completely pointless changing the HDD just because of one sector, the HDD may have years left in it so it'd be a complete waste of money.
 
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Depends if it bothers you knowing that your PC is prone to becoming unusable at a moment's notice. Operating systems have a variety of interesting and unusual ways to fall to pieces if/when a critical piece of data ends up on a naff bit of disk.

Once a drive has bad sectors, it is only a matter of time before it gives up completely. HDDs are so cheap these days I would never, ever run with a knowingly defective drive. Not because every piece of data on my drives is irreplacable, but because I value my time too much to have to rebuild the damn thing! Just get a new drive, image it, bin the old one.
 
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