Hard Drive Dying? PLEASE HELP!

idgat said:

Yes to the first option.
As far as the 2nd option, up to you. Personally, I wouldn't be wasting any more time. Troubleshooting is a great thing if you're successful, but in this case ..... This thread has gone on for 6 pages now and you're still no closer to solving the problem. Dump the disc.
As far as the SATA cable, only test is a new one.

Thank you idgat!

I'll try to submit an order for a new SATA cable.

Bree said:

The screenshot shows a raw data value for '(05) Reallocated Sector Count' of 80. That is a strong warning sign of potential failure in the near future. I don't think there's any doubt now that the drive needs replacing ASAP.

Your advice is much appreciated Bree!

Can you please give me an idea of how bad the number "80" is? Is it a number out of 100? So "80" would mean it's 80% likely to fail???

I don't understand what the number "80" means?

NiceAndShy said:

Can you please give me an idea of how bad the number "80" is? Is it a number out of 100? So "80" would mean it's 80% likely to fail???

I don't understand what the number "80" means?

Does it matter ???? You seem bent on procrastinating in getting a new drive. Initially, there were suggestions on troubleshooting options with a possibility for solving your issues. That/Those options are long gone/spent/exhausted ... the overwhelming opinion is = replace your drive, get your system up and running, move on!

idgat said:

Does it matter ???? You seem bent on procrastinating in getting a new drive. Initially, there were suggestions on troubleshooting options with a possibility for solving your issues. That/Those options are long gone/spent/exhausted ... the overwhelming opinion is = replace your drive, get your system up and running, move on!

idgat, I appreciate you for trying to speed me up and get this resolved as I know this is a really important problem I need to fix!

I'm dealing with a lot of problems in my life unrelated to this at the moment so I'm trying to do the best I can.

It may be the anxiety I'm feeling from the other unrelated problems, but I just want to make sure I don't make any mistakes when I setup the new internal HDD.

NiceAndShy said:

Can you please give me an idea of how bad the number "80" is? Is it a number out of 100?

No, the raw value of SMART (05) is a count of the actual number of sectors that have been reallocated. This should be zero for a healthy drive.

This tells you how many sectors have already failed, the higher the number the the higher the risk more are about to fail. I would regard one or two as a sign that the drive needs watching carefully and should be regularly backed up. More than that, particularly if the number starts to increase, is a sign it needs replacing.

Bree said:

No, the raw value of SMART (05) is a count of the actual number of sectors that have been reallocated. This should be zero for a healthy drive.
This tells you how many sectors have already failed, the higher the number the the higher the risk more are about to fail. I would regard one or two as a sign that the drive needs watching carefully and should be regularly backed up. More than that, particularly if the number starts to increase, is a sign it needs replacing.

Wow, thanks.

Which number are you looking at from the screenshot I posted in the (Reallocated 05) column? The "Threshold" column that displays "10" or the "Data" column that displays "80"?

Screenshot link to make it easier: https://i.ibb.co/F7kqWR1/Image-HDTune-Health1.jpg

NiceAndShy said:

Which number are you looking at from the screenshot I posted in the (Reallocated 05) column? The "Threshold" column that displays "10" or the "Data" column that displays "80"?

The Data column in your screen shot, or as CrystalDiskInfo calls it, the Raw Values column. This is the actual count of how many sectors have been reallocated. A healthy drive should show zero, as mine does here:

Bree said:

The Data column in your screen shot, or as CrystalDiskInfo calls it, the Raw Values column. This is the actual count of how many sectors have been reallocated. A healthy drive should show zero, as mine does here:

Bree, your reply is much appreciated!

Since mine says "10": How bad is this number? Does it mean the HDD can keep working without failing for a few months or is it impossible to tell?

P.S:
Sorry if I'm an annoyance to the people that have been helping me, but this has been giving so much anxiety because I don't want to make a mistake and lose all of my data.

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Berton said:

A "rule of thumb" I've practiced since getting into the business some 25 years ago is to run disk checking 3 or 4 or 6 times on a suspect drive and if the number of bad sectors grows each time, even by 1 or a few more, simply replace the HDD/Hard Disk Drive as it is failing.

The SSD devices are different and I have only 4 in Notebooks now, 2 Windows 10 Pro and 2 Linux Mint 19.3,

If shopping for a new drive check the MTBF/Mean Time Between/Before Failure, higher number usually better. There's not as many brands as was "back then", a couple I used to use but not heard much of now are Maxtor and Connor, probably bought up by another.

Thank you, but I was told by other members here that I should avoid running "health scans" on this internal Seagate 2TB HDD by apps like HD Tune Scan's "Error Scan", Seagates "SeaTools" and CHKDSK.

I'm thinking of running CHKDSK as this is one of the few scans I haven't tried running yet.

I'm still in the middle of copying my data off to the USB HDD so I'm very worried about damaging this internal Seagate 2TB HDD...

Could it hurt if I did a reboot?

NiceAndShy said:

Since mine says "10": How bad is this number? Does it mean the HDD can keep working without failing for a few months or is it impossible to tell?

Actually, the image link you gave in post #57 showed the data for the number of reallocated sectors to be "80" . And yes, it is impossible to say how long it may last.

If you check the SMART data again and find that the raw data value has increased, then that would be a strong indication that it is deteriorating fast and should be replaces ASAP. I have one HDD that has had a single reallocated sector for more than a year without a problem, and another HDD that started with a raw value of about 100, and steadily increased as it was used. That one had just days left before it became unusable.