Bad Sectors or broken File System ?

How about testing using a different cable and/or SATA port?

Hello Contributors !

Got an encouraging update. I tested the disk on another ( my son's ) laptop. And the read surface test showed all green. That means the disk is all good. Just my laptop is not reading it correctly.

I will test with my laptop using another usb port. Will keep posted.

Thank you al for your inputs.

-Gamma

Great news.

Hello Supporters !

After repeated tests over slightly defective and perfectly working usb ports I conclude that the disk is working fine. Here are my learning points while using Harddisk Sentinel :

1. If you suspect a connection problem, do a self test. This test does not involve data transmission from the host computer. Ref : Last para of this post : Drive health plummeted during surface test, now back to 100% - Hard Disk Monitoring

2. If you are performing a surface test ( especially over a defective port ) , make sure you close all other programs. I had a few services running in the background that tried to access the drive being tested. This led to stuck / aborted tests.

The best practice would be to restart the host computer and run the surface test right after booting. A bootable WinPE will be ideal. We have our own Tenforums project to build Win10XPE here : Win10XPE - Build Your Own Rescue Media [2]

Unfortunately Harddisk Sentinel is not yet included, but there are other HDD tools such as Easeus, Acronis, Aomei.

3. chkdsk does not work over a defective connection.

Thank you all.

-Gamma