Bad Sectors or broken File System ?

GammaP · 31 Jan 2023

Hello Friends !

I would like to share my experience with reportedly bad sectors on my Seagate harddisk. I was making a routine backup of my external harddisk ( E: drive used space 683 GB of 931 GB capacity ) to another external disk ( Q: drive ). My backup software Aomei Backupper complained a read error and aborted. So I ran a chkdsk E: /f /r /x command. The command began reporting a series of errors each one saying not enough free space to replace the bad sectors.

The E: drive then stopped spinning and chkdsk aborted. So I ran a surface test using Aomei Partition Assistant. That too stuck at about 20 % progress and began churning out repeated messages of same error. It never aborted though. After an hour or so I terminated the surface test.

I googled the error messages from chkdsk and found a disk health software called Victoria : Just a moment...

This one also reported bad sectors, but in addition it stated the affected files in the bad sectors. I immediately checked some of the files. They looked quite well actually. Some of them were mp4 media files and they played normally. The png files could be viewed in photo viewer without any problem.

This prompted me to conclude that the file system might be partly broken. Anyways, it was time to take a manual backup. So I used a command line utility robocopy in a batch mode and took a brute copy of E: drive to a fresh new folder Q:\E. I ran the program in a restartable mode so that even if it gets stuck, I could just abort it and rerun the same command. The program will not overwrite existing files.

The robocopy did get stuck and crawled very slowly at times. I aborted it and checked the file in question, only to find that it is copied successfully ! Then I reran the program. I did this for some 30+ times. Finally I retired to bed leaving it working overnight. When I checked next morning, it had finished successfully producing 130 MBs of log file. ( Imagine that big text file! ) The interesting point is it never aborted on its own.

Now the data was safely tucked away, so the E: drive was open to experiments. Using diskpart I cleaned the whole disk, created a big partition ( 931 GB ) and formatted it with ntfs and default block size ( 4096 ). I deliberately omitted the quick option. I thought the omission would supposedly catch the disk corruption, if any. The formatting took 2.5 hrs, but went through cleanly.

I copied the data from Q:\E folder to E: drive using robocopy again. This time the operation went through without any glitch. It took about 2.5 hrs.

I then ran chkdsk E: /f /r /x. It got stuck at times, but eventually finished with no bad sectors. I ran the Aomei Partition Assistant's Surface Test and that too did not report any bad sectors.

My questions are :

1. Is my Seagate E: drive still reliable ? I think yes. But why did the surface test fail in the first place ? Should it not continue with bad sectors reported ? Or was the file system partly broken which led to the failed surface test ?

2. Is there a reliable disk checker ( preferably open source ) ? This one should take a stock of all sectors including bad ones and spare good ones.

3. What exactly is a 'Surface Test' ? Is it low level enough to communicate with the disk controller ? Or it just relies on the OS to find out the surface status ?

4. Could it be the cable ? But it worked fine and is working fine now as well.

Here are the relevant details :



------------------------------

 E: drive : ST1000LM024 HN-M101MBB 1000.2 GB

 Disk attribute : GPT

 Partition size : 931 GB

 Machine : Dell Latitude E7270

 OS : Win 10 Enterprise 22H2 19045.2546

 Cable : USB 2 type A to USB 2 type A 

 Casing : 2.5 inch SATA external case USB 3.0

------------------------------

Here is Crystal Disk Info Report :

 

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CrystalDiskInfo 8.11.1 (C) 2008-2021 hiyohiyo

                                Crystal Dew World: https://crystalmark.info/

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    OS : Windows 10 Enterprise [10.0 Build 19045] (x64)

  Date : 2023/01/31 9:25:15



-- Controller Map ----------------------------------------------------------

 + Intel(R) 6th Generation Core Processor Family Platform I/O SATA AHCI Controller [ATA]

   - SK hynix SC311 SATA 256GB

 - Microsoft Storage Spaces Controller [SCSI]

 + USB Attached SCSI (UAS) Mass Storage Device [SCSI]

   - Generic Externa   SCSI Disk Device

 + Microsoft VHD Loopback Controller [SCSI]

   - Microsoft Virtual Disk

 - OSFDisk Virtual Adapter [SCSI]



-- Disk List ---------------------------------------------------------------

 (02) ST1000LM024 HN-M101MBB : 1000.2 GB [4/3/0, sa1]

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

 (02) ST1000LM024 HN-M101MBB

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           Model : ST1000LM024 HN-M101MBB

        Firmware : 2BA30001

   Serial Number : S31LJ9BF912034

       Disk Size : 1000.2 GB (8.4/137.4/1000.2/1000.2)

     Buffer Size : 16384 KB

     Queue Depth : 32

    # of Sectors : 1953525168

   Rotation Rate : 5400 RPM

       Interface : UASP (Serial ATA)

   Major Version : ACS-2

   Minor Version : ATA8-ACS version 6

   Transfer Mode : SATA/600 | SATA/600

  Power On Hours : 44491 hours

  Power On Count : 3165 count

     Temperature : 14 C (57 F)

   Health Status : Good

        Features : S.M.A.R.T., APM, NCQ

       APM Level : 0080h [OFF]

       AAM Level : ----

    Drive Letter : E:



-- S.M.A.R.T. --------------------------------------------------------------

ID Cur Wor Thr RawValues(6) Attribute Name

01 100 100 _51 000000000018 Read Error Rate

02 252 252 __0 000000000000 Throughput Performance

03 _92 _86 _25 000000000A1D Spin-Up Time

04 _90 _90 __0 0000000027F9 Start/Stop Count

05 252 252 _10 000000000000 Reallocated Sectors Count

07 252 252 _51 000000000000 Seek Error Rate

08 252 252 _15 000000000000 Seek Time Performance

09 100 100 __0 00000000ADCB Power-On Hours

0A 252 252 _51 000000000000 Spin Retry Count

0B _99 _99 __0 0000000007E3 Recalibration Retries

0C _97 _97 __0 000000000C5D Power Cycle Count

B5 _98 _98 __0 0000031DDCD8 Vendor Specific

B7 252 252 _10 000000000000 Vendor Specific

B8 252 252 _48 000000000000 End-to-End Error

BA 252 252 __0 000000000000 Vendor Specific

BB 252 252 __0 000000000000 Reported Uncorrectable Errors

BC 252 252 __0 000000000000 Command Timeout

BE _80 _50 _40 00320009000E Airflow Temperature

BF 100 100 __0 0000000000A6 G-Sense Error Rate

C0 100 100 __0 000000000093 Power-off Retract Count

C1 __1 __1 __0 00000022E4A9 Load/Unload Cycle Count

C2 _64 _50 __0 00320009000E Temperature

C3 100 100 __0 000000000000 Hardware ECC recovered

C4 252 252 __0 000000000000 Reallocation Event Count

C5 252 252 __0 000000000000 Current Pending Sector Count

C6 252 252 __0 000000000000 Uncorrectable Sector Count

C7 200 200 __0 000000000000 UltraDMA CRC Error Count

C8 100 100 __0 00000000AE1E Write Error Rate



-- IDENTIFY_DEVICE ---------------------------------------------------------

        0    1    2    3    4    5    6    7    8    9

000: 0040 3FFF C837 0010 0000 0000 003F 0000 0000 0000  .@?..7.......?......

010: 5333 314C 4A39 4246 3931 3230 3334 2020 2020 2020  S31LJ9BF912034      

020: 0000 8000 0004 3242 4133 3030 3031 5354 3130 3030  ......2BA30001ST1000

030: 4C4D 3032 3420 484E 2D4D 3130 314D 4242 2020 2020  LM024 HN-M101MBB    

040: 2020 2020 2020 2020 2020 2020 2020 8010 4000 2F00                ..@./.

050: 4000 0200 0200 0007 3FFF 0010 003F FC10 00FB 0000  @.......?....?......

060: FFFF 0FFF 0000 0407 0003 0078 0078 0078 0078 0000  ...........x.x.x.x..

070: 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 001F 0D0E 0006 004C 0040  .................L.@

080: 03FF 0028 706B 7C69 6123 7069 BC41 6123 007F 0063  ...(pk|ia#pi.Aa#...c

090: 0063 0080 FFFE 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000  .c..................

100: 6DB0 7470 0000 0000 0000 0000 6003 0000 5000 4CF2  m.tp........`...P.L.

110: 0E1D 3BEE 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 401C  ..;...............@.

120: 401C 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0021 0000  @................!..

130: 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000  ....................

140: 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000  ....................

150: 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000  ....................

160: 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0003 0000  ....................

170: 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000  ....................

180: 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000  ....................

190: 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000  ....................

200: 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 003D 0000 0000 4000  .............=....@.

210: 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 1518 0000 0000  ....................

220: 0000 0000 107F 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000  ....................

230: 0000 0000 0000 0000 0001 0400 0000 0000 0000 0000  ....................

240: 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000  ....................

250: 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 69A5                      ..........i.



-- SMART_READ_DATA ---------------------------------------------------------

     +0 +1 +2 +3 +4 +5 +6 +7 +8 +9 +A +B +C +D +E +F

000: 10 00 01 2F 00 64 64 18 00 00 00 00 00 00 02 27  .../.dd........'

010: 00 FC FC 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 03 23 00 5C 56 1D  ...........#.\V.

020: 0A 00 00 00 00 00 04 32 00 5A 5A F9 27 00 00 00  .......2.ZZ.'...

030: 00 00 05 33 00 FC FC 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 07 2F  ...3.........../

040: 00 FC FC 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 08 25 00 FC FC 00  ...........%....

050: 00 00 00 00 00 00 09 32 00 64 64 CB AD 00 00 00  .......2.dd.....

060: 00 00 0A 33 00 FC FC 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 0B 32  ...3...........2

070: 00 63 63 E3 07 00 00 00 00 00 0C 32 00 61 61 5D  .cc........2.aa]

080: 0C 00 00 00 00 00 B5 22 00 62 62 D8 DC 1D 03 00  .......".bb.....

090: 00 00 B7 32 00 FC FC 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 B8 33  ...2...........3

0A0: 00 FC FC 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 BA 32 00 FC FC 00  ...........2....

0B0: 00 00 00 00 00 00 BB 32 00 FC FC 00 00 00 00 00  .......2........

0C0: 00 00 BC 32 00 FC FC 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 BE 02  ...2............

0D0: 00 50 32 0E 00 09 00 32 00 00 BF 22 00 64 64 A6  .P2....2...".dd.

0E0: 00 00 00 00 00 00 C0 22 00 64 64 93 00 00 00 00  .......".dd.....

0F0: 00 00 C1 32 00 01 01 A9 E4 22 00 00 00 00 C2 02  ...2....."......

100: 00 40 32 0E 00 09 00 32 00 00 C3 3A 00 64 64 00  .@2....2...:.dd.

110: 00 00 00 00 00 00 C4 32 00 FC FC 00 00 00 00 00  .......2........

120: 00 00 C5 32 00 FC FC 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 C6 30  ...2...........0

130: 00 FC FC 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 C7 36 00 C8 C8 00  ...........6....

140: 00 00 00 00 00 00 C8 2A 00 64 64 1E AE 00 00 00  .......*.dd.....

150: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  ................

160: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 84 30 00 51  .............0.Q

170: 03 00 01 00 02 CF 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  ................

180: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  ................

190: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  ................

1A0: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  ................

1B0: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  ................

1C0: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  ................

1D0: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  ................

1E0: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  ................

1F0: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 94  ................



-- SMART_READ_THRESHOLD ----------------------------------------------------

     +0 +1 +2 +3 +4 +5 +6 +7 +8 +9 +A +B +C +D +E +F

000: 10 00 01 33 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 02 00  ...3............

010: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 03 19 00 00 00 00  ................

020: 00 00 00 00 00 00 04 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  ................

030: 00 00 05 0A 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 07 33  ...............3

040: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 08 0F 00 00 00 00  ................

050: 00 00 00 00 00 00 09 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  ................

060: 00 00 0A 33 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 0B 00  ...3............

070: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 0C 00 00 00 00 00  ................

080: 00 00 00 00 00 00 B5 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  ................

090: 00 00 B7 0A 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 B8 30  ...............0

0A0: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 BA 00 00 00 00 00  ................

0B0: 00 00 00 00 00 00 BB 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  ................

0C0: 00 00 BC 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 BE 28  ...............(

0D0: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 BF 00 00 00 00 00  ................

0E0: 00 00 00 00 00 00 C0 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  ................

0F0: 00 00 C1 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 C2 00  ................

100: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 C3 00 00 00 00 00  ................

110: 00 00 00 00 00 00 C4 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  ................

120: 00 00 C5 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 C6 00  ................

130: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 C7 00 00 00 00 00  ................

140: 00 00 00 00 00 00 C8 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  ................

150: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  ................

160: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  ................

170: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  ................

180: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  ................

190: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  ................

1A0: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  ................

1B0: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  ................

1C0: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  ................

1D0: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  ................

1E0: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  ................

1F0: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 C5  ................



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Please let me know your views. I would appreciate if someone explains the above results.

Thank you!

-Gamma

Paul Black · 31 Jan 2023

Hello @GammaP,

Nice informational post. You could also try this . . .

Hard Disk Sentinel

First, check your HDD using the Hard Disk Sentinel Portable Trial Version.

About Hard Disk Sentinel:

Hard Disk Sentinel is a computer Hard Disk Drive monitoring software for Windows, Linux and DOS operating systems.

Hard Disk Sentinel [ Sentinel ] is a multi-OS SSD and HDD monitoring and analysis software. Its goal is to find, test, diagnose and repair hard disk drive problems, report and display SSD and HDD health, performance degradations and failures. Hard Disk Sentinel gives complete textual description, tips and displays/reports the most comprehensive information about the hard disks and Solid State Disks inside the computer and in external enclosures [ USB hard disks / e-SATA hard disks ].

Hard Disk Sentinel monitors HDD status including health, temperature and all S.M.A.R.T. [ Self-Monitoring, Analysis and Reporting Technology ] values for all hard disks. It also measures the disk transfer speed in real-time which can be used as a benchmark or to detect possible hard disk failures and performance degradations.

You can run it directly from a USB, and in my opinion, this gives the best instant report available compared to other software of the same type.

> Hard Disk Sentinel - Website

I hope this helps.

dalchina · 31 Jan 2023

Once again, I recommend Hard Disk Sentinel.
Giveaway:
Hard Disk Sentinel Standard Giveaway License Key Free

Look for Step 1: Click HERE

Instant comprehensible summary right on its GUI instantly, includes cable analysis if relevant. Life prediction.
Green is good.

Samuria · 31 Jan 2023

If a disk gets bad sectors they are a disk fault which can't be recovered the first errors are remaped to engineering block so when you see them that's full and basically the disk is toast

Megahertz · 31 Jan 2023

There are two types of drive defects: Logical and hardware.
Logical defects can be fixed with check disk or in the worst case a partition format.
Hardware defects can't be fixed. Bad blocks, bad sectors etc are surface defects that can't be fixed. The bad blocks, bad sectors etc are marked as bad so they will be ignored and no longer used.

There is something odd on your report as bad sectors can't be repaired.
External drives must be left standstill while spinning to avoid the gyroscopic effect

SeaTools - Quick diagnostic tool that checks the health of your drive.

GammaP · 01 Feb 2023

dalchina said:

Once again, I recommend Hard Disk Sentinel.

Giveaway:

Hard Disk Sentinel Standard Giveaway License Key Free

Look for Step 1: Click HERE

Instant comprehensible summary right on its GUI instantly, includes cable analysis if relevant. Life prediction.

Green is good.

Hello dalchina,

Thank you for the giveaway. I installed HDS straightway. The self tests ( short and long both ) showed no problem. However the surface test ( read version ) got stuck. The disk was switched off as well.

So I aborted the test and conducted a destructive surface test ( a.k.a. write rest). This test went through ok wihtout citing any problem. Now the disk has 0s writen all over. So I need to restorie the data from backup. Once done I will perform another surface test ( read version ). Let me see how it goes.

Till now the problem or the defect is not diagnosed. If it was just bad sectors, why surface read test is stuck? Hopefully this issue is sorted out.

Thank you once again.

-Gamma

dalchina · 01 Feb 2023

Megahertz quoted the Seatools link - and it's a Seagate drive, so that's worth a shot.

A few bad sectors alone don't mean a drive has failed- those are managed by the drive itself from a pool of spare sectors. Only when too many fail is there then a problem.

However the surface test ( read version ) got stuck.

Might be some sort of erratic communication fault???

GammaP · 01 Feb 2023

dalchina said:

Megahertz quoted the Seatools link - and it's a Seagate drive, so that's worth a shot.

A few bad sectors alone don't mean a drive has failed- those are managed by the drive itself from a pool of spare sectors. Only when too many fail is there then a problem.

Might be some sort of erratic communication fault???

Hi dalchina,

Thank you for suggesting the Seagate Tools. I tried that before. It does not offer a surface test. The long generic test ran ok. It is no match for HD-Sentinal.

The HD-Sentinal's write test ran all green. Then I restored the data from backup. Next, I ran the read surface test. Unfortunately, that again got stuck. It froze the OS and hdd is switched off. Unless I physically disconnect the HDD, the OS does not unfreeze.

Something is not right. I will try with another laptop tomorrow.
Thank you for your continued interest and support!

-Gamma

dalchina · 01 Feb 2023

Thre are some useful tests under 'Disk' provided by HDS - Self-test, random seek test..

It might be there's some mechanical problem as the heads are moved across the drive, given the surface scan fails... however, causing the O/S to hang seems really weird as it's a USB disk.

This is a surface scanner I've used:
Check Hard Disk for Bad Sectors | Scan Disk on Windows

Megahertz · 01 Feb 2023

How many partitions you have on the drive?

To clean all partitions and start from scratch, Open a CMD window as administrator and type:

diskpart
list disk (it will list all drives. Identify the drive number)
select disk n (replace n by the drive number obtained with list disk)
clean
convert GPT
create part primary
select part 1
format fs=NTFS quick
assign
exit (to exit diskpart)