hdd: reallocated sector

[Muffin Man]

i installed crystaldiskinfo 3.8.0, and upon start up, it's telling me that my hdd's health status should be under caution:

i don't know too much about this, but some googleing has hinted me that this is most likely not a good thing, apparently a sign of a failing hdd.

just wanna know what you guys think.

 

[C0RR0SIVE]

It means you have an abnormally high amount of bad/damaged sectors, that have been found/moved and what not, which can mean the drive is failing, or it was jarred around really hard while it was on at one point.

Anytime SMART data is reporting something beyond the normal standard, I take heed and back up that drive, wipe it, and replace it with a new drive.

 

[CalcProgrammer1]

It only reallocated 8 sectors from what I can tell. While reallocated sectors aren't good, larger drives are more likely to have a few bad sectors due to high platter density. My Seagate 1.5TB has several reallocated sectors but still runs great, all the other SMART parameters are fine and I run it 24/7 (switching it out for a RAID 5 array now but it still works). Drives do have spare sectors reserved so if the drive finds a sector that doesn't write properly it tries to move the data to a spare sector and flags the bad sector as such. A drive may have several bad sectors from the factory but they will only be detected when the drive tries to use them, so if you've never filled up the drive completely more may show up. If the number starts skyrocketing or rises quickly in a short time it may indicate more serious damage (most likely head damage) and you should consider backing up the data.

 

[C0RR0SIVE]

What's odd about his issue is, he has re-allocated sectors, I have a few very large drives that have had bad sectors and so on, and repairs usually work and they get flagged and so on.

BUT, after firing up crystal, it reports ALL drives with ZERO re-allocated sectors.

Read the bottom half of this with the chart, it's rather interesting.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S.M.A.R.T.


That type of error is usually associated with, "Potential indicators of imminent electromechanical failure"

 

[Muffin Man]

well atleast i don't have anything real important to backup, just a few pics and some music.

thx for the info guys.

 

[Slaymate]

You have a new used drive coming

 

[Muffin Man]

You have a new used drive coming

 

[-RockMan-]

I'm not trying to butt in but is that software for free ? kinda worried about my mothers 40.00gb hdd.
It's screwing up windows 7 ultimate files for quite a bit and I think it wants to go.

 

[Muffin Man]

yep.
Download Center - Crystal Dew World

 

[C0RR0SIVE]

The software is totaly free, as it just reports what SMART from your drive is reporting, theres hundreds of other alternatives as well.