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General discussion (archive)Need help inrerpreting S.M.A.R.T. results(42 posts)solved(42 posts)solved
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This is my favourite topic
Posted July 11, 2011
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cjrgreen: Then you are very fortunate. I've been maintaining computers for a long time, and my experience is that once a disk starts showing bad blocks, it will go into complete failure soon after.
I've seen disks last years with a couple bad blocks, but the sample size was way too small to conclude much.

At any rate, the only sane position is that once you lose faith in an HDD to immediately replace it with a new one. No ifs ands or buts about it. Even backups aren't an appropriate solution as you start to have increased risk of data integrity.

In the end, I'd trust your intuition on this one, as it's definitely consistent with everything I know about HDD reliability.
Posted July 11, 2011
OK then, I'll proceed with the testings and if my HDD's status deteriorates I'll replace it (which may be useful anyway - like I've written, it's my game HDD and it's getting somewhat small). Later I'll probably try to fix it - if I'm successful, I have a good drive for storage and if I don't, I have a new HDD anyway.

I still can't decide whom to give +5 rep, especially because I have a hard time deciding whose post qualifies most as "answer"; Lexor, tburger, taltamir and cjrgreen have been all very helpful, while hedwards and Stuff also provided useful information. I think I'll have to wait and see whom time proves right.
Posted July 11, 2011
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Lexor: [...] Also if the disk is new or there are not important / backuped data on it, you can try to repair it. There is one nice prog called MHDD to do this, but use it only if you are experienced PC user and know what you are doing [...]
That program reminds me a lot of HDD Regenerator which I've used a couple of times to fix damaged hard drives. Last time I remember seeing it was on one of those "fix everything" compilation CD images you can download

EDIT: The CD was called Hiren's BootCD but it doesn't seem to have HDD Regenerator on it anymore (instead has a freeware version of a similar program)
Post edited July 11, 2011 by shane-o
Posted July 11, 2011
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Lexor: [...] Also if the disk is new or there are not important / backuped data on it, you can try to repair it. There is one nice prog called MHDD to do this, but use it only if you are experienced PC user and know what you are doing [...]
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shane-o: That program reminds me a lot of HDD Regenerator which I've used a couple of times to fix damaged hard drives. Last time I remember seeing it was on one of those "fix everything" compilation CD images you can download

EDIT: The CD was called Hiren's BootCD but it doesn't seem to have HDD Regenerator on it anymore (instead has a freeware version of a similar program)
Once in a while, HDD Regenerator or Spinrite will appear to work. They do not actually repair anything. All they do is fool the system into thinking the bad sectors are no longer bad. If the drive really is failing, they willl not succeed. Since you have to pay more than the price of a small disk for the program, their value is that much more questionable anyway.

Unless you must recover data from a drive that is no longer mountable, don't waste any more time with it. Just replace the drive and do something useful with your computer instead of farting around with a disk drive that's dying of old age.
Post edited July 11, 2011 by cjrgreen
Posted July 11, 2011
Just leave the CrystalDisk tray monitoring going for a a bit and see if you get messages about further deterioration.

If so, pull the disk and replace it.
Posted July 20, 2011
Apparently, I'll need to replace the drive in question.
Today, I tried to defragment my Steam folder (using IOBit's Game Booster's Defragment feature as I've found IOBit tools to be reliable) but at one point it froze my system and my computer (or, to be more specific, I think my HDD) started giving out some rather unhealthy sounds - just like earlier, which was the very reason I started monitoring it with CDI. And now, after this incident, CDI says the drive has 639 reallocated sectors and no unallocated ones, so it IS deteriorating.
I saw some Western Digital, Hitachi and Seagate 1TB /that's enough for me, in the foreseeable future I won't need any bigger than that/ HDDs for practically the same low price in a sale. Do you have any recommendations which one to buy, based on the manufacturer's reliability? (I also saw a Samsung disk, but no thank you, my acting up HDD is Samsung, too). Aside from the brand, they differ somewhat in spin speed (5400-7200 RPM) and cache size (8, 32 and 64 MB).
Post edited July 20, 2011 by DrIstvaan
Posted July 20, 2011
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DrIstvaan: Apparently, I'll need to replace the drive in question.
Today, I tried to defragment my Steam folder (using IOBit's Game Booster's Defragment feature as I've found IOBit tools to be reliable) but at one point it froze my system and my computer (or, to be more specific, I think my HDD) started giving out some rather unhealthy sounds - just like earlier, which was the very reason I started monitoring it with CDI. And now, after this incident, CDI says the drive has 639 reallocated sectors and no unallocated ones, so it IS deteriorating.
I saw some Western Digital, Hitachi and Seagate 1TB /that's enough for me, in the foreseeable future I won't need any bigger than that/ HDDs for practically the same low price in a sale. Do you have any recommendations which one to buy, based on the manufacturer's reliability? (I also saw a Samsung disk, but no thank you, my acting up HDD is Samsung, too). Aside from the brand, they differ somewhat in spin speed (5400-7200 RPM) and cache size (8, 32 and 64 MB).
WD "Caviar Black" and "RE3" are the best 7200rpm drives at present. Other WD drives are a big step down from these, but all WD drive models are reliable. "Caviar Green" and any model with "GP" are low-power models."AV" models are specialized disks for purposes like video recording, not really meant for system-drive use.

Seagate "Barracuda" and Samsung "Spinpoint F1" should be avoided. The 1TB Barracuda and Spinpoint F1 models were especially prone to early failure. Samsung's "Spinpoint F3" is supposed to be better.

Many people dislike Hitachi "Deskstar" drives (called "Deathstar" on the street), but I've had good results with them.
Posted July 20, 2011
If the raw data for reallocated sector count is not zero, then it is usually (exceptions were already given above) time to save your data to another hard disk. Which is the case for you with the raw data (which should mean roughly 620 reallocated sectors, i.e. the HD is probably close to death). The other number there does not really mean anything, it is arbitrarily.

Reallocated sectors are one thing to look out for. If the number is growing (or usually if it is non-zero), the HD normally is physically failing. And yours has over 600 already, so it is quite time to get a new one. Better safe than sorry!
Post edited July 20, 2011 by Protoss
Posted July 20, 2011
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DrIstvaan: Apparently, I'll need to replace the drive in question.
Today, I tried to defragment my Steam folder (using IOBit's Game Booster's Defragment feature as I've found IOBit tools to be reliable) but at one point it froze my system and my computer (or, to be more specific, I think my HDD) started giving out some rather unhealthy sounds - just like earlier, which was the very reason I started monitoring it with CDI. And now, after this incident, CDI says the drive has 639 reallocated sectors and no unallocated ones, so it IS deteriorating.
I saw some Western Digital, Hitachi and Seagate 1TB /that's enough for me, in the foreseeable future I won't need any bigger than that/ HDDs for practically the same low price in a sale. Do you have any recommendations which one to buy, based on the manufacturer's reliability? (I also saw a Samsung disk, but no thank you, my acting up HDD is Samsung, too). Aside from the brand, they differ somewhat in spin speed (5400-7200 RPM) and cache size (8, 32 and 64 MB).
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cjrgreen: WD "Caviar Black" and "RE3" are the best 7200rpm drives at present. Other WD drives are a big step down from these, but all WD drive models are reliable. "Caviar Green" and any model with "GP" are low-power models."AV" models are specialized disks for purposes like video recording, not really meant for system-drive use.

Seagate "Barracuda" and Samsung "Spinpoint F1" should be avoided. The 1TB Barracuda and Spinpoint F1 models were especially prone to early failure. Samsung's "Spinpoint F3" is supposed to be better.

Many people dislike Hitachi "Deskstar" drives (called "Deathstar" on the street), but I've had good results with them.
Thanks for your post, the drives I saw for low price are then probably so cheap for a reason; they are WD Caviar Blues and Greens, Seagate Barracudas and Hitachi Deskstars.
I've looked around Newegg.com and Google Product Search and the only conclusion I've got is that one can't decide based on a large number of short user reviews.
I think I'll stick with a Hitachi drive then; I myself have been using a Hitachi for a couple of years now and it has had no errors whatsoever yet and you stated you also have a good relationship with them.
(As for performance, that's not the top priority /in contrast with stability/; sure, being largely a game and partly a system drive, it shouldn't be horribly slow, but I don't plan to do anything extremely intense with it.)
Post edited July 20, 2011 by DrIstvaan
Posted July 20, 2011
Hitachi Deskstar and WD Caviar Blue models should be close in performance and price. I would take the one that I got the better deal on.
Posted July 20, 2011
There's a difference of ~1000 HUF ($5), so not a big deal.
Thanks for your help; I'll mark your first reply as answer as time has proved you right and now you've helped me with my HDD purchase.
Posted July 23, 2011
I ended up getting a cheap Seagate HDD (model ST31000524AS) - in the store the employees said that while Hitachi's HDDs are probably the best, in recent months, 10 out of 15 came back to them due to being unable to install. However, they said even this model of Seagate is very reliable and seldom do users have problems with it.
I've removed the damaged disc already (and reinstalled Windows because it was on a partition on that HDD), formatted it and started using it; let's hope it'll serve me well for a long time.
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This is my favourite topic
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General discussion (archive)Need help inrerpreting S.M.A.R.T. results(42 posts)solved(42 posts)solved
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