Bad sectors how many

I called help desk, and I had them replace it had it expedited as they said it would take 3 business days, but that was unacceptable to me - so I had a replacement sent within an hour. Luckily I have most of my work backed up or on a network share or on sharepoint.

As soon as there's a single read error that makes it a pending sector, I try to remove all data and then proceed to calculate its location and repartition it. Then I continue to use such drives for stuff that isn't important, especially now when prices are so freaking inflated.

Only once bad sectors have continued to spread and soon the drive was done. For the rest I even have one with bad mechanics - it frequently recalibrates while turned on.

I'm still using it as external, for various trash. I had a customer bring me her computer, because she couldn't open any applications. So like always unless it's a known malware infection, I first scan the hard drive for bad sectors with Spinrite.

So I called her and told her what I found. I told her I had one here I could put in. The drive had been repaired good enough at this point to be cloned.

She said she wanted to take her chances with the drive. I explained to her that the drive is cloneable right now. If she takes her chances, the next time she brings it to me, I would have to. B The drive might be so bad I can't clone it and would have to change her for a reinstall of windows on the new drive.

There's no need for that much attention. Windows will give a popup saying it detected a hdd problem when it goes red. RolandJS Reputable. Mar 10, 1, 21 5, As long as you routinely copy data onto any affordable external media, you should be fine -- until the infamous red alert pops up. You must log in or register to reply here. Please help, long day. Storage 5 Aug 13, Question Have a HDD with bad sectors, trying to clone it.

Post thread. News Comments. Question Super giving me worse frames than a ? Started by Small-Change Oct 7, Replies: Graphics Cards. Question Help! Question Why does my pc keep shutting down? Power Supplies. Latest posts. Question Questions about a pre-build offer Latest: Darkbreeze 5 minutes ago.

Latest: Diflexster12 12 minutes ago. Latest: Darkbreeze 14 minutes ago. Latest: Darkbreeze 23 minutes ago. Latest: jonnyguru 33 minutes ago. Viruses and other malware that messes with your computer could also cause such system issues and cause soft bad sectors to develop. When your computer notices a bad sector, it marks that sector as bad and ignores it in the future.

The sector will be reallocated, so reads and writes to that sector will go elsewhere. If you had important data in that sector, however, it may be lost — possibly corrupting one or more files. However, if your hard drive is rapidly developing bad sectors, it may be a sign that your hard drive is failing. Windows has a built-in Disk Check tool — also known as chkdsk — that can scan your hard drives for bad sectors, marking hard ones as bad and repairing soft ones to make them usable again.

Other operating systems, including Linux and OS X, also have their own built-in disk utilities for detecting bad sectors.

However, you should always have backups of your important files just in case a freak bad sector strikes — and rapidly developing bad sectors can certainly suggest oncoming hard drive failure. Browse All iPhone Articles Browse All Mac Articles Do I need one? Browse All Android Articles Browse All Smart Home Articles Customize the Taskbar in Windows Browse All Microsoft Office Articles What Is svchost.

Browse All Privacy and Security Articles Browse All Linux Articles Browse All Buying Guides. You see, the defects that a drive has when it's first made are just the tip of the iceberg! The mass storage industry has a term for the defects which arise from daily drive use. They are called Grown Defects because defects literally "grow" on the surface of the drive!

If you buy any program buy this one,Read Up. When a drive is built, it goes through a surface scan to mark all existing defects. A map of these defects would look like someone liberally sprinkled pepper on a piece of paper. These defects are mapped out and listed on the drive internally so the drive "knows" not to put data there in future.

If a defect develops after this initial mapping process, it's called a grown defect. It's added to the list though maybe earmarked as grown. Reserve sectors are used to compensate for these. This is supposed to be transparent to the OS; it just knows to send data to the drive and the drive writes it.

If all the reserve tracks are filled up, only then would I seriously worry. I'd suggest running the manufacturer's disk utility to check out the drive's health. My initial reply was to indicate to him that there is the option of RMAing the drive, not that he must. Personally, I would. What's wrong with bad tracks? It's bad out of 80 Million.

That seems reasonable. Run the Maxtor utility. I don't think it is reasonable. CaliScrub's format marked what are now "bad" sectors as "good". While reformatting makes those bad sectors inaccessible, more might appear and might corrupt personal or system files. Everyone, read doraemon's post. Now let me add one last important piece of info: if the OS sees any bad sectors, that means that the grown defects have exceeded the spare sectors on the drive. This is a bad thing.

The drive should be replaced. Oh, and yes, all drives have some defects from the factory. Back in the SDI days, you needed this information in case you decided to low-level format the drive. After doing so, you would need to reenter the defect list. Wow lots of good info in this thread that I wasn't aware of. Also thirstydg you shouldn't jump down people's throats like that.