Notification of rising unreadable sectors + dismiss warning notification

[Wiidesire]

I've been using Scanner for a while now and I've been very satisfied with its capabilites. During the usage of the product some questions came up so I wanted to finally ask them here.

I currently got one drive with some unreadable sectors. It were only four, so no big deal. However when I went to check today it rose to nine sectors. However I didn't get any notification which is troublesome (I only got one for the initial bad sectors but I need notifications for subsequent ones as well).

How can I turn on notifications when unreadable sectors are rising?

 

Another problem is that I have no way to dismiss notifications of errors. They are persistently in the taskbar. When I click on them I can only choose "Never warn me about disks with unreadable data"and "Never warn me about S.M.A.R.T warnings/failures". But that's what I don't want. What I need is a "I acknowledge this warning but keep giving me notifications if error levels rise" button.

 

Also is there a way to force StableBit to write over the bad sectors? The S.M.A.R.T data are showing a "current pending sector count" and if I understand this one correctly when I write over this pending sector it should reallocate this sector to a good one.

 

 

 

 

[Christopher (Drashna)]

15 hours ago, Wiidesire said:

I currently got one drive with some unreadable sectors. It were only four, so no big deal. However when I went to check today it rose to nine sectors. However I didn't get any notification which is troublesome (I only got one for the initial bad sectors but I need notifications for subsequent ones as well).

Was this for the surface scan? 

If so, even one is a critical issue.  It means that the OS failed to read from the drive, which is a SERIOUS issue.  As in "the submarine has sprung a leak" serious. It doesn't really get better on it's own. 

In this case, my recommentatio

 

15 hours ago, Wiidesire said:

Also is there a way to force StableBit to write over the bad sectors? The S.M.A.R.T data are showing a "current pending sector count" and if I understand this one correctly when I write over this pending sector it should reallocate this sector to a good one.

RMA the drive.

This is why the drive is showing the unreadable (damaged) sectors. 

Writing to it *may* fix the issue, but it may not.  Also, StableBit Scanner has no way do to this currently.  A CHKDSK pass isn't designed for this either.

So the best way to force this is with a full (non-quick) format of the drive.  SpinRite may handle this, as may other tools, but the process is destructive regardless. 

 

15 hours ago, Wiidesire said:

Another problem is that I have no way to dismiss notifications of errors. They are persistently in the taskbar. When I click on them I can only choose "Never warn me about disks with unreadable data"and "Never warn me about S.M.A.R.T warnings/failures". But that's what I don't want. What I need is a "I acknowledge this warning but keep giving me notifications if error levels rise" button.

They shouldn't be.  Once you open the UI and "resolve" it, or click on the notification, it should "go away" until a new one is generated. 

For SMART  warnings/errors, open the "SMART details" for the drive. From there, you can ignore them (permanently, or until it increases again). 

[Wiidesire]

Thanks for the fast answer.

9 hours ago, Christopher (Drashna) said:

Was this for the surface scan? 

If so, even one is a critical issue.  It means that the OS failed to read from the drive, which is a SERIOUS issue.  As in "the submarine has sprung a leak" serious. It doesn't really get better on it's own.

It was an automatic surface scan. I never said it would get better. However I'm using Scanner precisely to keep track of the health status of my drives. Not getting Email notifications of the rising unreadable sectors is a serious issue.

9 hours ago, Christopher (Drashna) said:

RMA the drive.

This is why the drive is showing the unreadable (damaged) sectors.

Drive hasn't got warranty anymore. I took the necessary precautions (backup) but the drive is still working fine. <50KB of unreadable data on a 6.000.000.000KB drive is not the biggest deal but if the unreadable count continously rises it becomes are a concern which is precisely why I need email notifications of it.

9 hours ago, Christopher (Drashna) said:

Writing to it *may* fix the issue, but it may not.  Also, StableBit Scanner has no way do to this currently.  

Add it as a feature request please.

9 hours ago, Christopher (Drashna) said:

They shouldn't be.  Once you open the UI and "resolve" it, or click on the notification, it should "go away" until a new one is generated. 

For SMART  warnings/errors, open the "SMART details" for the drive. From there, you can ignore them (permanently, or until it increases again). 

So when I open the UI, go to the drive and S.M.A.R.T I can press "Ignore this warning" and the explanation says "Ignore the S.M.A.R.T attributes that are triggering the current warning". That does sound permanent to me. Can you confim that this only ignores e.g. 8 current pending sectors but once it rises I get another notification?

For the "this harddrive is unable to read X sectors" in the UI, when I click it I can start a file scan but I don't see a way to dismiss it.

I'm using v2.5.2.3129 btw.

[Christopher (Drashna)]

12 hours ago, Wiidesire said:

It was an automatic surface scan. I never said it would get better. However I'm using Scanner precisely to keep track of the health status of my drives. Not getting Email notifications of the rising unreadable sectors is a serious issue.

I'll flag this, but I'm pretty sure "the ship is sinking" is about as serious as it gets, without outright failing.

https://stablebit.com/Admin/IssueAnalysis/27694

12 hours ago, Wiidesire said:

Drive hasn't got warranty anymore. I took the necessary precautions (backup) but the drive is still working fine. <50KB of unreadable data on a 6.000.000.000KB drive is not the biggest deal but if the unreadable count continously rises it becomes are a concern which is precisely why I need email notifications of it.

Sorry to hear that, then.    
And yes, it is a big deal.  All it takes is 1 byte in the wrong section.  For instance, the partition table.  And then you'd be resorting to data recovery, or formatting the disk.   

And it's a failure to read from the disk. Period.    That is a catastrophic failure.  Just because it's only effecting part of the disk doesn't change that.  Though, I suppose a fire is a better analogy here.  Because this issues tends to spread. And even when it doesn't, the damage is already done. 

12 hours ago, Wiidesire said:

Add it as a feature request please.

This is actually a long standing feature.  It's something that we'd like to add, actually. But it's something that will not be easy to implement, as writing is destructive.  It can destroy data (and likely would, in this case) and will make recovery impossible.  

So adding it isn't something we plan on doing lightly.  And we want to take our time and do it right. Not "right now". 

12 hours ago, Wiidesire said:

So when I open the UI, go to the drive and S.M.A.R.T I can press "Ignore this warning" and the explanation says "Ignore the S.M.A.R.T attributes that are triggering the current warning". That does sound permanent to me. Can you confim that this only ignores e.g. 8 current pending sectors but once it rises I get another notification?

Yeah, it does. But it should prompt to ignore just the current values, so it's retriggered if they increase.  or to ignore them permanently.  

In either case, you can un-ignore them later on. And that button should be where the "Ignore" button is, basically. 

12 hours ago, Wiidesire said:

For the "this harddrive is unable to read X sectors" in the UI, when I click it I can start a file scan but I don't see a way to dismiss it.

Because there is no way to dismiss it.  You can mark them as unchecked, and scan them again, or you can mark them as "good" until it's time to scan them again.  To get to these options, double click on the drive.  It will be the fourth button down, on the left side. The button with the green circle. 

Again, this indicates a critical error, and it needs to be addressed, not ignored. Because any data on the drive is at risk.