File Scan Reports 1 Sector Lost. File Recovered but disk will not clear "Damaged" status

[stuza]

Hi Covecube & friends!  

 

I've got a Windows 10 system with 70ish TB over 5 drives connected via USB as a media server.  I'm running Scanner version 2.6.2.3920 on Windows 21H1.

 

I had a lost sectors reported.  I attempted file recovery within Scanner and these recovered and saved to another drive.  I've since re-run the "File Scan" scanner "Check" but, the gui still shows a red block but reports "No damage to the on disk data was detected" and the disk is is still labelled as Damaged.

 

First question - is 1 lost sector a sign of trouble or is this normal for a disk that's on 24/7?  (temps of disk max out at 45c, usually around 90% of the time they are at 38/39c)

Second question - How do I clear the damaged status as it's annoyingly sending me emails which means I might actually just delete a new error email thinking it's one of the many repitions of the old error?

 

Thanks!

 

 

[Christopher (Drashna)]

For the surface scan, StableBit Scanner doesn't do anything to fix/correct the unreadable sectors.  You can clear the status, but the next scan, they will likely come back. 

That said, the only way to permanently clear the status is to write to the effected sectors.  StableBit Scanner doesn't do this, as it prevents the ability to recover the data from the disk. 

However, the simplest (but definitely not "best") way to clear the status is to do a full format pass of the drive. This writes zeros to the entire drive, and may correct the issue.  If this doesn't work, then you may want to consider replacing the drive (RMA it if it's under warranty)

[stuza]

Hi Christopher,

thanks for your reply.

How do I clear the status temporarily because, i've not been presented any option to do so even after file recovery?

The 2 disks that have suddenly devloped lost sectors are an 18tb and 16tb so, not in any rush to replace them if I don't have to.  That said, they have both only lost something like 5kb each (and the files were recovered anyway) so, as this isn't huge I'd like to just monitor them for a while first to see if more appear or it remains constant.

If I understand right then, I'd like for Covecube to consider the feature addition to provide the ability to mark these errors as "Acknowldged" and this gets recorded as a known error but one that Scanner will not keep alerting.  Right now, every time the PC boots I get a new email and I have to keep checking these to see if it's the same error or new and it's a bit frustrating.

 

Thanks!

[gtaus]

On 11/7/2022 at 2:28 PM, Christopher (Drashna) said:

However, the simplest (but definitely not "best") way to clear the status is to do a full format pass of the drive. This writes zeros to the entire drive, and may correct the issue.  If this doesn't work, then you may want to consider replacing the drive (RMA it if it's under warranty)

I have successfully used HD Sentinel to repair some damaged HDDs. I don't know the exact way it works, but evidently HD Sentinel reads and writes each sector, and if it finds a damaged area, HD Sentinel reallocates that damaged area to a non use mode. It's like a low level format in MS, but seems to work better. You have to purchase a license for HD Sentinel if you want to attempt any HDD repairs, but I can vouch that I saved a few HDDs that way and they were put back into service in DrivePool for many months.

Having said that, if I have a drive that needs to be repaired, then I try to replace that drive as fast as I can because that drive will more than likely start to show more problems.

Recently, I created a new DrivePool with my repaired and end-of-life HDDs using the Duplication feature on the entire pool. If I lose one of those HDDs in that DrivePool volume, it really won't matter because there is always a copy. In the meantime, my new drives are on my main DrivePool volume where I have my home media files that are unduplicated. Anyway, using duplication on a separate DrivePool volume with end-of-life drives should give me another year or so of use on those drives before they die. DrivePool saves me money and extends the useful life of those old, not so reliable, out of warranty, drives.

[CyberSimian]

On 11/10/2022 at 7:57 AM, gtaus said:

I have successfully used HD Sentinel to repair some damaged HDDs. I don't know the exact way it works, but evidently HD Sentinel reads and writes each sector, and if it finds a damaged area, HD Sentinel reallocates that damaged area to a non use mode.

This sounds similar to the "/R" option of CHKDSK:

  /R                  Locates bad sectors and recovers readable information
                      (implies /F, when /scan not specified).

I used /R once on a disk that was not large by today's standards, but it still took days to complete. Presumably it reads and writes every sector on the disk, but without destroying the existing data on the disk. I see from the built-in help for CHKDSK that there are more options in Windows 10 compared to Windows 7.

-- from CyberSimian in the UK

[Doug]

On 11/7/2022 at 8:53 PM, stuza said:

How do I clear the status temporarily because, i've not been presented any option to do so even after file recovery?

You have to make them as good, until next scan.

[gtaus]

11 hours ago, CyberSimian said:

This sounds similar to the "/R" option of CHKDSK:

  /R                  Locates bad sectors and recovers readable information
                      (implies /F, when /scan not specified).

I used /R once on a disk that was not large by today's standards, but it still took days to complete. Presumably it reads and writes every sector on the disk, but without destroying the existing data on the disk. I see from the built-in help for CHKDSK that there are more options in Windows 10 compared to Windows 7.

-- from CyberSimian in the UK

 

I have used CHKDSK /R in the past. It works on some HDDs and can fix some problems. What I am saying is the HD Sentinel was able to fix a failing HDD which CHKDSK /R could not. I don't pretend to know how HD Sentinel fixes the HDD, but it worked for me on some disks that CHKDSK could not fix. Also, HD Sentinel has a number of different ways to fix a HDD.

Anyways, if I fix a HDD with HD Sentinel, I now move it to a second DrivePool, with Duplication set on the entire pool with other End-of-Life HDDs. In theory, I should be able to lose a HDD in that pool and still have all my data somewhere else in that pool. Just trying to get a little more mileage out of my old drives that I no longer trust 100%.

[stuza]

Hi all,

 

thanks for your replies but, the issue has vanished so, i'm really not sure what is going on.

I had to rebuild the machine for other reasons and since it's been rebuilt I've reinstalled Scanner and performed a fresh scan and none of the lost sectors are there.  I'm guessing that they've already been marked as bad and replaced by other spare sectors - aparently HDD can actually do this.

 

Anyway, all good now.  We do still need an option to "acknowledge" though as even marking it as suggested by Doug will still bring the errors back again at point of next scan.