C5 Current sector pending count
- Thread starter lkjhgf
- Start date
Yes you should worry about it. You have THREE bad sectors which can NOT be fixed by the HDD unless you overwrite those sectors; allowing the HDD to swap with a reserve one.
This is quite serious and could cause dataloss. If you don't need any data on the HDD currently, do a long format under windows 7 (zero-write) or use a third-party zero-write utility. This will make the Current Pending Sector count go to 0 and the Reallocated Sector Count be increased by three. When this happens, the damage is fixed and will no longer cause problems. Until then, avoid using the drive.
Commercial utility Spinrite may also correct the bad sectors without losing its data. But its not free.
This is quite serious and could cause dataloss. If you don't need any data on the HDD currently, do a long format under windows 7 (zero-write) or use a third-party zero-write utility. This will make the Current Pending Sector count go to 0 and the Reallocated Sector Count be increased by three. When this happens, the damage is fixed and will no longer cause problems. Until then, avoid using the drive.
Commercial utility Spinrite may also correct the bad sectors without losing its data. But its not free.
This shouldn't be anything to worry about - the drive has detected a possible problem with 3 sectors, and is waiting for additional information (it needs to confirm that there is a problem and diagnose it, so that it can select the appropriate repair strategy).
A sector is called 'pending' if when the sector was read by the drive, the drive detected that the sector was partially corrupted, but the drive was able to recover the data successfully.
(If the sector was totally corrupted, the drive would have reported a bad sector to the OS, and the OS would have reported some sort of error).
Simply misreading a sector doesn't give the drive enough information to know what to do with the sector - it needs to decide if the actual sector on the platter is faulty, or if there was some sort of temporary problem. So the sector is listed as 'pending further analysis'. There are 3 main things that might have happened:
1. Data mis-read due to freak problem (e.g. vibration causing head to go out of alignment, power glitch, overheating, etc.).
2. Data mis-saved due to freak problem (same as 1).
3. Bad sector.
Next time the sector is accessed, the drive will perform additional analysis until it reaches a diagnosis (e.g. fault 2 - read data, correct it using ECC and then re-save; or fault 3 - reallocate sector). Once a diagnosis is reached the sector is taken off the pending list.
You can, if you want, run a 'surface scan' on the disk using Chkdsk. This will read every sector on the drive, and the appropriate repair mechanisms will be triggered once enough information has been gathered.
In fact, you don't even need to do this; modern hard drives automatically scan the surface of the disks when idle anyway - and this will allow the drive to complete its diagnosis and repair (given enough idle time). This process is automatic, as long as the drive doesn't spend all of its time in some form of standby mode.
A sector is called 'pending' if when the sector was read by the drive, the drive detected that the sector was partially corrupted, but the drive was able to recover the data successfully.
(If the sector was totally corrupted, the drive would have reported a bad sector to the OS, and the OS would have reported some sort of error).
Simply misreading a sector doesn't give the drive enough information to know what to do with the sector - it needs to decide if the actual sector on the platter is faulty, or if there was some sort of temporary problem. So the sector is listed as 'pending further analysis'. There are 3 main things that might have happened:
1. Data mis-read due to freak problem (e.g. vibration causing head to go out of alignment, power glitch, overheating, etc.).
2. Data mis-saved due to freak problem (same as 1).
3. Bad sector.
Next time the sector is accessed, the drive will perform additional analysis until it reaches a diagnosis (e.g. fault 2 - read data, correct it using ECC and then re-save; or fault 3 - reallocate sector). Once a diagnosis is reached the sector is taken off the pending list.
You can, if you want, run a 'surface scan' on the disk using Chkdsk. This will read every sector on the drive, and the appropriate repair mechanisms will be triggered once enough information has been gathered.
In fact, you don't even need to do this; modern hard drives automatically scan the surface of the disks when idle anyway - and this will allow the drive to complete its diagnosis and repair (given enough idle time). This process is automatic, as long as the drive doesn't spend all of its time in some form of standby mode.
VirtualLarry
No Lifer
- Aug 25, 2001
- 56,570
- 10,202
- 126
Mark R, I think that you are slightly incorrect. "Pending" sectors are the ones that are NOT transparently repaired by the drive automagically. They are sectors that have had read errors, and are marked as "pending" by the drive, such that they will only be replaced, once those sectors are written to with new data (so the new data will be written to a newly allocated spare sector, and re-mapped to the old sector).
If the data in a "bad" sector could have been read correctly, then it would have been transparently re-written and re-mapped, and corrected. It would therefore not have been marked as "pending".
OP - you can make the pending sectors become remapped, by doing a zero-write pass to the entire drive. But of course, this will erase your data, so back it up first.
If the data in a "bad" sector could have been read correctly, then it would have been transparently re-written and re-mapped, and corrected. It would therefore not have been marked as "pending".
OP - you can make the pending sectors become remapped, by doing a zero-write pass to the entire drive. But of course, this will erase your data, so back it up first.
That's my understanding of Current Pending Sector count as well; they are pending because the HDD doesn't want to 'trash' the unknown contents of the bad sector. It will only do so when it receives a write request for that bad sector; in which case the old unreadable data is not required anymore and the HDD performs a sector remap; problem solved.
Until then, you indeed should receive timeouts/read errors when trying to access (read) those bad sectors. A long offline SMART test should also tell you the exact LBA of bad sectors.
Spinrite may be a good option if you do want to recover the contents of those bad sectors. Else do a long format with Windows 7 as it zero-writes the surface (unlike earlier versions which mostly read sectors not write to them). That would fix all the problems; check with SMART output.
Until then, you indeed should receive timeouts/read errors when trying to access (read) those bad sectors. A long offline SMART test should also tell you the exact LBA of bad sectors.
Spinrite may be a good option if you do want to recover the contents of those bad sectors. Else do a long format with Windows 7 as it zero-writes the surface (unlike earlier versions which mostly read sectors not write to them). That would fix all the problems; check with SMART output.
RebateMonger
Elite Member
- Dec 24, 2005
- 11,586
- 0
- 0
Here's a Wikipedia article on SMART, including descriptions of various parameters.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S.M.A.R.T.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S.M.A.R.T.
Heh, it looks that Mark R is the one who had the right answer ^_^
In fact, Hard Disk Sentinel said something similar but Mark R has explained it a way better:
I already did the test when I posted, but I wanted an answer from an organic brain, thanks Mark.
Crystaldisk already showed me some errors that I don't remember on another disk and then they disappear, so I needed another opinion.
The harddrive has worked for more than 2 years 24/7 in a RAID for media files, now I bought bigger HDDs and I use it only for music files. Now, thanks to its brothers, I already have a backup HDD (I hope they will not die the same day :'P).
Hallo
i also got the same issue. How did u solve urs? by formatting to 0 like it was recommended? Thanks in advance!
i also got the same issue. How did u solve urs? by formatting to 0 like it was recommended? Thanks in advance! Heh, it looks that Mark R is the one who had the right answer ^_^
In fact, Hard Disk Sentinel said something similar but Mark R has explained it a way better:
I already did the test when I posted, but I wanted an answer from an organic brain, thanks Mark.
Crystaldisk already showed me some errors that I don't remember on another disk and then they disappear, so I needed another opinion.
The harddrive has worked for more than 2 years 24/7 in a RAID for media files, now I bought bigger HDDs and I use it only for music files. Now, thanks to its brothers, I already have a backup HDD (I hope they will not die the same day :'P).
VirtualLarry
No Lifer
- Aug 25, 2001
- 56,570
- 10,202
- 126
This is generally true, but I had one drive that had a few bad sectors develop, but didn't get worse. I think that the bad sectors were temp-related, that's probably why.
But if there is a mechanical problem, or dust inside the unit, then yes, bad sectors generally keep growing.
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