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Critical Drive Condition??

Z

Zucarita9000

Golden Member
Active SMART (a pice of software that collects data from S.M.A.R.T hdd's) is reporting this to me:

SMART reported critical drive condition! A failure may be inminent.

Every single SMART attribute is OK but this one:

Reallocated Sector Count
Threshold: 112
Value: 79
Worst: 75
Status: BAD

Does this really mean that my drive is about to fail? I've been using this hdd for years, and just now enabled SMART in the BIOS....

Would a low-level format fix this?
 
Low level formats aren't real low level formats. The only low level formats are ones that are done at the factory. Basicly they are for mapping out the sectors and tracks on the harddrives.

When programs you get from manufacturing websites refer to "low level format" they are realy refering to zero-ing out the harddrive. That is filling the harddrive up with zeroes in a attempt to completely obliterate all information on the drive. Including any MBR's or viruses and whatnot.

So no doing something like that would not help out.

Those bad sectors are market like that so that they are hidden from your OS or the rest of the computer anyways. Since they are bad the harddrive's controller curcuits just shuffle them away so that you don't have to deal with them. All it does then is reduce the capacity of your drive slightly.

Your going to have some bad sectors, even on new drives isn't not uncommon. However having lots and lots of bad sectors is a common sign of a failing drive.

I don't know exactly what is considured a lot or what is a unusually large amount of bad sectors, but if the smart stuff is telling you the harddrive is in a bad way then I think it would be a good time to back up all your important stuff and keep it backed up. If it's important to keep a working computer and you can't waste any time on a broken computer then it may be a good idea to begin shopping for a new harddrive.

Does anybody know if this is a unusually large number of bad sectors?
 
Thanks for your help. I've downloaded some diagnostic utilities from Western Digital's website, and so far it has passed the basic tests. I'll be running a Full Test this evening, as it might take a few hours.
 
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