What can I do with Bad Sector(s) on HDD?

[XxDEATHB3TCHxX]

I had my 8TB HDD (Seagate Archive) a year ago, it was working flawlessly until at least a month it stopped working as in when something writes to it, it completely makes Windows freeze, when I had Windows on the hard drive it occasionally gave me BSoD, mainly related to HDD issues, Windows detects issues but when it attempts to fix it (Usually after the motherboard manufacturer logo while booting) it freezes on specific percentage, I can't do anything, plus the HDD doesn't sound like it's doing anything.

 

I can't even replace it or RMA, if I try on Seagate warrenty support it'll tell me to contact the seller who I bought it from (unfortuantly isn't registered anymore on eBay so I can't contact him).

 

The thing is now, I have formatted it (because some data was corrupted) and when I check the disk for errors it turns out to be clean, but when files write on the HDD (I think of specific sector as it doesn't happen on the first few files) then a action center message appears to check the disk for errors and when I do, it finds problems but like before it can't fix them (I'm guessing by Windows fixing them it tells Windows to not to write on those sectors that were bad.)

 

So what can I do now? The HDD is just in my PC case but disconnected from mobo.

[WereCatf]

You can try to force the drive to reallocate the bad sectors by running a full ATA secure-erase on it. If the drive isn't actually failing and those bad sectors you have on it are just the kind of random defects that simply happen sometimes, a secure-erase is generally the fix. Do note that it'll completely wipe everything on the drive, so you gotta back it up elsewhere, and a secure-erase on a 8TB drive is gonna take hours and hours.

[XxDEATHB3TCHxX]

1 hour ago, WereCatf said:

You can try to force the drive to reallocate the bad sectors by running a full ATA secure-erase on it. If the drive isn't actually failing and those bad sectors you have on it are just the kind of random defects that simply happen sometimes, a secure-erase is generally the fix. Do note that it'll completely wipe everything on the drive, so you gotta back it up elsewhere, and a secure-erase on a 8TB drive is gonna take hours and hours.

Thanks for your reply 

How would I do a full ATA secure-erase? I haven't done it before. And yeah I kinda suspected it'll take hours since it's a huge drive.

[WereCatf]

5 minutes ago, XxRaPiDK3LLERxX said:

Thanks for your reply 

How would I do a full ATA secure-erase? I haven't done it before. And yeah I kinda suspected it'll take hours since it's a huge drive.

Download Ultimate Boot CD, make a bootable USB of it with e.g. Rufus and use the tool HDDErase in /HDD/Wiping. Or, alternatively, use hdparm under Linux (I always do it with hdparm, but I am used to using Linux)

 

Oh, you may also have the option directly in your BIOS. The BIOS on my MSI-board offers a secure-erase utility, all without having to make bootable USBs or anything.

[XxDEATHB3TCHxX]

2 hours ago, WereCatf said:

Download Ultimate Boot CD, make a bootable USB of it with e.g. Rufus and use the tool HDDErase in /HDD/Wiping. Or, alternatively, use hdparm under Linux (I always do it with hdparm, but I am used to using Linux)

Ahhhh alright thanks! I'll try that out right now, I'll let you know how it goes.

 

70 hours and 40 minutes for it to erase the hard drive ?‍♂️

Edited August 1, 2018 by XxRaPiDK3LLERxX

[XxDEATHB3TCHxX]

On 01/08/2018 at 5:23 AM, WereCatf said:

Download Ultimate Boot CD, make a bootable USB of it with e.g. Rufus and use the tool HDDErase in /HDD/Wiping. Or, alternatively, use hdparm under Linux (I always do it with hdparm, but I am used to using Linux)

 

Oh, you may also have the option directly in your BIOS. The BIOS on my MSI-board offers a secure-erase utility, all without having to make bootable USBs or anything.

For some odd reason it’s completed a lot quicker. I booted back to windows and used a third party program to partition the hard drive.

 

While doing so the program found 1 bad sector while formatting (I’m using Aomei partition assistant). I’m trying to copy some large files to the hard drive to see if any of the data gets corrupted because it usually does happen. As for using chkdsk command to fix the bad sectors, oddly it didn’t find any bad sectors, but the program detects one bad sector.

 

By the way the hard drive doesn’t make the clicking sound.

 

 

Edit: According to hard disk sentinel, the hard drive has 16 weak sectors... 

 

Well it found a lot more, apparently it’s has cyclic redundancy check data error when the sector are being read. I’m seeing if it repairing does anything if not then that’s £180 wasted for 8TB HDD

Edited August 2, 2018 by XxRaPiDK3LLERxX

[Spotty]

On 8/1/2018 at 12:19 PM, XxRaPiDK3LLERxX said:

I can't even replace it or RMA, if I try on Seagate warrenty support it'll tell me to contact the seller who I bought it from (unfortuantly isn't registered anymore on eBay so I can't contact him).

Is it still under warranty? You can check on Seagates website. You will need the drive model number and the serial number printed on the label on the drive.
http://support.seagate.com/customer/en-US/warranty_validation.jsp

 

Also download the Seatools for Windows application on their website as well. It has built in tests that can test the condition of the drive and from memory if it finds a fault it will give an error code/report that Seagate requires for warranty returns.

 

Is that the 'Seagate Archive' 8TB SMR drive? I think those drives came with 2 or 3 year warranties, so if you bought it new a year ago it may still be within warranty. What's the production date listed on the label?
 

On 8/1/2018 at 12:19 PM, XxRaPiDK3LLERxX said:

it completely makes Windows freeze, when I had Windows on the hard drive it occasionally gave me BSoD

If it is the drive I think it is, how were you were using it as your OS drive? Shingled Magnetic Drives are awful. The way SMR works means that they're really designed more for backups and cold storage rather than regular desktop use, and certainly not practical to be used as an OS drive. I had one a few years ago that I used to use as a media drive and it was terrible. If I tried writing data to it while it was reading something else (such as playing back a 1080p movie) the drive pretty much just gave up and stopped and I would get buffering in the movie. I'd hate to think how it would run if it was handling the OS.

I didn't think Seagate was still manufacturing those Archive SMR drives though? Wasn't that line-up replaced with the 8TB Barracudas and 8TB Ironwolves?
Wouldn't surprise me if it was a dodgy ebay seller ripping them out of the external enclosures and reselling them though, as there were times where the 8tb external drives were cheaper than the bare drive. Might be why Seagate denied handling the warranty if it was indeed a shucked drive.

 

4 hours ago, XxRaPiDK3LLERxX said:

According to hard disk sentinel, the hard drive has 16 weak sectors... 

 

Well it found a lot more, apparently it’s has cyclic redundancy check data error when the sector are being read. I’m seeing if it repairing does anything if not then that’s £180 wasted for 8TB HDD

Probably time to be backing up whatever data is on the drive you need and are able to pull off it. Look at getting the Seagate Barracuda 8TB instead of the "Archive" 8TB drives. And if you haven't already, get an SSD for your OS.

[NMS]

I'm sure you can send it back directly to Seagate for replacement if the seller is not available anymore.

@seagate_surfer

[XxDEATHB3TCHxX]

1 hour ago, Spotty said:

Is it still under warranty? You can check on Seagates website. You will need the drive model number and the serial number printed on the label on the drive.
http://support.seagate.com/customer/en-US/warranty_validation.jsp

 

Also download the Seatools for Windows application on their website as well. It has built in tests that can test the condition of the drive and from memory if it finds a fault it will give an error code/report that Seagate requires for warranty returns.

 

Is that the 'Seagate Archive' 8TB SMR drive? I think those drives came with 2 or 3 year warranties, so if you bought it new a year ago it may still be within warranty. What's the production date listed on the label?
 

If it is the drive I think it is, how were you were using it as your OS drive? Shingled Magnetic Drives are awful. The way SMR works means that they're really designed more for backups and cold storage rather than regular desktop use, and certainly not practical to be used as an OS drive. I had one a few years ago that I used to use as a media drive and it was terrible. If I tried writing data to it while it was reading something else (such as playing back a 1080p movie) the drive pretty much just gave up and stopped and I would get buffering in the movie. I'd hate to think how it would run if it was handling the OS.

I didn't think Seagate was still manufacturing those Archive SMR drives though? Wasn't that line-up replaced with the 8TB Barracudas and 8TB Ironwolves?
Wouldn't surprise me if it was a dodgy ebay seller ripping them out of the external enclosures and reselling them though, as there were times where the 8tb external drives were cheaper than the bare drive. Might be why Seagate denied handling the warranty if it was indeed a shucked drive.

 

Probably time to be backing up whatever data is on the drive you need and are able to pull off it. Look at getting the Seagate Barracuda 8TB instead of the "Archive" 8TB drives. And if you haven't already, get an SSD for your OS.

I did that but when the warranty info comes up about my device it tells me to contact the seller since this has been sold as a component: https://gyazo.com/4847610cd044f03dacc87b0227492424

 

I'll try Seatools out right now to see if it finds an errors and I'll report back if it fails any tests. (So far while typing this I did a short device self test and that failed.) 

Unfortunately, your Seagate product has failed an important diagnostic test, possibly caused by problem sectors which are difficult to read.

 

I'm not sure about if it's a SMR drive and I'll check the production date of the HDD after I replied so I can turn the PC off.

I didn't know that's how SMR drives are used. That would explain if it is SMR drive why it's usually slow with Windows when booting up and opening general apps & programs but when transferring files the speed is great (aprox somewhere around 180MB/s - 166MB/s while copying 8GB file). Overall, SMR sounds awfully painful to use.

 

Yeah I wouldn't be surprised if that was the case :\ but I don't understand why'd it happened in the first place (I got 2 external HDD from Seagate and they work flawlessly even though I dropped them about 1-2 times), when I installed it into my PC, it ran brilliantly (w/o OS on it ofc ) I just sent them an email about this same issue, hopefully they'll reply soon. 

 

Well it's a good thing it didn't had files on it, it did but they weren't necessary and eventually got corrupted before, and yeah I sure will, with SSD, any SSD you'd recommend?

 

EDIT: Ah ha it's SMR drive, it says it on the front of the HDD and there’s no production date on it.

 

54 minutes ago, NMS said:

I'm sure you can send it back directly to Seagate for replacement if the seller is not available anymore.

@seagate_surfer

I wish they will, I wasted my money on this HDD, as I only get to use to this a short period of time when HDD supposed to last for years, I sent an email to the support center about this.

[Spotty]

Just now, XxRaPiDK3LLERxX said:

I did that but when the warranty info comes up about my device it tells me to contact the original seller since this has been sold as a component: https://gyazo.com/4847610cd044f03dacc87b0227492424

Ah yeah, looks as if it was a shucked external drive or provided to an OEM like Dell/HP as part of a system. The warranty for those are with the OEM/the external enclosure and not on the individual drive. The drive was either sold to you used out of a prebuilt or from a shucked external drive, so no wonder the eBay seller you bought it from has been removed.

Time to just buy a new drive, but I'd recommend getting it from a reputable seller and making sure it comes with warranty and register that warranty with Seagate on the website.

 

1 minute ago, XxRaPiDK3LLERxX said:

I didn't know that's how SMR drives are used. That would explain if it is SMR drive why it's usually slow with Windows when booting up and opening general apps & programs but when transferring files the speed is great (aprox somewhere around 180MB/s - 166MB/s while copying 8GB file). Overall, SMR sounds awfully painful to use.

It's an interesting read if you are interested in how SMR drives work. To give you the TLDR version, basically think about roof shingles and the way they're layered on top of each other. If you want to change one shingle on your roof you need to move the shingle that is stacked on top of it out of the way first to be able to get to the one you want to change.
It's a clever way to increase storage density, but it does make rewriting existing data slow. It's good if you just want to do a backup and then unplug the drive and put it in a cupboard (thus 'Archive'), but for high read/write usage such as being used as an OS drive it's going to be painfully slow.
 

17 minutes ago, XxRaPiDK3LLERxX said:

and yeah I sure will, with SSD, any SSD you'd recommend?

If your motherboard supports NVME M.2 drives then something like a Samsung 970 evo would be good. If your motherboard doesn't support M.2, then just use a SATA based 2.5" SSD like a 960 evo or Crucial MX500 2.5" SSD.

When it comes to SSDs you really only need enough space for your operating system, your programs, and if you are a gamer maybe a couple of your favourite games. 250GB is fine if you don't want any games on it, but 500GB is handy to have. You still use a HDD for things that won't benefit from the faster speeds of an SSD and that take up a lot of space, such as the bulk of your game library, photos, movies, music, etc.

[XxDEATHB3TCHxX]

5 hours ago, Spotty said:

Ah yeah, looks as if it was a shucked external drive or provided to an OEM like Dell/HP as part of a system. The warranty for those are with the OEM/the external enclosure and not on the individual drive. The drive was either sold to you used out of a prebuilt or from a shucked external drive, so no wonder the eBay seller you bought it from has been removed.

Time to just buy a new drive, but I'd recommend getting it from a reputable seller and making sure it comes with warranty and register that warranty with Seagate on the website.

 

It's an interesting read if you are interested in how SMR drives work. To give you the TLDR version, basically think about roof shingles and the way they're layered on top of each other. If you want to change one shingle on your roof you need to move the shingle that is stacked on top of it out of the way first to be able to get to the one you want to change.
It's a clever way to increase storage density, but it does make rewriting existing data slow. It's good if you just want to do a backup and then unplug the drive and put it in a cupboard (thus 'Archive'), but for high read/write usage such as being used as an OS drive it's going to be painfully slow.
 

If your motherboard supports NVME M.2 drives then something like a Samsung 970 evo would be good. If your motherboard doesn't support M.2, then just use a SATA based 2.5" SSD like a 960 evo or Crucial MX500 2.5" SSD.

When it comes to SSDs you really only need enough space for your operating system, your programs, and if you are a gamer maybe a couple of your favourite games. 250GB is fine if you don't want any games on it, but 500GB is handy to have. You still use a HDD for things that won't benefit from the faster speeds of an SSD and that take up a lot of space, such as the bulk of your game library, photos, movies, music, etc.

Damn  that's already making me furious. That would make warranting this HDD invalid as in can't be replaced.

 

Most likely to buy it from Seagate themselves, can't trust sellers since this happened, plus you'll know there's nothing can go wrong (other than accidental faulty drives that been sent to you) when you buy from them.

 

Ahhhhhh... that makes sense with SMR drives, to be honest I didn't know about SMR drives, up until you told me, now I want to facepalm myself 

 

Well that's a good suggestion  thanks for telling me about the SSDs, most likely to get 500GB, there are those types of games that I insanely play that could use a boost with loading.

[seagate_surfer]

12 hours ago, NMS said:

I'm sure you can send it back directly to Seagate for replacement if the seller is not available anymore.

@seagate_surfer

Sure you can! We validate the warranty through this website: https://www.seagate.com/support/warranty-and-replacements/

[seagate_surfer]

@XxRaPiDK3LLERxX

 

Send me a picture of the label to read those numbers myself, I'll check to see if I can do something to help you...

[XxDEATHB3TCHxX]

13 hours ago, seagate_surfer said:

@XxRaPiDK3LLERxX

 

Send me a picture of the label to read those numbers myself, I'll check to see if I can do something to help you...

I’ve sent you a message containing a picture of the hard drive label.

[seagate_surfer]

Thanks! I will be getting back to you any time on next week...

[seagate_surfer]

Hi again! I did try to get you an exception but it wasn't possible basically because of "hardware shucking". We are aware it was not you who did it, that it was someone who removed the existing unit from another OEM equipment and sold it to you in eBay. I checked the part number and serial and this drive model seems to have been sold to HP for their servers, we cannot implicitly condone any kind of shucking, the same happens for example when someone removes the hard drive inside any external storage solution, warranty gets void... Maybe, contacting the assembler would give you more chances to get the hard drive replaced.

[seagate_surfer]

I found these two links down below for your convenience:

1. https://support.hpe.com/hpsc/wc/public/home
2. https://support.hp.com/us-en/checkwarranty

Check through their website also who knows... Or contact them directly and ask it can be replaced. 

[XxDEATHB3TCHxX]

Thanks for telling me that. It’s really disappointing and frustrating that this has to happen. Thanks for trying at least.

 

I’ll contact HP, but I doubt that it’ll be replaced. But I wish it does because I don’t have enough money at this time to buy another HDD.

 

 

EDIT: Contacted HP, hopefully they do something.

Edited August 10, 2018 by XxRaPiDK3LLERxX

[seagate_surfer]

You are welcome! And yes hopefully they will be able to do something...