I have 12.04 32bit installed on my hard drive. Ubuntu is the only OS. I recently installed it after getting rid of Windows 7. When I run Disk Utility under SMART Status it says 'disk has a few bad sectors', so I clicked on View SMART data and run self tests. I run the extended SMART self-test and it only takes 5-10 seconds for it to stop and reads Self-Tests: FAILED (Read), Bad Sectors: 1 bad sector, Overall Disk Assessment: Disk has a few bad sectors.Is this something I should be worried about?

Why no one is raising the issue of false positives in linux SMART tools? Out of 5 disks I've tested (in Ubuntu's udisks as well as in PArted Magic Gsmartcontrol) all of them (including one fresh from store) failed the tests with multiple parameters! As it is with linux it may be the fault of common underlying library used by multiple GUI tools (smartctl?). I'd strongly advise using Windows tools to verify the results.

Drevitalize

Welcome to BleepingComputer, a free community where people like yourself come together to discuss and learn how to use their computers.Using the site is easy and fun. As a guest, you can browse. Checking Bad sector in HDD and ExtHDD - DonationCoder.com. I had repeatedly excellent experiences with the DRevitalize. On foolishness to discard a drive based upon any diagnostic: reallocate, yes; discard, no.

Click the Processes tab. If agent.exe is running—or Blizzard Update Agent in Windows 10—select it and click End Process. How to delete cache after downloading on mega drive.

I haven't investigated it further but I think it is worth a warning.–Jan 1 '13 at 12:40. At this point in time I wouldn't. Hard Drive manufacturers, normally pack spare sectors in the drive just for situations like this. Keep an eye on it, and always have a backup of your data handy.

Also I would suggest that you run the manufacturers diagnostic tool, and that can be acquired form the drive manufacturers website. Once you do that, and it gives you an error code, and providing htat the drive is still under warranty, then call the manufacturer,and get it replaced.Important note to keep: Disks that start with 1 bad sector, will probably get worse. I can't stress enough the importance of a backup. Way to give your HDD some more lifeOne thing I looked into a lot on the net and found out myself, is what to do when you start getting some 'bad sectors', a problem I came across with my HDD which recently caused boot failure just out of nowhere and received the 'treatment' I explain.1.Backup your data2.Try to give your HDD an orientation. @Llamageddon, thanks for your comment, it really reminded me to follow-up on the subject. Well, in this particular HDD's case, it worked well for 6-7 months or so, then it became just a backup disk with very little use and still works normally.

So I guess it actually helped quite a bit, even though I can't be sure the disk would fail if I hadn't done a zerofill. Since I can't see any drawbacks in the procedure, apart from the time it takes, I tend to use it from time to time with other old HDDs–Aug 22 '17 at 22:15.

The S.M.A.R.T. Way to predict hard disk failureThe worst thing about hard disk failure - apart from losing any file we didn't have a backup of - is that it will often come out of the blue.Sometimes we might hear clicking sounds from the drive, or get file/folder related error messages. Most of the time, though, the drive will seem to work just fine, and we get a BSOD on the next reboot or a message like that.It's good then that there is a system that can statistically predict hard drive failure. Its name is Self-Monitoring, Analysis, and Reporting Technology (S.M.A.R.T) and it is part of any hard drive that has been manufactured the past decade. The S.M.A.R.T protocol was developed by IBM, Seagate, Quantum, Conner, and Western Digital in 1995, based on an earlier system by IBM.

It measures key characteristics of the HDD, such as the read error rate, reallocated sectors, seek error rate, etc. Which can be used to predict hard disk failure.Unfortunately, even though there have been more than half a dozen of Windows versions since 1995, not one of them can read the S.M.A.R.T data, probably for licensing reasons.So, we need to use external software to monitor S.M.A.R.T and our hard drive's health. And CrystalDiskInfo is one of the best such programs. Download and Install CrystalDiskInfoWe will find the latest version of CrystalDiskInfo atIt's best to download the portable version because it can run without an installation, and it also doesn't feature third-party apps, like the full CrystalDiskInfo installer. After we download the.zip file, we 'Extract all' of its content.and run the DiskInfo application.

DiskInfoX64 is for 64-bit Windows, and DiskInfo is for 32-bit Windows.How CrystalDiskInfo predicts Hard Disk FailureThe first time we run the application, it will immediately show us the S.M.A.R.T. Status for all of our hard drives.If the 'Health Status' is 'Good', the disk is probably OK.On the bottom half of the main application Window, we will see all the fifteen different metrics CrystalDiskInfo takes into consideration, to predict hard drive failure.Some of them are simple statistics, such as the Start/Stop Count, the Power-On Hours, or the Power Cycle Count. Others are more serious metrics, like the Reallocated Sectors Count.or the Read Error Rate.As you understand, having a 'Caution' or a 'Bad' health status can predict imminent hard drive failure. How to read and interpret CrystalDiskInfo dataWhile the Health Status is loud and clear, and pretty easy to understand, the rest of the data can be daunting for a beginner.This, however, is easy to fix. First we go to Function - Advanced Feature - Raw Values and select 10DEC.After that, we completely disregard the 'Current', 'Worst' and 'Threshold' columns, and only look at the raw values.In the above example, the Reallocated Sectors Count is 0, not 100 or 10.Reallocated sectors are one of the most severe conditions for a hard drive. A single sector isn't the messenger of a complete hard disk failure by itself. But if the sectors are multiplying, it's a sure sign that something is wrong.From the rest of the metrics, if one deserves our attention, CrystalDiskInfo will change its color to yellow for caution or red if it is bad.If we have a couple of 'cautions' but not enough to affect the disk's health status, we should just keep an eye on them.

In such a case, it's a good idea to run CrystalDiskInfo once or twice a week to see if there is any change. Should I panic if I get a Caution or Bad health status?We must always keep in mind that CrystalDiskInfo cannot read the future. The best it does is statistical predictions, based on the S.M.A.R.T. Data.In other words, there have been hard drives with 'Caution' that continued working flawlessly for years, and 'Good' hard drives that failed the next day.So, we must not rush to replace a hard drive with a 'Caution' health status. Instead, we should take a full backup of any essential files, which is something we should be doing on every hard drive, even the 'Good' ones.If however we get a 'Caution' or a 'Bad' health status, we should follow-up with a full disk scan, that could potentially discover deeper problems with the hard drive. On a future guide, we will cover the best disk checking software.Stay tuned!

Do you suspect an imminent Disk Failure for one of your hard drives?If you have a caution or bad health status, and want a second opinion, you can leave us a comment with a screenshot of your CrystalDiskInfo results. Support PCstepsDo you want to support PCsteps, so we can post high quality articles throughout the week?You can like our, share this post with your friends, and select our affiliate links for your purchases on or.If you prefer your purchases from China, we are affiliated with the largest international e-shops:.