Question test hdd

[igor_kavinski]

in crystal diskinfo not scan this software
my hdd

Looks ok to me. Stop worrying so much!

Just keep running CrystalDiskInfo everyday and if the drive color changes to yellow, that's when you know something is not right.

Case closed.

GO

TO

SLEEP

 

[gamerfan]

Parece ok para mim. Pare de se preocupar tanto!

Continue executando o CrystalDiskInfo todos os dias e, se a cor da unidade mudar para amarelo, é quando você sabe que algo não está certo.

Caso encerrado.

IR

PARA

DORMIR

Does Crystal Diskinfo use SMART to detect the status of the HDD?

Is there a risk that someone could reset SMART to make the disk appear to be new, unused and error-free?

 

[igor_kavinski]

Does Crystal Diskinfo use SMART to detect the status of the HDD?

Is there a risk that someone could reset SMART to make the disk appear to be new, unused and error-free?

Yes, Crystal Disk Info uses SMART.

Yes, SMART values can be reset that's why you shouldn't buy from unauthorized or shady dealers. If the drive's price was too good to be true, you possibly got a used drive.

 

[gamerfan]

If they reset SMART, is the only way to find out the true health of the HDD the surface tests or generic long test from seatools?

 

[igor_kavinski]

If they reset SMART, is the only way to find out the true health of the HDD the surface tests or generic long test from seatools?

The best way to find out the health is a destructive write test that will write to every sector and then try to read the value and compare to see if the read value matches the original written value.

https://www.reddit.com/r/DataHoarder/comments/k8xen5/did_i_kill_my_drive_with_badblocks

sudo badblocks -c 2048 -b 4096 -sw /dev/sda
Testing with pattern 0xaa: done
Reading and comparing: done
Testing with pattern 0x55: done
Reading and comparing: done
Testing with pattern 0xff: 51.96% done, 104:14:39 elapsed. (0/0/0 errors)

See that reading and comparing part? If it's done without errors, the disk is fine.

How to run badblocks in Windows? https://superuser.com/questions/338067/equivalent-of-badblocks-on-windows-or-dos



Now go run that bad boy badblocks and only return once you have something concrete to share with us.

 

[gamerfan]

if the hdd has some badblocks and bad sectors and the files are written in good sectors and tested without corruption and the HDD is stored during storage the good sectors become bad and the file sectors become bad and corrupt these written files??

 

[tcsenter]

Isolate SeaTools - close all other applications before running a hard disk diagnostic. The main reason for this is to keep the drive focused on SeaTools as much as possible.

There is a reason I previously advised (in your multiple threads) do not run ANY other applications while attempting to run SeaTools, particularly any hard disk utilities that try to access SMART data. I was trying to perform a long SMART test with surface scan on my 2TB Western Digital SATA drive a couple months ago, using Western Digital's Drive Utilites. The utility would start out fine but would halt with some generic error. I check all PM settings to be sure the PC would "never" enter sleep, standby, etc.

I finally tracked it down to Crystal Disk Info automatic refresh drive and SMART data at particular intervals e.g. every five minutes. I also saw this same problem when running HD Sentinel. After killing other drive utilities that were vying for access drive and SMART data, the Western Digital utility proceeded and finish without error.

Of course if you use the bootable version of Seatools (or any other manufacturer utility), this won't be any problem since you can't run other applications, anyway.

 

[igor_kavinski]

if the hdd has some badblocks and bad sectors and the files are written in good sectors and tested without corruption and the HDD is stored during storage the good sectors become bad and the file sectors become bad and corrupt these written files??

Cannot say for sure. Usually bad sectors mean there is some problem with the mechanical head or the chipset or physical quality control issue with the platter surface or some really really tiny microscopic creature got inside and pooped on the sector (tardigrades must poop, no?). Remember one thing: a healthy HDD has NO bad sectors. Zero. If there ever were, they were marked out as bad during the initial manufacturing stage. Hard drives only develop bad sectors when something goes wrong inside them. And also, bad sectors can be soft or hard. Soft sectors can be repaired and often the HDD head is able to read the data from them for a while. This allows you to make a clone of that disk or copy important data off the disk without losing anything. HDD Regenerator is one such software that can "fix" soft sectors. Hard bad sectors are permanent. The HDD head will get stuck trying to read these and won't be able to get past them.

 

[gamerfan]

There is a reason I previously advised (in your multiple threads) do not run ANY other applications while attempting to run SeaTools, particularly any hard disk utilities that try to access SMART data. I was trying to perform a long SMART test with surface scan on my 2TB Western Digital SATA drive a couple months ago, using Western Digital's Drive Utilites. The utility would start out fine but would halt with some generic error. I check all PM settings to be sure the PC would "never" enter sleep, standby, etc.

I finally tracked it down to Crystal Disk Info automatic refresh drive and SMART data at particular intervals e.g. every five minutes. I also saw this same problem when running HD Sentinel. After killing other drive utilities that were vying for access drive and SMART data, the Western Digital utility proceeded and finish without error.

Of course if you use the bootable version of Seatools (or any other manufacturer utility), this won't be any problem since you can't run other applications, anyway.

what link latest bootable seatools?

is it necessary to use this bootable even if seatools passed without errors?

I didn't understand, you said that if I open the crystal at the time of the seatools scan, the errors are hidden from verification?

I did a generic long test in the common seatools and pc windows 10 the HDD passed
when I did the scan with seatools only the chrome browser was open and I have 16gb of ram and the scan went all the way to the end hdd passed

 

[tcsenter]

I didn't understand, you said that if I open the crystal at the time of the seatools scan, the errors are hidden from verification?

NO, that if you run Crystal Disk (or other utility) and Seatools at the same time, Seatools is likely to "abort" and display an error, like you were describing in the other thread.

The scan aborts at 3% and the drives disconnect from my computer. Crystal Disk Info and SeaTools then remove the USB cable and plug it in again and everything works again.

I do not know how much more clear it could be made. e.g.

tcsenter:

Do not have Crystal Disk Info running while you run another utility that tries to get direct (or exclusive) access to a disk. Close out Crystal Disk Info and try again.

 

[mindless1]

Before you wear out your HDD doing scans, pack it away in storage for years.

 

[gamerfan]

I use HDDs for archiving
HDDs 2.5" purchased on AliExpress, do the data recorded on them easily become corrupted if I do not perform a Full Scan Surface with Victoria to find out the true health of the drive? I only performed the QuickScan Surface of Victoria and there were no errors
When I copied the files to the HDD, I then tested them with Winrar and they were intact, but do they easily become corrupted in unused storage or the next time I power them on?

 

[mikeymikec]

IMO anything wears out through use or lack thereof. Data on unpowered HDDs isn't more susceptible to corruption though.

If you apply the usual advice for data that you don't want to lose, ie. you have more than one copy of it, the likelihood of losing all the copies at once because of individual failures drops sharply.

 

[igor_kavinski]

but do they easily become corrupted in unused storage or the next time I power them on?

HDSentinel has a disk refresh feature that you should use at least every six months to keep the magnetism from getting weaker.

 

[gamerfan]

HD sentinel is paid to run tests I don't have a license I usually energize the HDD once a year to avoid weakening the magnetism

 

[igor_kavinski]

energize the HDD

How do you "energize" the HDD? I hope you don't mean that you just turn it on for a few hours (and nothing else).

 

[gamerfan]

How do you "energize" the HDD? I hope you don't mean that you just turn it on for a few hours (and nothing else).

Any minutes

 

[igor_kavinski]

Any minutes

Just turning the HDD on won't do anything.

Here's another way you can verify:

Downloads | ExactFile

Create Digest at the root of the drive and then every 6 months, verify that all the file hashes get verified using Test Digest without any errors using the SFV file. Any time you add data to the HDD, you will need to create the digest (SFV) again.

I just checked a folder I hadn't touched in years (my various solution source codes I wrote to solve some recurring problems). It verified OK so I know for sure now that there was no bitrot.

 

[gamerfan]

I have a large file compressed in zip or rar of 200gb inside it has files zip, rar, 7zip, exe, img, bin, folders and other formats this 200gb file is inside the hdd there is another iso or bin image file when I I copied it to the hdd I tested corruption with winrar and no errors now after 1 year I will test

 

[Steltek]

Any minutes

Turning on a hard drive for short periods just to make sure it still works is actually one of the worst things you can do to it. Vibration, rotational torque, head and platter acceleration, power surges..... you might just as well just test it by tapping it with a ball peen hammer every once in a while.

You know, instead of putting yourself through all this gut wrenching turmoil, it would be far simpler to just buy a matching hard drive and do regular backups of your data.

Then, if you still feel you still need extra protection, you can put the backup drive in an anti-static bag, wrap it in tinfoil, and store it inside an extra microwave oven that you bought specifically for that purpose (or place it in a safety deposit box in the vault of your bank) for EMP protection....

 

[tcsenter]

HD sentinel is paid to run tests I don't have a license I usually energize the HDD once a year to avoid weakening the magnetism

It's better to just rewrite the data once per year or so, if you are storing them disconnected. Have a spare formatted empty HDD, full copy with verification everything over to the spare, format and run a chkdsk on source, if all is well and no bad sectors, full copy it back. If you do it in Windows (not sure about Linux) it will also be fully defragmented after.

 

[mindless1]

If only HDDs weren't new tech and there was already plenty of info out there...

 

[gamerfan]

I didn't know that magnetic storage on HDDs was so fragile that it was necessary to make a new copy of the files every year.

 

[Steltek]

I didn't know that magnetic storage on HDDs was so fragile that it was necessary to make a new copy of the files every year.

A hard drive is a mechanical device with an electronic component. It has multiple drive heads skimming about platters spinning at 120 revolutions each second for a 7200RPM drive. Spinning those platters at that speed creates a significant rotational force, which causes vibration. Starting them up creates stress on the mechanical components, as does shutting them down. Applying and removing power creates wear on the electronic components. Like any other mechanical device, they will fail. And, like any electronic device, they will fail.

If you do not back up your data, it is not a matter of "if" you will loose your data, but "when" you will loose it.

The only way to truly safeguard the data stored on any storage medium is a regular backup regimen that is strictly followed, preferably with at least two copies (one copy of which is stored in another location for fire safety). I know people that maintain 4 or 5 different copies for really important stuff like photos or business documents. And, I wasn't being facetious in my earlier post by suggesting keeping it in a safety deposit box. I do that with my backup, and swap it out once a month (used to do it weekly, but since I retired I don't get to town that often anymore).

The best thing to do is sort your data into three piles: "I wouldn't care at all if I lost it", "Loosing it wouldn't kill me, but it would be time prohibitive to recreate", and "Stuff I would never, ever want to loose". Then, back up at minimum the last one, or the last two if financially feasible.

 

[igor_kavinski]

I didn't know that magnetic storage on HDDs was so fragile that it was necessary to make a new copy of the files every year.

Only someone who hasn't faced catastrophic disasters with HDDs would say that.

HDDs suck BIG TIME!

They are SO BAD that they should have RAID built-in! So that when the built-in redundancy fails, we can still get our data out of it rather than losing 8TB or more data in one go!

Not everyone can afford two HDDs or has the time to keep up to date backups.

The only reason I haven't had HDDs crap on me for a long time is because I'm not actively using them.

Write this on a whiteboard or blackboard 500 times before you goto sleep tonight: HDDs SUCK and I will NOT trust my data to HDDs!

/rant