Category Archives: reallocated sector

And now I’m done with Steve Gibson (and SpinRite)

Is SpinRite a scam? Is S.G. a charlatan? People have accused Steve Gibson of being a charlatan and his SpinRite software of being little more than a scam. As you may or may not know S.G. is working on an update for the SpinRite DOS software, SpinRite 6.1. This has been a process that has… Read More: And now I’m done with Steve Gibson (and SpinRite) »

Big scary Raw S.M.A.R.T. values aren’t always bad news!

Big scary Raw SMART value, is my drive dying?! Seagate SMART RAW value calculator Submit Convert Seagate SMART RAW values for attributes: 1 Raw_Read_Error_Rate 7 Seek_Error_Rate 195 ECC_On_the_Fly_Count to actual errors. These values are known to display huge numbers, often leading to unnecessary worries or even panic. The RAW values however represent both an event… Read More: Big scary Raw S.M.A.R.T. values aren’t always bad news! »

Reallocated sectors, pending sectors and event count. Dealing with bad sectors.

It often goes like this. Your PC is acting weird, sluggish. You can’t put your finger on it. Someone, maybe in an online forum, suggests you may have hard disk problems. The term bad sectors is used. Windows Event Viewer may refer to a bad block. It is then suggested to look at the disk’s… Read More: Reallocated sectors, pending sectors and event count. Dealing with bad… »

Finding out which file is affected by a bad sector

Hard disk ‘repair’ software like Spinrite, DiskPatch or the hard disk manufacturer diagnostic software often identifies bad sectors in the form of an LBA address (logical block addressing). A commonly asked question is, “how do I determine, which file is affected by a bad sector?”. What is bad sector repair? Bad sector repair utilities do not actually… Read More: Finding out which file is affected by a bad sector »