First drive with R + U sectors reported after L3 scan - what to do now?

[Dibrom]

These are the report pages of the first drive I've tested that has come back with serious problems reported. What should I do with this drive now? Does the unreadable U-sector effectively mean the drive is toast and should be binned? Has SR somehow marked that sector as 'not to be used', so that if I were to continue using the drive, it would still be reliable with the problematic sectors simply avoided? Has SR fixed the dead sectors so that they're now useable? Any help or guidance would be most appreciated.


Edit: forgot to mention there is nothing on the drive. No files or data needing to be recovered, so there's no risk of data loss here. Just wondering if the drive can be used for reliable data storage if need be.

HSSentinel says:
The drive tried to examine and reallocate data sector(s) 161 times. The examined data area is perfect.
At this point, warranty replacement of the disk is not yet possible, only if the health drops further.
It is recommended to examine the log of the disk regularly. All new problems found will be logged there.

It is recommended to continuously monitor the hard disk status.

 

[PHolder]

Your first consideration is WHY is the drive suffering any issue? Is it getting old and unreliable, has it been abused (used when too hot or cold for example) or was it maybe shocked (dropped, bumped, etc.)

If the data you might put on it is important enough, you should probably have trust in the drive storing it. Do you trust this drive to store important data? If yes, go ahead, but keep your eye on it. (And HAVE BACKUPS.) If not, find another use for it.

 

[AlanD]

Looking at the SMART stats, the highest figure is Cabling Errors. It is possible that there is nothing wrong with the drive, but that there is a problem with the cable or it's connections. Try re-seating the cable, or even swapping it for another one if you have one.

 

[Dibrom]

Yeah the cabling errors comes from using the drive in a USB-3 HDD enclosure as a quasi-portable HDD. Sometimes the USB cabling connects perfectly, other times it doesn't. That's just the way it is. All my drives have massive cabling error count numbers. Nothing to worry about, I just ignore them. The enclosure is perfectly capable and supports hotswapping, it's not an issue.

 

[DanR]

Does the unreadable U-sector effectively mean the drive is toast and should be binned?

Not necessarily. It does mean the SpinRite could not read that sector.

Has SR somehow marked that sector as 'not to be used',

No. SpinRite does not do this for U sectors. A DynaStat 0 run would force the drive to re-allocate this sector. With no data on the drive a DynaStat 0 run would be safe.

C:>\ spinrite dynastat 0

if I were to continue using the drive, it would still be reliable with the problematic sectors simply avoided?

Good question. As others have noted, there is quite possibly a trust issue here with this drive. More info is needed! Could you provide any info on the age, history of this drive? That could have some bearing on this issue. Note: The enumeration screen will show the total run time hours for this drive.

 

[Greg S]

Since the drive is so old, so small, and contains no data, why not just dispose of it?

 

[Dibrom]

I've installed it in a network computer operating as a video server for a smartTV holding videos for watching. It's replacing an even older 3.5" 300GB HDD which is full, so a minor upgrade for increased capacity and less weight/heat being only 2.5". Video is only temporary and very much non-critical data, so I'm sure it'll be fine in that application.