skip bad sectors and/or speed up, how?

[Ogg]

Just acquired SR a few days ago. Running in on a 500GB WD hdd, at level 2. Sofar SR is 73.5 hrs in. Estimated 9963hrs remaining (1.134 yrs!) Is there a way o significantly increase the speed of operation? I suppose using the command line to limit DynaStat to 1 minute could help, but that would still be several months of operation. Is there another/better way?

BTW.. a little background on the hdd. It was used in a Win7 32bit system. One day it it simply refused to load Windows. Windows Recovery disk (via CD boot) would not cooperate - it would always stall/freeze after the "Select language.." prompt.

 

[DanR]

@Ogg Have you considered a Level 1 scan? Level 1 is normal reads only (NO data recovery) and would "map' the drive via the GSD (Graphical Status Display) screen. It is fast and could provide an idea of the drives health.

Then . . . If data recovery is NOT a concern - The answer is: Yes (maybe)

Try dynastat 0 on the command line: C:>\spinrite dynastat 0

With DynaStat 0 no data recovery wilt be attempted. Just one normal read. If that fails, then write all zeros to the sector. This will eliminate all data recovery attempts and time. Typically the drive firmware will reallocate any bad sectors that will not write.

However, if the drive is really bad, this may not work. In which case the drive is likely toast.

 

[peterblaise]

If the data may be important, you can also try:

SPINRITE NORAMTEST LEVEL 2 DYNASTAT 1 NOREWRITE

DynaStat 1 tells SpinRite to spend no more than 1 minute
trying to recover each sector's unreadable data, the default
is 5 minutes per unreadable sector.

NoRewrite tells SpinRite NOT to rewrite any incompletely
recovered sector, leaving it as is to be tried again later - this
preserves an incompletely read sector for inspection by
any other means, instead of writing over it with 'best guess'
approximations.

Also, R&R remove and reinstall the circuit card on the drive,
and clean the inner contacts between the card and the drive
- any corrosion there will compromise drive data recovery
behavior:

.

 

[jerryyyyy]

Hello,

I found this thread very useful as other have helped me recover a WD 4 TB HDD that had an interruption in the midst of Bitlocker encrypting and was useless.

https://forums.grc.com/threads/trying-to-salvage-4tb-hdd.2238/

I was able to use Gparted reformat the drive, but, it still would not work well, so I ran SpinRite on Level 3 to try to renew that drive. Well one day later it was still going in and out of DynaStat and I found this thread. (see Image)

I stopped Level 3 and followed the instructions here to get an assessment of the disk running Level 1. There seem to be only 3 bad sectors. (See Image).

According to this thread (my new bible), my next step is:

C:>\spinrite dynastat 0

I'll report back the results. I should be able to reboot and see if it read/writes OK I hope. I believe some magic will occur to avoid these bad sectors.

PS For some reason I do not seem to be able to attach the jpg screenshots and no forum error message. 3MB apiece.

PPS I tried the above command and it would not let me select the correct disk. (SpinRite 6.1)

 

[DanR]

C:>\spinrite dynastat 0

Correct. DynaStat 0 normally triggers the drive firmware to reallocate a bad sector, talking it permanently out of use.
I would use: C:>\spinrite level 2 dynastat 0

PS For some reason I do not seem to be able to attach the jpg screenshots and no forum error message.

There is a 500 KB limit for attachment size.

 

[jerryyyyy]

Thanks, off it goes for an estimated 12h. Then will try some read/writes in the normal SATA slot. Ultimately I want to use it as a USB backup. I now have a new InaTeck SA02003C USB/SATA device that has worked on other disks.

Here are the screen shots: Level 1 & Level 3.

Thanks again for the help...

PS It found those three bad sectors in the first hour. I bet I could just interrupt SpinRite at this point and those sectors should be already rewritten... the rest of the disk being good. Save 11h of electricity.

 

[DanR]

I bet I could just interrupt SpinRite at this point and those sectors should be already rewritten... the rest of the disk being good. Save 11h of electricity.

Correct!

Also, instead of pressing Enter at the Before Beginning screen, press Tab instead. That will bring up a screen that allows you to specify starting and stopping points, either as a percentage of the drive, or via sector number.

 

[Tazz]

PS It found those three bad sectors in the first hour. I bet I could just interrupt SpinRite at this point and those sectors should be already rewritten... the rest of the disk being good. Save 11h of electricity.

Since you know the locations of the bad spots (in SRLOGS folder) you could point SpinRite to start Level 3, 4 or 5 to write over those spots. Set the start position a little before a bad spot and end a little after. Just to confirm that those spots have been swapped out or were exercised enough to be able to be written to after the initial read only scans.
Still start SpinRite with dynastat 0

 

[jerryyyyy]

As they say, nothing tastes better than the sweetness of success.

This 4TB drive has come back from the dead and is now happily backing up files on a USB/SATA connection.

Thanks very much for all the help.

Since I know you are all knowledgeable, I noticed that this USB/SATA connection they say will go at USB 3.0 speeds but I am only getting 100-120 Mb/s transfer.

Connector

This is over a Type-C connection but my PC is outfitted with USB 3.0 ports only including the Super-Speed ports.

I have another dock that has a USB 3 connector but also runs at the same speed. This one often loses a connection. Discarded.

Connector2

Any ideas on this fine point? I also tried a special cable for the Quest 3 VR headset and still the same. Is this par for the course?

Again thanks very much.

 

[AlanD]

Spinrite 6.1 only supports USB devices via the BIOS so you are limited to BIOS speeds. If you can connect the disk on a SATA port, you should benefit from the SR built-in SATA driver and it should be much faster.

 

[jlee]

PS It found those three bad sectors in the first hour. I bet I could just interrupt SpinRite at this point and those sectors should be already rewritten... the rest of the disk being good. Save 11h of electricity.

It may be a lot more than 3 bad sectors. The amount of sectors in each block of the display varies by the size of the drive. But on a 4TB drive each block represents a lot more than just one sector. You could have had hundreds of bad sectors total on the drive. If you still have the SpinRite logs from your run it will tell you the actual number of bad sectors.

This is important since you are using the drive for backup. Normally you want your backup drive to be as reliable and flawless as possible. If the drive only had 3 bad sectors, and SpinRite reallocated them, then the drive is probably OK to use as a backup. But if it's hundreds of bad sectors, I'd be very reluctant to use it as a backup drive even if SpinRite successfully reallocated all the bad sectors. That many bad sectors could indicate major damage to the drive.

 

[jerryyyyy]

Thanks very much. Have never worked on a drive this much and was unclear how to save the log but I looked at it and it seemed the bad parts were limited to three areas.

I have other backups and this would be more of a scratch backup for convenience using a USB mount. To do all the Spinright obviously I mounted it and changed UEFI to a regular BIOS, But, just in general I was wondering if anyone knew the par for the course speed of a USB mounted SATA drive used as a backup. I have supposedly superspeed USB 3 ports and good cables but no matter what I do the USB connection runs 100-120 Mb/s.

 

[DanR]

Since I know you are all knowledgeable, I noticed that this USB/SATA connection they say will go at USB 3.0 speeds but I am only getting 100-120 Mb/s transfer.

Something is obviously severely limiting your speed. Are you using a SATA to USB adapter? If so, what is the rating of the USB end of the adapter?

This is over a Type-C connection but my PC is outfitted with USB 3.0 ports only

General information:

First, SpinRite 6.1 is limited to accessing USB drives via the BIOS only. Thus limiting SR 6.1 to BIOS I/O speed (very slow).

Second: The BIOS preceded USB by quite some time. Thus, while most BIOS can see/recognize USB 1 and typically USB 2 ports, most BIOS will be unable to see/recognize USB 3.x or USB C ports.

Third: The GSD display "maps" the drive to an array of 14 rows of 72 blocks, or 1008 blocks per drive. Thus, you have 3 bad blocks (Not sectors!) on this drive. Therefore, you are looking at way more than 3 bad sectors. A 4 TB drive would have about 7.7 million sectors per block. The SRLOG files provide an indication of this. The sector count is displayed up near the beginning of the file.

Thus, I would never trust this drive for long term backing up important data. It may be working fine today, but what about tomorrow? Next week? Next month? 6 months from now? Most likely the continued use of this drive will result in more bad blocks appearing over time.

 

[DanR]

But, just in general I was wondering if anyone knew the par for the course speed of a USB mounted SATA drive used as a backup. I have supposedly superspeed USB 3 ports and good cables but no matter what I do the USB connection runs 100-120 Mb/s.

Your USB SATA drive has its own USB port. The speed you are seeing is USB 2 speed. Hence your USB SATA drive has a USB 2 port which is limiting your speed.

 

[jerryyyyy]

Thanks very much for responding. According to the specs of the USB SATA Drive should be fast:

Fast Transfer Speed: In addition to supporting USB 3.0, the dock also supports the UASP, enabling even faster data transfer speeds.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0D1QKZWRS?ref_=ppx_hzsearch_conn_dt_b_fed_asin_title_1&th=1

My PC is high quality gaming MB with USB 3.0 and 3.0 SS ports.

I have tried 3 different sets of expensive cables.

The product is very reliable, just not as fast as advertised and am trying to be sure it is not my set up before I criticize the product.

 

[DanR]

My PC is high quality gaming MB with USB 3.0 and 3.0 SS ports.

I have tried 3 different sets of expensive cables.

The product is very reliable, just not as fast as advertised and am trying to be sure it is not my set up before I criticize the product.

Hmm . . . yet you seem to be getting USB 2 speed when you should be getting USB 3 speed (equivalent to SATA III). A BIOS setting perhaps? BIOS power management can indeed limit USB port speed.

 

[jerryyyyy]

I checked the windows power management on the device drivers and it was not it that shutdown power save mode. I did not see anything obvious in the BIOS. They all seem turned on the 3.0.... getting suspicious of the USB to SATA device.

 

[ColbyBouma]

Which program are you using to write to that drive?
Is it showing Mb/s or MB/s? There's an 8x difference between those

 

[jerryyyyy]

Using the Finder to copy and paste to directories. Looked it up. Is MB.

So I looked up typical speeds and found:

USB Port: USB 3.0 has a theoretical maximum of 5 Gbps (640 MB/s), but real-world speeds for external HDDs are typically around 100 MB/s. USB 2.0 speeds are significantly lower, averaging around 10-25 Mbps read and 3-10 Mbps write.

So, I think this is really USB 3 and getting 100-120 may just be typical. No reason to hang the manufacturer.

It also has the potential to use: UASP. I think I can attach the drive and according to Google I can: Check in Device Manager to see if your device is listed under "USB Attached SCSI (UAS) Mass Storage Device" or if the driver is UASPStor.sys.

I checked for the above in the Device Manager and it is not there but listed under the disk as standard USB... guess maybe the disk is also too old to do this.

Anyway, thanks for the help and I learned a bit.

 

[AlanD]

The other issue may be that some BIOS's don't understand USB3.0 and will only support USB2 speeds. By the time that USB3.0 was standardised, most machines had moved to UEFI and the BIOSes were never updated for newer developments like USB3/3.1/C, NVMe etc.