When do I give up on this drive?

[dmot]

I have ran a few drives through sr 6.1 (pre-release) and the first two drives ran on level 2 and completed. I am running the scan on a third drive and SR started to make a noise (from the built in computer speaker on the motherboard) as soon as it started scanning the drive on level 2. I restarted the scan and picked an arbitrary percentage for SR to start at and it was scanning fine, this tells me the very start of the drive is bad.

The time counter, until SR finishes completing the scan, continues to climb. Will SR fail at some point telling me the drive is too damaged for repair? Should I just let it continue running until I see SR tell me something different?

Thanks.

 

[PHolder]

Are you attached to the value represented by that drive? If it's that bad, and there's no data on it you need, why ever would you want to keep it around, waiting for things to get even worse. e-cycle it now... your time is money!

 

[dmot]

Are you attached to the value represented by that drive? If it's that bad, and there's no data on it you need, why ever would you want to keep it around, waiting for things to get even worse. e-cycle it now... your time is money!

I believe it was a failed drive out of a NAS. I don't need the drive, just curious if SR will tell me it is failed. I have a stack of drives ready to run through SR 6.1.

 

[Steve]

I believe it was a failed drive out of a NAS. I don't need the drive, just curious if SR will tell me it is failed. I have a stack of drives ready to run through SR 6.1.

Adding to what the others wrote, unless and until the drive really does fail -- like stops working completely, which SpinRite should detect -- all we have is an unhappy drive with a lot of errors.

If you're curious, you could start SpinRite with the no data recovery "dynastat 0" command-line option and run it at Level 3 to read and fully rewrite the drive. That might show you whether the drive's early regions can be recuperated.

 

[dmot]

Adding to what the others wrote, unless and until the drive really does fail -- like stops working completely, which SpinRite should detect -- all we have is an unhappy drive with a lot of errors.

If you're curious, you could start SpinRite with the no data recovery "dynastat 0" command-line option and run it at Level 3 to read and fully rewrite the drive. That might show you whether the drive's early regions can be recuperated.

Is "dynastat 0" something I need to add to the DOS prompt when I run/type srpr.exe?

 

[Tazz]

Is "dynastat 0" something I need to add to the DOS prompt when I run/type srpr.exe?

Yes
srpr dynastat 0

 

[dmot]

Yes
srpr dynastat 0

Thank you, I will try that, next, once this drive finishes.

 

[Steve]

Yes. Exactly. You would enter: srpr dynastat 0

 

[Steve]

Note that it will ask you whether you're SURE you want to do this, since this effectively turns off all of SpinRite's data recovery. If sector(s) cannot be read, SpinRite won't care. It'll rewrite what I obtained even if that's nothing! <g>

 

[AlanD]

Alternatively, try "srpr dynastat 1" to speed things up yet still allow some chance of recovery

 

[dmot]

Note that it will ask you whether you're SURE you want to do this, since this effectively turns off all of SpinRite's data recovery. If sector(s) cannot be read, SpinRite won't care. It'll rewrite what I obtained even if that's nothing! <g>

I just started with dynastat 0, confirmed and changed it from level 2 to level 3. Drive is scanning now and making a noise ever few seconds from the motherboard speaker. Time is as 1200:xx and climbing. Still scanning the first .

I guess I'll leave it for a bit and see what happens.

Edit

10:57am still on the first . and time is at 14760:xx and climbing.

I don't mind counting this drive as dead, but I'll wait and see if anyone else replies with suggestions/questions/etc.

 

[Tazz]

I guess I'll leave it for a bit and see what happens.

I recently let a level 2 'dynastat 0' scan run on a hdd that I knew had a bad spot. 29 hours later it had worked its way through.

BTW - Level 2 dynastat 0 is a lot faster than Level 1.

|--- work ---- remaining --- completed +------- sector status key ---------|
  | megabytes:   1,592,903   404,514.543 | .oO analyzing   |  R  recovered   |
  |  20.3707%:      79.748%       20.252%|  .  unprocessed |  B  defective   |
  |      time:   114:26:26      29:03:43 |  :  processed   |  U  unrecovered |
  |==========================================================================|
  |                        Final Sector Event Counts                         |
  |--------------------------------------------------------------------------|
  |           command timeout:       0  command aborted:       0             |
  |           comm/cable errs:       0  not recoverable:  27,745             |
  |            minor troubles:      58  sect neverfound:       0             |
  |           dynastat recovr:       0  defective sectr:       0             |
  |==========================================================================|

 

[dmot]

Ok, we have an error message, red screen.

edit- Image link removed, it was a red screen showing where the drive failed. No longer needed for this thread.

 

[Steve]

The drive is definitely unhappy.
You could try again, restarting at the location of its failure.
Or you could restart a bit past that point.

 

[dmot]

The drive is definitely unhappy.
You could try again, restarting at the location of its failure.
Or you could restart a bit past that point.

Level 2 ran when I start it at 10%, but what will scanning the rest of the drive do if the first part isn't recoverable/erasable/etc?

 

[Steve]

Level 2 ran when I start it at 10%, but what will scanning the rest of the drive do if the first part isn't recoverable/erasable/etc?

Provide you with additional information? But you're right that the "sore spot" is the real focus. Now you know where it is. There's some chance that having SpinRite bump up against it will eventually induce the drive to take it out of service.

 

[dmot]

Provide you with additional information? But you're right that the "sore spot" is the real focus. Now you know where it is. There's some chance that having SpinRite bump up against it will eventually induce the drive to take it out of service.

Thanks Steve. I'll be adding this drive to the destroy pile.

 

[Steve]

Thanks Steve. I'll be adding this drive to the destroy pile.

Thanks to the much lower-level access that SpinRite v6.1 now offers, we've been encountering drives which have very specific trouble spots, like that one you have. Once SpinRite v7 adds files system awareness -- which is definitely on the road map because of all the MANY benefits that would accrue -- it WOULD be possible to "map around" such trouble spots to bring a drive back into service.

There are those who argue that any bad spot on a modern drive means that that the whole drive should be retired. But we're not seeing any evidence of that. Trouble is being localized in the drive's low-level format and at this point there's no reason to believe that this necessarily "contaminates" the rest of the drive.

 

[ColbyBouma]

There's a chance Secure Erase could fix it.

Obligatory warning: performing a Secure Erase will permanently destroy all of the data on the drive!

Many modern motherboards have a Secure Erase utility somewhere in their UEFI menu. It may be called something else like Disk Wipe.

If your motherboard doesn't have such a utility, there are programs that can perform a Secure Erase. I use Parted Magic ($15), but there are free ones such as hdparm and HDDErase.

How to Securely Erase an SSD or HDD Before Selling It or Your PC

If you're selling your PC or storage drive, you need to wipe it.

www.tomshardware.com

 

[dmot]

@Steve @ColbyBouma

Thank you for the information. Since I have a stack of drives I need to run through SR 6.1, maybe I'll make a new stack of drives that failed and then make a decision about what to do with those drives at a later date.