HDD Bad Sectors question...

It happened like 3 months ago I had to shut down (via force shutdown i.e. holding the power button for over 3 seconds) my Mac after the system became un responsive during an empty trash operation. Then while running apple software update Windows (running Windows via bootcamp) it also locked up (it like completely froze no mouse movement at all). I would like to know if that created a bad sector in my HDD by doing this forced shutdown procedure. I reinstalled Mac OS X just to avoid any problems down the road after the forced shutdown.
Again the question is: Does a forced shutdown can create a bad hard drive sector?
Also, is there a way to recover bad HDD sectors? Disk Utility perhaps?
Thank You for your time.

Kappy wrote:
Snow Leopard's installer is smart. If a system is already present the installer does not erase the drive but installs a fresh system, moves all your stuff into the new system then removes the old one. To erase the drive you must first run Disk Utility from the installer's Utilities menu and use it to erase the drive.
The hard drive and the fans are both starting up at the same time. You may be hearing the fans and not the drive. If you're sure it's the drive making the noise but you don't hear more noise all the time, then it may be nothing. If you are hearing a sort of chirping noise coming from the drive that could be a sign of mechanical failure.
When you open Disk Utility and select your drive's main entry in the sidebar you will get the SMART status reported in the DU status area. If it doesn't say "verified' then the drive is failing. You can also run hardware diagnostics to check:
How to run hardware diagnostics for an Intel Mac
Boot from your original OS X Installer Disc One that came with your computer. After the chime press and hold down the "D" key until the diagnostic screen appears. Run the extended tests for a minimum of two or three hours. If any error messages appear note them down as you will need to report them to the service tech when you take the computer in for repair.
Some "common" error indicators:
SNS - sensor error
MEM - memory error
HDD - hard disk drive error
MOT - fan error
Just to clear myself up. When I clicked the "erase" (in Disk Utility) button when I reinstalled OSX 3 months ago on my MacBook Pro, it said in the Disk Utility Progress bar un-mounting image, it took like two minutes. Then I went to install OSX and I had to reinstall iLife, and the rest of my third party apps, so that's why I think I did a clean reinstall.
However, this question of bad sectors came to be because one close friend of mine told me that I damaged my HDD by doing the hard shutdown method (Power button 3-second hold), which of course concerned me. I think I might go ahead and do the zero out disk option when I do reinstall OSX again in the future. As far as disk utility goes, it says that my SMART status is "veryfied" I did also used OnyX SMART status veryfication and it turned out to be ok. I think that I am best off keep using my MacBook Pro until it requires a new OS reinstall or an HDD failure.

Similar Messages

B570 600GB HDD with bad sectors (Recovery issue)

Hi,
I run into a series issue.
some facts before:
*The 600GB HDD has bad sectors (checked with WD test tool-boot cd)
*The bad sectors are only on the beginning of the physical drive (D partition and LENOVO_PART are intact and fully readable)
*Managed to recover most of the data of C drive (With restorer 2000)
*Managed to clone the D partition and LENOVO_PART to a new 500GB HDD
I can't seems to find a way to use the tiny recovery button, its failing and asking me to boot from cd.
Don't have any of B570 model but I tried to use a recovery cd of T410 to boot. but I can't see any restore partition.
Only cd recovery option.
Any help on how to recover from the cloned recovery partition will be great.
Thanks!

hi get2guy,
Welcome to the Lenovo Forums.
The OneKey Recovery button will only work if the partition structure of the system is not damage. On the new HDD that was cloned with the D-Drive and the OEM Recovery Partition, try to
1. Create a bootable Gparted USB/CD and boot from it
2. On the User Interface, set the OEM Recovery Partition as Active/Boot/Primary
3. Reboot and remove the Gparted USB/CD and see if it boots the recovery partition as shown in this article.
If the above procedure doesn't work, you will need to reinstall the OS using a retail OS or use a lenovo recovery discs (if you were not able to create one using this method then you will need to contact lenovo on how to obtain a copy of the B570 recovery discs).
Hope this helps
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Need to do a clean install of FF31 after bad sectors on HDD caused installed FF to crash Windows upon opening.

After running MRT update on Windows XP SP3, I rebooted my PC, and CHKDSK found and repaired four bad sectors on my HDD. After this, starting Firefox 31.0, even in Safe Mode, would cause Windows to freeze at the point the FF window appeared. No menus, no toolbars, just the window with the basic frame, but nothing inside it. All input devices were non-responsive, forcing me to do a hardware restart of my machine.
Upon restart, everything else worked fine until I tried to start FF - then the OS froze again.
Searching Firefox support, all answers I could find suggested deleting old (possibly corrupt) profile data with Profile Manager before reinstalling FF - but, if FF freezes the machine upon starting, there is no way to do that.
How do I MANUALLY delete all old profile data, other Firefox data files, and registry entries from my PC so that I can do a clean install of FF 31.0?
NOTE: The information given about my browser under "More System Details" is mostly WRONG. I am currently using the only browser that works - the outdated Orca Browser v1.2 with a Firefox 3 core. It is FF 31.0 that I am asking help with.
Thank you in advance for any help you may be able to provide.

You must totally remove Firefox. It sounds like part of it's programing
was corrupted. Then '''[http://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/all/ Download Firefox Full Installer All languages]''' {web link}
After installing, try FF. If your user file are okay, Great!
*1 Download the Full installer and put it somewhere.
*2 Rename your current '''C:\Program Files (x86)\Mozilla Maintenance Service''' and '''C:\Program Files (x86)\Mozilla Firefox'''. Add a '''X''' in front of the name (for example).
*3 Run the disk check '''AGAIN''' just to be sure.
*4 Now get the full installer and run it.
*5 After the installer is done, then try out FF.

Bad sectors Qosmio F60 HDD

Qosmio F60 PQF65A-00Y002 Windows 7 Home Premium SP1
After installing Windows SP1 I had a number of problems. I can't see how they were directly related but maybe some indirect effect. One of them is that suddenly I have a few very agreessively bad sectors on my HDD. A surprise as before SP1 the computer was all fantastic and reliable. However, after the fateful SP1 install I had immediately difficulties with the computer slowing down, the index corrupting etc. Chkdsk /R hangs up in the 4th part. I bought Spinrite and it found two locations on the disk which it cannot recover even after running it for several days and then repeating. The problem for me is that I had no good system image - my last backup failed and I did not get around to repeating it and now Windows backup system image fails and also third party backup stuff like EASEUS Todo Backup fails. I want to get a system image and then be able to replace the HDD. Is there any Toshiba tool for this model to help mark those sectors as bad so that the computer ignores them when doing a system image backup?

Qosmio F60/00Y (PQF65A-00Y002)
Is there anyone from Toshiba Support who can tell be yes or no
Nobody from Toshiba's tech support in this forum. We are all users like you.
..bought in Australia.
If you are no longer in Australia, I suppose you should talk with Toshiba support in whatever country you're in.
Toshiba Global Service Support Sites
-Jerry

StorE Alu2 HDD with many bad sectors, How to claim warranty

My external StorE ALU2 hdd contains of many bad sectors.
This is my backup disc which is always in a safe.
How can I determine if I still have warranty and what is the procedure to claim warranty?
Thanks for your prompt reply

There are to many to be repaired.
The drive comes to a complete stop when certain files are accessed.
I'm lucky that I always have 2 backup drives, just for this purposes.
I will contact Toshiba in the Netherlands
No online procedure. Western Digital had a perfect service, where they ship a new disk, and in the same box you can return the broken disk.
In case you do not return the disk, they charge your creditcard for a certain amount.
Thanks

How to ckeck a HDD for bad sectors.

Hi, how do I ckeck a HDD for bad sectors? I don't seem to find an option for fsck to do this. Does the filesystem matter?

student975 wrote:
@ewaller
gsmartcontrol (GUI for smartmontools) says all self-tests are safe wrt data and "Extended self-test examines complete disk surface and performs various test routines built into the drive".
I believe all of that. I'm just not sure about the implications of trying it with a mounted file system. At the very least, I would expect the system to become extremely disk bound. Other scenarios are the drive might end or suspend the test to service other requests, or, the drive could become unresponsive to the point that the kernel pitches a fit.
If the tools allow you to start a test, I suppose the worst that can happen is a system crash with un-synced disks.

Migrating from HDD with bad sectors to SSD

My mid-2010 Macbook pro running OSX 10.6.8 (Snow Leopard) has been extremely slow. It passes Disk Utility's Verify Disk step but when I brought it to the Apple store, it failed the diagnostic tests they ran with their ethernet cable. There were bad sectors detected and they figured this was what was slowing me down.
So I decided to switch to an SSD but I have questions about how to restore my files. I tried cloning my HD to an external drive with both Disk Utility's restore and using asr on the command line. In both cases I get an error at the very end
"Checksum failed. Could not restore - cannot allocate memory"
I'm still able to boot from the external drive that was created though. I was also (recently) able to create a Time Machine backup with no error messages. So my question is
1. What is the best way to restore my files?
a) Using the (possibly corrupt) HD clone
b) reinstalling from the OSX Installation DVD and restoring with Time Machine
c) Something else like Carbon Copy Clone

montburns,
Only by doing file-by-file examination against a known good copy, or relying upon a batch process which generates a “I couldn’t copy these” file list (and in the latter case, presuming that the list is due solely to bad sectors).
It means i) — either to put your internal drive in an external enclosure, or to attach it to a SATA-to-USB or SATA-to-FireWire adapter, then connecting it to the appropriate external port, and then using Startup Manager to select it as the boot drive.
If you have appropriate software, you could, but I’m not familiar with what’s available on OS X — I hope that other people can offer a list of apps from which you could choose.
Between ddrescue and rsync, I’d choose ddrescue for copying from a potentially faulty disk. To my knowledge, rsync will just copy whatever it finds; but if it creates a list of “I couldn’t copy these” files, then that could be a way to find out where bad sectors might be having an effect.

[SOLVED] Completly format a second HDD, and mark bad sectors.

Hi, all!
I couldn't see a more appropriate place to post this, as it didn't seem right to put it in 'Kernel/ Hardware'. My apologies if it is in the wrong place.
I have a second hard disk drive in my PC and when I use it, it occasionally gives 'bad sector' errors. The hard drive is not currently used, but until I buy a replacement, I was wondering whether it is possible to do a 'deep' format of the disk, which would mark bad sectors. These sectors could then be ignored by future installations.
Is this possible?
Would I have to do it as part of normal partitioning, ie, when setting-up ext4 partitions, etc?
I'd prefer to mark the sectors at a deeper evel, so I don't have to think about it when I do future installs on that disk.
Any help/ advice appreciated.
Chris.
Last edited by chris_debian (2011-02-06 16:15:56)

If the disk you are planning to use already has bad sectors visible to the user then you better get rid of it. Modern hard disks automatically reallocate bad sectors when they are found, if too many bad sectors have been found and there are no more spare sectors to reallocate the bad ones then it's way past time to replace the disk.
That said, you can always tell mkfs.whatever to search for and avoid damaged sectors (mkfs.whatever will call badblocks to search for and report the damaged sectors). You will be gambling with your data though, because it is quite probable that more bad sectors will develop over time.

Recovery manager, Will factory setting recovery replace all the deletes i had from bad sector?

Hello, i am curious about recovery manager and what it does.
recently i had my old hdd removed because of increase of bad sectors. i tried to use system recovery dvd i orderd from hp web site but it did not work on my new hdd so i had to clone my old hdd to use it. while i was using old hdd i had to run chkdsk alot and i saw few of window/systm/... listed as problem and it was removed(?).
I want to make sure my new hdd has no problem after recovering to factory setting. (I raned chkdsk before i clone my old hdd)
will recovery manager replace all those bad sector delete i saw on chkdsk?
This question was solved.
View Solution.

@Forblindmice ,
Hello and thank you for posting on the HP support forums. The recovery will not recover lost sectors. Any data that has been lost is lost unless you run with some type of special recovery software and this is not always a win.
Once you have a bad sectors unless you can use some type of hardware low level format software to remap the sectors they will still be there.
What I would do is pull the drive and put it in another computer and get all your data off it.
Once you get what you can off the drive then you can see if there is a software out there to low level format and then try getting recovery media from HP phone support to reload your OS.
I would consider replacing the drive though. If you are starting to get bad sectors this is usually mechanical and will mean a total crash some time soon.
Please click the "Thumbs Up" on the bottom right of this post to say thank you if you appreciate the support I provide!
Also be sure to mark my post as “Accept as Solution" if you feel my post solved your issue, it will help others who face the same challenge find the same solution.
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Hard disk bad sectors gone after reset to factory defaults.

Hi,
I have HP DV6 6c19tx. a couple of days ago i noticed extreme slow startup time in my laptop; like 20 minutes. Once logged in it took another 20-30 minutes to let me click anything. I openned the task manager but no process was taking extra ordnary memory or processor. I openned HP Support assistant to troubleshoot and it showd me errors in SMART Check. which means my HDD is dying but to bad sectors. I ran the Seagate tool for HDD analysis and it also showed errors in SDST. which confirmed me that my HDD is about to die. I took the laptop to the retaler as my laptop is still in warranty. from the BIOS diagnostics he tried to run the HDD tests and it failed showing some error numer 303 or 305. He asked me to take ackup of all the data so that he can order a replacement for HDD.
I took the laptop back to home to take the backup. after copying all the data, i wanted to remove all personal contents from the laptop so i thought y not to reset it to factory defauls. I reset it t fatory defaults and unexpectedly the system started working perfectly fine. I ran all the test that previously showed error, they all were passed; no HDD error.
Now am confused what happened here, some one please suggest me if i still need to give it to the retailer to claim the warranty. was is some kind of virus that got removed after reseting the sestem or what.

I know it's been a while since you posted your question, but I've recently had an issue with some SMART software claiming that my hard drive was going to fail. After doing some research, I discovered that there's a virus that will do this to your computer. It eventually causes you to lose access to all of your files and you'll be unable to use your hard drive.
My question on this is why in the world would this program exist? There's nothing to be gained from creating a virus that just causes your hard drive to poop out. I'd be willing to bet that it's something the manufacturer has created that forces either a new computer purchase or a new hard drive purchase. It also could possibly be just some dirty butt psycho dreaming of ways to cause problems for people instead of getting a real life.
In any case, it's a virus. Your hard drive is probably fine now. Re-initializing the hard drive most likely wiped it out.

A135-S2326 replacing hard drive (bad sectors) Need advice and opinions Please

Hi, (note pic below of my computers actual specs from this morning)
I have a Satellite A135-S2326. It has the max memory at 2GB, it came with 512 and I upgraded to 2GB. It runs Windows Vista Home Edition...
Anyhow, it accidentally fell off my bed a few days ago (darn dogs) and damaged my hard drive. Boot problems, errors, bad sectors, etc. I have tried everything to fix and to no avail. While I am currently using it I know I need to replace the hard drive ASAP before I can't turn it on at all one day... I am now saving all my files and stuff I need off of it to an external drive. The laptop did not come with a windows Vista restore CD so I am using Acronis software to make an image of the hard disc, hopefully it will work and I won't have to purchase my own copy of windows Vista.
Some questions I have are:
1.) Is it possible to upgrade the hard drive to a faster one / better one when I replace?
     The hard drive that came preinstalled is a Hitachi HTS541680J9SA00 80GB, which I believe from spec's documentation is a 5400RPM Serial- ATA ???
     What is the max size I can get for replacement and what is the max RPM, or do I HAVE to use a 5400RPM???
     What do you suggest?
2.) I have a copy of windows XP Professional w/SP2. Is it possible to put this windows XP Pro.w/SP2 on a fresh hard drive in the Satellite A135-S2326? If so, is there a different hard drive that I must have to do that? Also if an XP install is possible on a new hard drive, which drivers must I have for this laptop when I do it??
3.) And finally, could this laptop handle windows 7 business? Only asking because I can get a VERY cheap copy of windows 7 business from my school...I'm in college at DeVry and can get a copy of Windows 7 delivered to my door in 2 weeks for less then $30.00. So thought that MAY be an option....??? Not sure if my other spec's can handle it though???
4.) What would you suggest I do with the options I have, what is best thing to do in your opinion??
      Please see pic below of my actual computers specs from this morning, using Belarc Advisor...
Thank you in advance
Any help is GREATLY appreciated
Urgently waiting replies,
Tina from Florida
(tinafromflorida)
Computer Profile Summary
Computer Name:
Beanersputer (in MSHOME)
Profile Date:
Monday, September 21, 2009 9:29:54 AM
Advisor Version:
7.2x
Windows Logon:
nello
Operating System
System Model
Windows Vista Home Basic Service Pack 2 (build 6002)
TOSHIBA Satellite A135 PSAD6U-01800D
System Serial Number: 37334232K
Enclosure Type: Notebook
Processor a
Main Circuit Board b
1.60 gigahertz Intel Celeron M 520
64 kilobyte primary memory cache
1024 kilobyte secondary memory cache
Board: TOSHIBA IAYAA 1.00
BIOS: TOSHIBA V1.20 03/06/2007
Drives
Memory Modules c,d
78.45 Gigabytes Usable Hard Drive Capacity
13.51 Gigabytes Hard Drive Free Space
MAT**bleep**A DVD-RAM UJ-850S ATA Device [CD-ROM drive]
Hitachi HTS541680J9SA00 [Hard drive] (80.03 GB) -- drive 0, s/n SB2204SGCULZ6E, rev SB2OC7DP, SMART Status: Healthy
1918 Megabytes Installed Memory
Slot 'J401' is Empty
Slot 'J400' has 2048 MB
Local Drive Volumes
c: (NTFS on drive 0)
78.45 GB
13.51 GB free
Network Drives
None detected
Users (mouse over user name for details)
Printers
local user accounts
last logon
nello
9/21/2009 9:17:22 AM
(admin)
local system accounts
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9/1/2007 9:32:47 PM
(admin)
Guest
9/12/2009 1:14:34 AM
Marks a disabled account;   Marks a locked account
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You can use ANY 2.5" SATA hard drive of any size in that system. I would recommend one of the Western Digital Scorpio BLue's as they are reliable and offer good performance.
If it runs Vista it will run Windows 7. I would wait a bit before trying Win7 though as Toshiba hasn't released all of the Windows 7 drivers yet.
As for Windows XP, while it is possible to install XP on that system (and quite easily for that matter) Toshiba doesn't provide any of the XP drivers needed to get it to run properly. You could determine all of the various chipsets the system uses and go to each chipsat manufacturer's support site to see if they provide an XP driver to get it working, but I don't guarantee that they have all of the needed drivers. If you do decide to go ahead with this let me know and I'll post the directions for installing XP onto a SATA hard drive that doesn't ahve a floppy drive.
Right now your best choice is to replace the old hard drive and restore the system from your Acronis image. When ALL of the Windows 7 drivers become available you could install it in a dual boot configuration to determine if you prefer it or not. It is both a step up and a step back from Windows Vista. Some people will like it while others won't. Only you will be able to determine which you prefer.
If you don't post your COMPLETE model number it's very difficult to assist you. Please try to post in complete sentences with punctuation, capitals, and correct spelling. Toshiba does NOT provide any direct support in these forums. All support is User to User in their spare time.

Hard drive bad sectors?

Hello All,
I have a 15 inch MacBook pro, early 2011 model, with the Fujitsu 7200 rpm hard drive. I'm using the latest version of Yosemite. ( 10.10.2) My computer is loaded with maximum memory, the optional video card. I recently bought a program called Drive Genius 4 because my computer seemed slow and Safari was locking up. I then started getting frequent bad sector error messages from the programs resident hard drive module. It advised me to immediately reformat the hard drive with one pass of zeros, to mark off the bad sectors.
Testing with Mac's hard drive utility, with one of Apple's technician's on the phone, indicated that everything was alright. I decided to re-formated the hard drive using one pass of zeros to mark off the bad sectors. I used Mac's hard drive utility for this. I left one small partition intact because I thought it might have important information that identifies my computer as a real Macintosh product. I then did a clean re-instalation of Yosemite from a download I stored on a backup drive. I then restored my programs from a recent backup. However, I was using a third party backup program called "SuperDuper!" for Mac from Softonic. I used it because it is much faster than Mac's backup. Now, my computer is running much faster. I'm also having no trouble with Safari, except for last night. I got stuck into some internet code that looked like it was trying to get me to install malware by clicking "OK" in a box. I couldn't get out of the tab, even by trying to force quit Safari. So I closed down by using the shut down button. Strangely enough, the site reappeared after I rebooted my computer, even though I have "Safari opens with a new window" in the general Safari preferences. But this time I was able to close the bad window.
I can't get any information about the effectiveness of Drive Genius 4 from Mac tech support because they're not allowed to comment about third party software. But it has excellent reviews from users and Mac publications.
Question 1: Should I take Drive Genius 4s bad sector warnings seriously and replace the hard drive? I did a thorough physical drive test with "Drive Genius 4" immediately after my re-format and it tested alright. I just received a bad sector warning this morning from a module in Drive Genius 4 called "Drive Pulse." It's supposed to constantly monitor ones hard drive for failure. I have read many complaints about my Fujitsu hard drive failing. I've been using computers since the early DOS days and I never had a hard drive fail. I occasionally would develop bad sectors but I used a utily like "Norton" to mark off the bad sectors and move the data. Even though this would occasionally happen, I never had a catastrophic hard drive failure. But now, I'm reading recommendations all over the web to replace any hard drive with the first bad sector warning.
Question 2:, Should I try to reformat the drive again and include the small sector I left intact the last time? This time, I would use Mac's built in backup program, simply out of superstition. I have no knowledge whether any particular backup program is better than another. I don't completely trust Mac tech support because they are restricted by their company's proprietary regulations. (Sorry Mac, I was once a big fan, but your new note books, with their soldered in components, is a low blow. It's obviously made, IMHO, as a form of planned obsolescence.)
Question 3: I read several complaints from self installers who stripped screws to gain access to the had drive. Some people claimed that the screws are made from very soft metal. This actually happened to me with an older 13 inch Mac Notebook, when I added more memory. Luckily, the compartment stays closed with one bad screw.
I don't trust the local Apple's genius crew to do the installation. Why? After numerous visits, they couldn't even diagnose a simple iPhone problem. They were very unpleasant and arrogant, suggesting that my phone's problem didn't exist. I became so exasperated that I threatened to pay off my AT&T phone contract early if they didn't help me. They sent me a new phone if I would agree to leave a deposit until they received my old one. Now that's service!
Thanks in advance for any advise. I apologize for my lengthy letter.

I can't get any information about the effectiveness of Drive Genius 4 from Mac tech support because they're not allowed to comment about third party software. But it has excellent reviews from users and Mac publications.
I can comment about it. Drive Genius will report false positives and may be responsible for causing disk corruption. Get rid of it. It's junk your Mac does not need.
"Mac publications" that accept advertising are necessarily biased, and cannot be relied upon for accurate information. Do you really think they'll publish a negative review about a product from a company supplying the revenue they need to survive?
But now, I'm reading recommendations all over the web to replace any hard drive with the first bad sector warning.
You should. Hard disk drives are wear items. Fortunately, they are also inexpensive enough to have several backups. At the first sign of failure, plan to replace it ASAP. Having a backup plan such as Time Machine makes that a non-event.

How do I check for bad sectors on the hard drive? (Need help soon!)

I've asked this in a different thread but am not getting exactly the question answered completely. I need to run a check on my drive that will test each sector and if a bad sector is found, it will block that sector from being written to with data in the future.
I used to use Disk First Aid or Apple HD Setup or Norton Utilities to do this. Norton does not appear to be made for Mac OSX 10.4.4 and those other utilities appear to be System 9 and earlier utilities only.
Is there some way of doing this with current Apple tools? My original post is at http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=1592160#1592160
Thank you. I've been down since Saturday and really need to get an answer so I can move forward and get my computer back up and running.

There is only one way to do this. Make a bootable backup of your drive to an external Firewire drive (you can use the Restore option of Disk Utility.) Then do the following:
1 Boot from your Tiger DVD. After the installer loads select Disk Utility from the Utilities.
2. After DU loads select your hard drive (this is the entry with the mfgr.'s ID and size) from the left side list. Click on the Partition tab in the DU main window.
3. Set the number of partitions from the dropdown menu (use 1 partition unless you wish to make more.) Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled, if supported.) Click on the Partition button and wait until the volume(s) mount on the Desktop.
4. Select the volume you just created (this is the sub-entry under the drive entry) from the left side list. Click on the Erase tab in the DU main window.
5. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled, if supported.) Click on the Options button, check the button for Zero Data and click on OK to return to the Erase window.
6. Click on the Erase button. The format process will take 30 minutes to an hour or more depending upon the drive size.
By reformatting using the Zero Data option DU will force checking for bad blocks.
If you wish to forego the above procedure you can purchase TechTool Pro (v. 4.1.1) which has a module for scanning the disk for bad blocks. However, repairing the drive can only be done by reformatting.

How to know the size of bad sector block after zero out erase?

I found some problems on my USB external harddisk recently. After I backup all the files, I erased the whole volume by choosing "zero out data" option. According to some web articles, "zero out" detects and marks those bad sectors to avoid further read/write action on the damaged area.
My question is that how can I know the size of disk space marked as bad sector? Because I can only see how many space is used or available when I check a disk in disk utility. There are about 600MB used for my 1TB hard drive. I guess there is some storage used by spotlight or other hidden files. But I have no idea for how many MB is occupied by bad sector...

Yes you can look at see the original number of spares, the number used, and the number remaining spares.
Disk Warrior for one, writes the SMART data to system.log Other programs can also read and report (not sure which if any write to system.log though) those field values from SMART table entries.
IF the number of spares is declining, time to replace. Trouble is OS X hasn't had a good record of reporting I/O errors, let alone remapping. Some 3rd party utilities will. I've found the vendor (WD, Hitachi etc) have the best utility for their own drives, but those are Windows programs or LinuxCD. Also the best way to zero and map out bad sectors, too.

Toshiba DT01ACA050 too many bad sectors on first 5 months

Hi Good day,
I bought a toshiba internal drive 500gb(sealed) from my friend but after weird behavior on my pc I found out that it has too many bad sectors detected by HD tune pro and HDsentinel. He insisted that the drive is in good condition because it was
sealed thus he don't cover it for personal warranty and further instructed that I must be the one to RMA it but dont know how I live in the Philippines and don't have experience rma'ing a hard drive yet. Also it's weird coz it shows a different product model (Hitachi) instead of Toshiba DT model as seen on my hard drive cover.
Win7 32bit
foxconn h55
core - i3
tru rated power supply 500w
other hdd wd 500gb
*Additional info
Hard Disk Summary
Hard Disk Number,0
Interface,"S-ATA Gen3, 6 Gbps"
Disk Controller,"Standard Dual Channel PCI IDE Controller (ATA) [VEN: 8086, DEV: 3B20]"
Disk Location,"Channel 1, Target 0, Lun 0, Device: 0"
Hard Disk Model ID,Hitachi HDS721050DLE630
Firmware Revision,MS1OA650
Hard Disk Serial Number,MSK423Y20Y68LC
Total Size,476937 MB
Power State,Active
Logical Drive(s)
Logical Drive,H: [MUSIC-MOVIES-BACKUP]
Logical Drive,H: [MUSIC-MOVIES-BACKUP]
ATA Information
Hard Disk Cylinders,969021
Hard Disk Heads,16
Hard Disk Sectors,63
ATA Revision,ATA8-ACS version 4
Transport Version,SATA Rev 2.6
Total Sectors,122096646
Bytes Per Sector,4096 [Advanced Format]
Buffer Size,23652 KB
Multiple Sectors,16
Error Correction Bytes,56
Unformatted Capacity,476940 MB
Maximum PIO Mode,4
Maximum Multiword DMA Mode,2
Maximum UDMA Mode,6 Gbps (6)
Active UDMA Mode,6 Gbps (5)
Minimum multiword DMA Transfer Time,120 ns
Recommended Multiword DMA Transfer Time,120 ns
Minimum PIO Transfer Time Without IORDY,120 ns
Minimum PIO Transfer Time With IORDY,120 ns
ATA Control Byte,Valid
ATA Checksum Value,Valid
Acoustic Management Configuration
Acoustic Management,Not supported
Acoustic Management,Disabled
Current Acoustic Level,Default (00h)
Recommended Acoustic Level,Default (00h)
ATA Features
Read Ahead Buffer,"Supported, Enabled"
DMA,Supported
Ultra DMA,Supported
S.M.A.R.T.,Supported
Power Management,Supported
Write Cache,Supported
Host Protected Area,Supported
Advanced Power Management,"Supported, Disabled"
Extended Power Management,"Supported, Enabled"
Power Up In Standby,Supported
48-bit LBA Addressing,Supported
Device Configuration Overlay,Supported
IORDY Support,Supported
Read/Write DMA Queue,Not supported
NOP Command,Supported
Trusted Computing,Not supported
64-bit World Wide ID,0050A3CCCD7F5346
Streaming,Supported
Media Card Pass Through,Not supported
General Purpose Logging,Supported
Error Logging,Supported
CFA Feature Set,Not supported
CFast Device,Not supported
Long Physical Sectors (8),Supported
Long Logical Sectors,Not supported
Write-Read-Verify,Not supported
NV Cache Feature,Not supported
NV Cache Power Mode,Not supported
NV Cache Size,Not supported
Free-fall Control,Not supported
Free-fall Control Sensitivity,Not supported
Nominal Media Rotation Rate,7200 RPM
SSD Features
Data Set Management,Not supported
TRIM Command,Not supported
Deterministic Read After TRIM,Not supported
S.M.A.R.T. Details
Off-line Data Collection Status,Successfully Completed
Self Test Execution Status,Successfully Completed
Total Time To Complete Off-line Data Collection,4444 seconds
Execute Off-line Immediate,Supported
Abort/restart Off-line By Host,Not supported
Off-line Read Scanning,Supported
Short Self-test,Supported
Extended Self-test,Supported
Conveyance Self-test,Not supported
Selective Self-Test,Supported
Save Data Before/After Power Saving Mode,Supported
Enable/Disable Attribute Autosave,Supported
Error Logging Capability,Supported
Short Self-test Estimated Time,1 minutes
Extended Self-test Estimated Time,74 minutes
Last Short Self-test Result,Never Started
Last Short Self-test Date,Never Started
Last Extended Self-test Result,Never Started
Last Extended Self-test Date,Never Started
Security Mode
Security Mode,Supported
Security Erase,Supported
Security Erase Time,98 minutes
Security Enhanced Erase Feature,Not supported
Security Enhanced Erase Time,Not supported
Security Enabled,No
Security Locked,No
Security Frozen,Yes
Security Counter Expired,No
Security Level,High
Serial ATA Features
S-ATA Compliance,Yes
S-ATA I Signaling Speed (1.5 Gps),Supported
S-ATA II Signaling Speed (3 Gps),Supported
S-ATA Gen3 Signaling Speed (6 Gps),Supported
Receipt Of Power Management Requests From Host,Supported
PHY Event Counters,Supported
Non-Zero Buffer Offsets In DMA Setup FIS,"Supported, Disabled"
DMA Setup Auto-Activate Optimization,"Supported, Disabled"
Device Initiating Interface Power Management,"Supported, Disabled"
In-Order Data Delivery,"Supported, Disabled"
Asynchronous Notification,Not supported
Software Settings Preservation,"Supported, Enabled"
Native Command Queuing (NCQ),Supported
Queue Length,32
Disk Information
Disk Family,Deskstar 7K1000.D
Form Factor,"3.5"" "
Capacity,"500 GB (500 x 1,000,000,000 bytes)"
Number Of Disks,1
Number Of Heads,1
Rotational Speed,7200 RPM
Rotation Time,8.33 ms
Average Rotational Latency,4.17 ms
Disk Interface,Serial-ATA/600
Buffer-Host Max. Rate,600 MB/seconds
Buffer Size,32768 KB
Drive Ready Time (typical),? seconds
Average Seek Time,? ms
Track To Track Seek Time,? ms
Full Stroke Seek Time,? ms
Width,101.6 mm (4.0 inch)
Depth,147.0 mm (5.8 inch)
Height,26.1 mm (1.0 inch)
Weight,450 grams (1.0 pounds)
Required power for spinup,"3,300 mA"
Power required (seek),7.0 W
Power required (idle),5.0 W
Power required (standby),2.0 W
Manufacturer,Hitachi Global Storage Technologies
Manufacturer Website,http://www.hgst.com

Hi! Sense no one is replying. If your getting bad sectors; it's time to save your data and replace your HD. It's only a matter of time before your HD fails.
Dokie!!
PS I'm feeling a little crazy tonight. Nice friend you have (not)
I Love my Satellite L775D-S7222 Laptop. Some days you're the windshield, Some days you're the bug. The Computer world is crazy. If you have answers to computer problems, pass them forward.

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