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My main hard drive (Windows) shows some bad sectors, the number of sectors hasn't changed since I discovered them 2 months ago. However there's no clue how long they have been there.

I have another identical drive which is in good condition.

Should I move my data to the second drive or keep using it?

Bad sector report:

enter image description here

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    Oh, and check if its under warranty, you might be able to get this drive replaced, even if its not completely dead.
    – Journeyman Geek ♦
    Commented Mar 19, 2015 at 12:50

3 Answers 3

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Yes, though more than the reallocated sectors count, the current pending sectors count and uncorrectable sectors count are scary. Modern hard drives work around errors - and these are errors it can't work around.

I wouldn't trust this as a primary drive - I'd do a full backup, restore and test the other drive, then reformat the drive with error checking(and see what happens). It'll probably do alright for a secondary drive for transient data you don't mind losing for a while longer.

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This HDD has way too many bad (361) and pending (221) sectors. You need to backup your data as soon as possible. It needs replacing. WD Black drives have a 5 year warranty so you might still be able to RMA it. You can check your warranty status here: http://products.wdc.com/support/kb.ashx?id=NffFsU

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  • heh. I was wondering about that, but assumed the OP would have checked warranty status. I guess you guys do have the advantage of actually knowing these first hand for the drives you support.
    – Journeyman Geek ♦
    Commented Mar 21, 2015 at 3:34
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You should keep a backup. Increasing number of bad sectors are a sign of a failing drive. Depends if your budget can do it. But replace it if you can. Otherwise, try some bad sector fixing tools such as HDD regenerator.

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    HDD Regenerator looks like the equivalent of chkdsk /r (and SMART). It can't actually repair a physically bad sector, but it tries to recover the information from it. The reviewer on one download site found it to be useless. If you have actually used it and found it to be effective, you should add your own experience to the answer. If you mentioned it as a long shot, qualify your answer. Your other recommendations are good advice. If you don't have personal experience with HDD Regenerator, maybe edit your answer to recommend chkdsk /r.
    – fixer1234
    Commented Mar 19, 2015 at 3:28

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