{"id":2268,"date":"2019-03-07T07:00:23","date_gmt":"2019-03-07T12:00:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/langa.com\/?p=2268"},"modified":"2019-03-08T10:15:49","modified_gmt":"2019-03-08T15:15:49","slug":"a-reader-asks-my-500-gb-hard-drive-has-one-bad-sector-what-does-that-really-mean","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/langa.com\/index.php\/2019\/03\/07\/a-reader-asks-my-500-gb-hard-drive-has-one-bad-sector-what-does-that-really-mean\/","title":{"rendered":"A reader asks: “My 500 GB hard drive has one bad sector; what does that really mean?”"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

A bad sector is a small area on the hard drive\u2019s surface that’s unreliable or unreadable; and that the drive\u2019s own software, or the PC\u2019s operating system, has marked as off limits<\/em> so no new data will be written there. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

By itself, it’s nothing to worry about. For example, one sector on a typical NTFS-formatted drive holds just 4KB \u2014 that\u2019s KB<\/strong><\/em>, not MB! <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Most drives are built to cope with some bad sectors; they ship with spare sectors<\/strong><\/em>, just for this purpose: When a damaged sector is discovered, it can be marked as bad, and any data that was in that sector can be recovered and moved to a spare sector, which will then be re-mapped to take the place of the damaged sector. It\u2019s usually all automatic and invisible, unless you go looking for it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Finding one bad sector is insignificant; but finding many<\/strong><\/em> bad sectors, or a steadily increasing number of bad sectors, is a definite sign of trouble.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How can you tell what’s trivial and what’s not? Check the drive\u2019s internal SMART<\/strong> data (more info<\/a>). A free SMART app (examples<\/a>) can show you an incredible amount of statistical detail about the health and status of your hard drive \u2014 sometimes even giving you an estimated future day, date, and time<\/em><\/strong> when the drive is projected to exceed its safe operating limits.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So: Don\u2019t worry about a bad sector here or there. Absent any other indicator of trouble, it\u2019s not a big deal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Related info\/more detail: Should you trust a hard drive after a major error?<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Permalink: https:\/\/langa.com\/?p=2268<\/a><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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(Image by Evan-Amos<\/a> – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0<\/a>, Link<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A bad sector is a small area on the hard drive\u2019s surface that’s unreliable or unreadable; and that the drive\u2019s own software, or the PC\u2019s operating system, has marked as off limits so no new data will be written there. By itself, it’s nothing to worry about. For example, one sector on a typical NTFS-formatted…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[7,10,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2268","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-a-reader-asks","category-science-and-tech","category-windows"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paaiox-AA","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":861,"url":"https:\/\/langa.com\/index.php\/2018\/10\/31\/a-reader-asks-how-do-i-remove-a-hard-disk-bad-sector\/","url_meta":{"origin":2268,"position":0},"title":"A reader asks: How do I remove a bad hard disk sector?","author":"Fred Langa","date":"2018-10-31","format":false,"excerpt":"Q: How do I remove a hard disk bad sector?\u00a0 (via Quora) A: Try chkdsk (Windows) or fsck (Linux); both can detect and repair some kinds of damage to a hard drive. But have a care: Although some software can restore some bad sectors to service, it may be best\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "A reader asks..."","block_context":{"text":"A reader asks...","link":"https:\/\/langa.com\/index.php\/category\/a-reader-asks\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/langa.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/SMART.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/langa.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/SMART.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/langa.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/SMART.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/langa.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/SMART.jpg?resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":1716,"url":"https:\/\/langa.com\/index.php\/2019\/01\/24\/a-reader-asks-my-hard-drive-is-too-slow-but-i-cant-afford-to-upgrade-to-ssd-of-equivalent-size-what-can-i-do\/","url_meta":{"origin":2268,"position":1},"title":"A reader asks: “My hard drive is too slow, but I can’t afford to upgrade to an equivalent SSD. What can I do?”","author":"Fred Langa","date":"2019-01-24","format":false,"excerpt":"First, be sure your hard drive is the true bottleneck: If you're using Windows, open Task Manager\/More Details and select the Performance tab. If your hard drive is a truly the bottleneck, you'll see something like this: Near-100 percent drive utilization, while the rest of the system is loafing, might\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "A reader asks..."","block_context":{"text":"A reader asks...","link":"https:\/\/langa.com\/index.php\/category\/a-reader-asks\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/langa.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/HighDiskActivity.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":3757,"url":"https:\/\/langa.com\/index.php\/2019\/11\/20\/how-do-you-detect-if-your-computer-has-a-boot-sector-virus\/","url_meta":{"origin":2268,"position":2},"title":"“How do you detect if your computer has a boot sector virus?”","author":"Fred Langa","date":"2019-11-20","format":false,"excerpt":"(Answer requested by Luis Fuentes) The most-certain way is to boot your PC with an external, self-contained (a.k.a. \"portable\") anti-malware tool, such as one contained on a flash drive or DVD. (Examples.) These self-contained apps don't rely on the installed operating system, and can instead examine your entire hard drive\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "A reader asks..."","block_context":{"text":"A reader asks...","link":"https:\/\/langa.com\/index.php\/category\/a-reader-asks\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1697,"url":"https:\/\/langa.com\/index.php\/2019\/01\/21\/a-reader-asks-i-thought-an-old-external-drive-was-full-but-it-shows-up-as-empty-and-needing-format-when-i-plug-it-in-is-it-really-unused-or-broken\/","url_meta":{"origin":2268,"position":3},"title":"A reader asks: “I thought an old external drive was full, but it shows up as empty and needing format when I plug it in. Is it really unused, or broken?”","author":"Fred Langa","date":"2019-01-21","format":false,"excerpt":"Badly scrambled, is my guess. An error during shutdown, or storage, or reboot, may have damaged the disk's MBR or Boot Sector or GUID table (depending on how the disk was set up). If there were files on the disk, they're still there, but the OS can't see or access\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "A reader asks..."","block_context":{"text":"A reader asks...","link":"https:\/\/langa.com\/index.php\/category\/a-reader-asks\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1772,"url":"https:\/\/langa.com\/index.php\/2019\/01\/30\/a-reader-asks-is-it-true-that-none-of-your-data-gets-permanently-deleted-from-your-hard-drive\/","url_meta":{"origin":2268,"position":4},"title":"A reader asks: “Is it true that none of your data gets permanently deleted from your hard drive?”","author":"Fred Langa","date":"2019-01-30","format":false,"excerpt":"(Question asked by reader Tevin Gotti*.) No, it's not true. Lots of data gets permanently deleted all the time. Data that\u2019s been fully and completely overwritten is beyond recovery. But it takes extra steps to \"fully and completely\" overwrite data. When that's not done, all bets are off: It might\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "A reader asks..."","block_context":{"text":"A reader asks...","link":"https:\/\/langa.com\/index.php\/category\/a-reader-asks\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2177,"url":"https:\/\/langa.com\/index.php\/2019\/02\/27\/a-reader-asks-whats-the-cheapest-way-to-network-an-external-hard-drive\/","url_meta":{"origin":2268,"position":5},"title":"A reader asks: “What’s the cheapest way to network an external hard drive?”","author":"Fred Langa","date":"2019-02-27","format":false,"excerpt":"How about $0.00? Plug the drive into any PC that's on the network; use that PC's built-in OS tools to \"share\" the drive on the net. For example, let's say you plug the drive into a Windows 10 PC. When Windows recognizes the drive and assigns it a drive letter,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "A reader asks..."","block_context":{"text":"A reader asks...","link":"https:\/\/langa.com\/index.php\/category\/a-reader-asks\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/langa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2268","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/langa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/langa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/langa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/langa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2268"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/langa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2268\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2303,"href":"https:\/\/langa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2268\/revisions\/2303"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/langa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2268"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/langa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2268"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/langa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2268"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}