ADATA External Hard drive dropped to 9% health

[The N]

Hey guys,

Lately I came across an issue with my ADATA HD710 External Hard drive. The issue is related to its health, which abruptly went down to 9%, which has been used for 2 months only; I just stored my Game ISOs in it. But that 9% health was killing me, so I used HD tune Pro program and ran Error scan. The result is very clear, no Bad sectors allocation whatsoever, but under the health tab, I can see the warning on "Reallocated Sector Count" and "Reallocated Sector Event".

The External Hard drive was formatted before the tests were conducted.

Additionally, I ran Surface test via Hard drive Sentinel program. It's main window displaying 9% health of HD710 external hdd, but bad sector hasn't been identified yet during the run.

During the tests, the temperatures were touching 50C as I am in Non-AC room and ambient is 30C.

So, I am very confused here with the information above softwares are providing. If the health is 9%, which Sentinel is showing at bottom, then test should show the bad sectors on the blocks.

What do you think, is the reason behind that confusing information?

Storage Model
ADATA HD710 Military Grade External Hard Drive (It's without warranty)

Looking forward to the helpful replies.

Thanks.

 

[dorsetknob]

The issue is related to its health, which abruptly went down to 9%, which has been used for 2 months only;

(It's without warranty)

Copy all you want to save to another drive/cloud
Replace that drive ASAP its about to go to Silicon heaven( probably)

 

[DeathtoGnomes]

Quite possible the drive did overheat and damage the platters.

 

[IceScreamer]

Yea 50C sounds like a rather high temp, so that's probably caused those issues.

 

[Laki89]

Quite possible the drive did overheat and damage the platters.

Or it was dropped on ground by clumsy person, platters got damaged, so now they are heating Hard drive

Anyway replace drive as soon as possible and don't storage anything on that bad drive because data on that drive can be lost

 

[The N]

@dorsetknob
The drive is formatted before the test was conducted. Means, I already shifted all my data stored to another drive.

@IceScreamer @DeathtoGnomes
The Temperature only shoot to 50C when it's under surface tests period. Right now, when I am typing, the drive's running at 34C, Idle though, while I copied at 57GB file with 45C max temp.

@Laki89
Well, that drive is shockproof and waterproof that's why it said Military Grade Hard disk. When I first got this drive, I tested it's shockproof feature by throwing at floor. It did survive and nothing had happened to it regarding to its functionality and/or health drop. It was working perfectly well for many days.

Now, I would need to know why the surface test is not recognizing those bad sectors? As you can see in the above screens, more than 2 hours deep scan tests and nothing has been found.
Could it be software incorrect inaccuracy during tests?

Also, is there anyway to repair those bad sectors and improve the health condition? I did once with the internal hard drive through HDD Regenerator which had worked great.

 

[MIRTAZAPINE]

Your hdd is probably going to be dead soon it is matter of time which I don't know when. Other Smart data software also show this same result right?

Even for "military" hdd build to resist shock. It is still bad for a hdd to get any shock. Damage may not be apparent quickly but it is overtime.

I have one of the best shock resistance drive the iomega ego with build in shock absorber and also an external rubber shock belt that can withstand 2m drop and survived. I never dare test it. Though I drop it once at waist level while it operating which is the worse time for it t happen. Drive survive for 2 years more after that and I eventually extracted the drive out to my pc. Until Smart errors start popping which by then force me to retire it.
Backup your data don't risk it.

You can still use this drive for non critical stuff or data which you don't value. For me for drives like this I would just use it as an archive of backup I made for a good condition drive and just unplugged it putting it somewhere safe.

 

[ShiBDiB]

Semi on topic... "Military Grade" is the funniest buzz word because the military is the master of using the lowest bidder and cheapest products that break often (requiring a service contract to go along with the purchase order).

 

[R-T-B]

Your HDD is damaged. The reason the damage is not showing in a "surface scan" is because the sectors have been remapped in a last ditch effort to save itself. You have a ton of remapped sectors. It's running out. It's a losing battle and it will be lost sooner than later.

 

[The N]

@R-T-B Thanks for response. And yes, it looks like it gonna end sooner than later. As I tried few ways to recover the bad sectors, but USB Hard drive don't seems to respond to any of the methods that has been tried so far.

 

[INSTG8R]

tested it's shockproof feature by throwing at floor. It did survive and nothing had happened to it regarding to its functionality and/or health drop. It was working perfectly well for many days.

Well there’s your problem...

 

[The N]

Well there’s your problem...

Most probably, yes. I think I made a mistake back then, and now it's unrecoverable.

 

[R-T-B]

Most probably, yes. I think I made a mistake back then, and now it's unrecoverable.

Well, at least you won't do it again. Expensive lesson but take what you can from it...

 

[kn00tcn]

what is '9% health'? what a nonsensical measurement, hate it when software makes up estimates rather than simply focusing on the number of issues

either there are bad sectors or there are reallocated ones, the main thing is that the number of them doesnt increase like cancer

so for (hypothetical) example, if there was a power outage or gforce during use, if it resulted in either physical damage or a loss of the data that was in the middle of transmission, the drive notes this event & increases a counter... most software sees this & says the 'health' is lower, but in this example we know for a fact that the health didnt go down, it was a one time failure... i already have multiple drives with 'ultra dma crc error count' of 1 or more due to the cable shifting or unplugging, i have to stare at that number for the rest of the life of each drive

Now, I would need to know why the surface test is not recognizing those bad sectors? As you can see in the above screens, more than 2 hours deep scan tests and nothing has been found.
Could it be software incorrect inaccuracy during tests?

Also, is there anyway to repair those bad sectors and improve the health condition? I did once with the internal hard drive through HDD Regenerator which had worked great.

read the red text again, reallocated doesnt mean bad sectors (yet)

when a sector is reallocated, the drive notes that location & makes sure to never write to it again, the problem is when this continues to happen, you'll eventually run out of usable or spare sectors & the drive will stop working properly

now you have two screenshots where the reallocated increased, so... the cancer is spreading (or the damage was already there, but new writes didnt happen to come across it)

 

[Vya Domus]

50c seems unlikely to have damaged anything , but yeah the drive is on it's way out.

 

[FreedomEclipse]

When I first got this drive, I tested it's shockproof feature by throwing at floor.

You remind me of an former old friend of mine who threw his Guinea pig at the floor to see what would happen when he was a kid

 

[Komshija]

It's possible that platters are scratched so HDD positioned hardly-readable sectors into another section of the drive. Since you very likely damaged the platters by dropping HDD on the floor, it's time to replace it and avoid such tests in the future.