Is my hard drive failing?

[Rob5436]

My computer – Dell Latitude E5530 laptop, Windows 7, HGST hard drive

Three months ago I began getting the message “Windows detected a hard disk problem”. I initially panicked, made sure everything was backed up, and then started running some scans. At the time I ran the system file checker and a ChkDsk. All was fine. I then downloaded PartitionGuru and ran the “Verify or Repair Bad Sectors” and all was still well. Mostly excellent sectors, some good. I ran CCleaner, my anti-virus and malware programs. My computer continued to operate well. Over the last three months I would continue to receive this message occasionally. A week or two ago, when I ran PartitionGuru, all the sectors were excellent or good except one which was damaged. I repaired that and my computer continued to function fine.

However, the hard disk problem error message has been appearing more frequently in the last few days. So,  I did all of the above. The system file checker and ChkDsk were clear. I also ran the full diagnostic test at the Dell web site https://www.dell.com/support/article/us/en/19/sln114988/dell-diagnostic-tools-to-diagnose-and-fix-hardware-problems-on-your-dell-pc--tablet-or-servers?lang=en twice, most recently last evening, and my hard drive passed both times. This time however there was a change at PartitionGuru. These are the results over several days:



Excellent   57,060      54,803                    54,503
Good        3,588        5.833                      6,139
Normal         38                   58                            49
General           11                    5                             8
Poor                3                    2                             3
Severe         2                   1                              0
Damaged             0               0                             0

It appears that the quality of the sectors is declining. Other than all of this, my computer is operating just fine.

My question – does this suggest that my hard drive is in the process of failing?   

Rob

[patio]

Never even heard of Partition Guru...for the most accurate results test the drive with the software from the HDD manuf. site...

[DaveLembke]

I use crystaldiskinfo to look at S.M.A.R.T on drives for info on health, wear, features, and specs.
https://crystalmark.info/download/index-e.html

I use the 30-day trial of passmark benchmark on my systems when looking for performance issues.
https://www.passmark.com/products/pt.htm

About 10 years ago I short-stroked a drive and used a hard drive performance tool that graphed out performance so I was able to figure out a good size for the short-stroke partition to get maximum performance from the short-stroke space, then pointed my paging to this partition and a few other read/write heavy programs. Then SSD's came out and made short-stroking pointless if you had a SSD drive.  https://lifehacker.com/how-to-short-stroke-your-hard-drive-for-optimal-speed-1598306074

Lastly if you have a drive with a bad sector count greater than 0 ... The drive should no longer be trusted for important data! Sometimes sector failure is like cancer and it gets worse and could go from bad to worse fast. On that note I have a first generation SATA drive of 164.7GB capacity manufactured in 2004 with over 70,000 run hours and 8000 boots that I use on one of my older systems as a video editing drive and it has 46 bad sectors, but the bad sector count has remained the same ever since I got it for free 7 years ago. This drive I believe has bad sectors from the drive getting bumped while it was running which scratched one of the platters in a spot where the head is suppose to have a small gap tighter than the thickness of a hair, but if the drive is bumped and spinning it can scratch the surface damaging the platter area and wiping out a string of sectors. Other sector failures can be related to the control board that is part of the hard drive failing and flagging sectors as bad in which it can quickly flag a bunch to never be used again even if the data on the platter is flawless, because it was unable to read from the sector and so it flagged it as bad, when it cant tell that it itself is the problem. Some data recovery centers swap these boards on drives that are sent in for data recovery to get data recovered that is there but the controller board is toast.

[VintronNZ]

Thank you for sharing Partition Guru , checking it out it looks like a Swiss army knife of disk tools. I hope they will continue developing the program and supplying the free version. Differently worth checking out.

As the others have said the drive is failing and will stop working sometime. Also as the drive deteriorates it will get slower and slower.

I would look at the data space you are using  and replace it with an SSD. If you are using say 160gb a 250gb ssd may be enough.     

[patio]

From the research i did it's not an app i would pay for by any means.

[Rob5436]

Thank you for all of your answers. It has taken me some time to respond because I have been traveling, but also because it has been quite a challenge to sort this all out with a great deal of confusing and conflicting information. I will take this a piece at a time. Please be aware, I am familiar to some extent with all of this, but no expert. I look forward to any suggestions on where I have done something wrong.

Patio – I had tried to use the diagnostics for HGST earlier. When I open WinDFT, the program they suggest here https://www.hgst.com/support/hard-drive-support/downloads, no drives appear on the list. Then I find at places like this https://www.lifewire.com/windows-drive-fitness-test-review-2624565 and others who say that test can't scan the hard drive that Windows was installed to. Which means, I assume I can't use it for my hard drive. So – I then went looking for other options. Also – I don't believe I paid for PartitionGuru. I think I am using a free version. Why don't you like that as an apt?

DaveLembke – I used crystaldiskinfo last night and again this morning. Last night I panicked. The Health Status was Red -  Bad. The only item on the list that was bad was the first one – Read Error Rate. I did some investigating on that and saw something somewhere about that not being a critical item. I was going to find that information again today to see what that means. However, when I just ran the test this morning, the Health Status shows Blue – Good!! with the Read Error Rate showing what appears to be appropriate numbers.
         
As I said, I went looking for other free diagnostic tools and found several lists of options. From them I choose and did:

HD Tune  http://www.hdtune.com/. The Error Scan appears to be similar to PartitionGuru, but only gives two options – OK and Damaged. Mine was all OK. You will note my PartitionGuru results also said none of the sectors were damaged, but they appear to be declining in quality. According to the HDTUNE web site, the free version (which I downloaded) was supposed to include the Health (S.M.A.R.T) option, but when I click on that tab it just says “Health Status n/a” at the bottom.

SeaTools for Windows by Seagate  I ran the Long Generic Scan and passed.

As mentioned in my original post, I also did a diagnostic through Dell and my hard drive passed.

So – where does this leave me??? My hard drive seems to be passing tests. I still get the message that “Windows detected a hard disk problem” which apparently some people just find an irritant and find ways to stop the message from showing up. On PartitionGuru it would appear that the quality of my sectors is declining and I did have one damaged sector which I repaired.

Then, there is one new problem. I have now been getting an error message from Intel Rapid Storage Technology that says “your system is reporting one or more events and data may be at risk.”  And then issues with the disk at Port 0. When I follow that I get the option to “reset disk to normal” which I have now done several times. When I have looked online to try to figure out what this means, most of what I read suggests my hard drive is failing. If my hard drive is failing, my plan is to buy a new computer. I would like to do that before this one fails so I can have an easier transition. My big question is how fast should I move, or in DaveLembke's language, how quickly if I do have a cancer,  is this cancer likely to be spreading?

Rob

[patio]

the drive is failing...

[Rob5436]

I don't suppose there is any way to know how quickly?

[patio]

If i could say that i'd be in the stock market...and independently wealthy.

[Mark.]

years ago under XP, I had a PC which MS reported at every boot, "hard drive failure imminent, backup now" sort of messages.
that PC managed to go for another two years.

the reverse of that is I've had PC's  shut down after a full days use without any signs of issues only to not start the next day with dead drives.

so basically, "how long is a piece of string?" would apply here...
with hindsight being a wonderful thing, replace drive/PC ASAP or at the very least - backup, Backup, BACKUP. 

[BC_Programmer]

The "Windows detected a hard disk problem" message(s) comes from SMART. SMART (Self Monitoring, Analysis, and Reporting Technology) is a feature that has been integrated into hard drives for some time where the drives are able to monitor and report certain statistics about their health.

CrystalDiskInfo is pretty straightforward in presenting this information. Fundamentally it is a series of values and their thresholds. Items approaching those thresholds are cause for concern and values going beyond their thresholds are of greater concern still.

Hard Disk failure is not something that can be reliably predicted. But a drive that is failing SMART and is reporting unrecoverable read errors is not one that I would bank on lasting much longer. As Mark says, It could very well last you for years, or the next time you power it up the drive may be completely undetectable and refuse to work at all.

I've had drives show signs of failure that lasted for years afterwards. I've got drives which report as "Caution" or even "Failing" in CrystalDiskInfo for example which are still working. But I don't trust any of them and they got replaced and moved to other computers which don't do or store anything important.

[Rob5436]

I would like to thank all of you for taking the time to comment on my dilemma. Many of your comments have helped me to feel less guilty about the possibility of buying a new computer while this one may still work for a while. Clearly there is no way to know and I just need to make the best decision now - which is to buy a new computer soon, hoping I beat the "crash". Meanwhile, yes, I am constantly backing things up. So - thanks again! Robin

[patio]

If the current PC is adequate no need for a new PC...it is however time for a new hard drive...

[Geek-9pm]

Everybody is tight. In some way or another.

Bottom line...
The cost of a good hard drive is less than almost anything else.
You can get a used hard drive that has been pulled from commercial service due to upgrades. Such drives are often in excellent condition. The price is so low yu buy two and use the one that works best.

A quick search on eBay for 3.5 SATA 250 GB shows over a dozen for sale under $15 and free shipping. What is your  time worth?   Do you pay yourself minimum wages?

Just get a replacement drive! 

On of many, may on eBay:
Western Digital 250 GB  US $13.99

That seller has a very good reputation and has done a lot of business. And there are others like him.
EDIT: Correction. That is a 320 GB and 7500 Rpm. That is even better
Just get a replacement drive! 

[patio]

I would never buy a used HDD...