Hard Disk Scan

[237SJ]

OK a bit vague I know but when a hard disk scan is done and you get a block/grid of green squares and one square is red (damaged) is that reason to replace a hard drive?

[SlackAlice]

Not enough info? What do you mean by a Hard Disk scan? What O/S you using?

[Buenchico]

A few bad sectors on a disk are nothing to worry about. Windows automatically leaves them unused.

[Old_Geezer]

Well the colours will depend on what scanner you use.

If I started to get bad areas on a hard drive I'd not immediately rush out in panic and buy a new one
: but I would wonder if it is a sign that the thing has started to fail. So I'd have an incentive to ensure I had back up anything I need just in case, and keep an eye on the situation to see if it is an isolated incident or the first of a series of failures.

[237SJ]

I am worried it`s going to fail OG. I knocked the laptop a while ago and it made the most horrendous noise. I could hear it was something that`s rotating so was pretty sure it`s the hard drive. Sometimes it freezes on start up and I get a ticking sound. Having seen a hard drive, the ticking is apparently the little arm being unable to read the drive and going back on itself. The scan has left a desktop icon which shows the red square amongst all the healthy green ones. I know I will have to get a new hard drive but I just wondered how imminent that will be.

[Old_Geezer]

Fans also rotate. Just keep an eye on it.

If you are already experiencing problems you suspect may be down to drive issues then it may pay you to run a good scanner overnight that can make multiple passes over each bit, check where data is not being read consistently correctly and recover/move it. I'm unsure if Windows claim to do this automatically these days but I have Spinrite (www.grc.com) which has impressed me over the years. Not cheap though.