how to know if the bad sectors where found on a USB powered hard drive are physical or logical ?

Toggle sidebar Toggle sidebar
H

hadi suliman

Distinguished
Dec 21, 2011
79
0
18,630
i have encountered this problem when i tried to move a video file from External WD USB powered hard drive-MY BOOK 1TB- to another drive !! then an error popped up " cannot read from the source file or hard disk" the video file is perfectly fine i opened it and it worked with no problem BUT it will not move any where(CUT or COPY) !! except the hard drive it self (MY BOOK)..

i did some tests...

1-windows chldsk > the result is : error cannot continue !!
2-WD Drive Utilities >all tests> the result is : error or failed to continue !!
3-WinDlg Data life Guard >full scan> the result is : stopped Too many bad sectors !!
4-HD Tune Pro>health Tab determined an error on file or index number 65 ,the scan result is

http://goo.gl/photos/LqET1gXktTLdut7m9

1% bad sectors...

** all tests except the last one telling me that the hard drive is not usable !! and this is not correct

NOTE: this is the only file did that with me !! i moved lately over than 200 gig from the drive with no problem the hard drive is always visible and never did anything unusual except this time and this file !!
i red an article taking about my problem you can see a small portion of this article underneath

""Most of bad sectors are recoverable on USB powered drive, unless you have physically abuse them like dropping on the floor.The Top SecretThe secret is that USB powered devices keep writing to the disk at lower magnetic strength while they experiencing lower power conditions through a bad USB connection. This cannot be rectified using format utility""

https://community.wd.com/t/how-to-eliminate-potential-p...

and that somehow gives me hope

that's why i asked about the differences between physical and bad sectors and what i have encountered here is physical or logical bad sectors ? how to solve it ? and if the hard is not in a bad condition so why all the tests are failed to continue or complete ?

thank you for reading
 
Solution
Shaun o
If the drive is old or has had a lot of use, then yes it may have hard errors.
The tests that you did confirm this with no doubt at all.

Copy the file you intend to transfer to another drive.
To the route of the Usb drive it is contained on.

Right click and rename the file.

Then try to copy the file to the route of the intended drive you wish to.

By route I mean only the drive letter assignment of each drive.

Eg. F:\ video.avi to C:\
If you still get an error transfering the file from drive to drive.
Then I would recommend, you try to backup as much data of the drive producing errors as you can to another drive with enough free space.

Then format the Usb drive.
Scan for bad sectors or cluster, cylinders of the Usb drive and...
Sort by date Sort by votes
InvalidError

InvalidError

Titan
Moderator
May 18, 2007
23,815
5,265
108,890
That bit about writing using less power sounds completely bogus to me: you either apply strong enough magnetism to erase/overwrite the existing bits or you don't, you can't reduce the strength below what is required to flip the magnetic domains.

Soft read errors may be recoverable by rewriting the affected sectors but you still need to wonder why the sector got weak in the first place. I wouldn't trust a HDD after discovering a flaky read/write behavior on it.
 
Upvote 1 Downvote
N

NewbieGeek

Reputable
Oct 11, 2015
306
1
4,860
I would try reformatting your usb hdd if you haven't already, that seemed to work for me on a couple of flash drives. - WARNING this will destroy any data currently on the drive.

If that doesn't work, I'd be inclined to agree with InvalidError in mistrusting the drive from here out.
 
Upvote 1 Downvote
Shaun o

Shaun o

Illustrious
Oct 7, 2007
6,113
1
41,960
If the drive is old or has had a lot of use, then yes it may have hard errors.
The tests that you did confirm this with no doubt at all.

Copy the file you intend to transfer to another drive.
To the route of the Usb drive it is contained on.

Right click and rename the file.

Then try to copy the file to the route of the intended drive you wish to.

By route I mean only the drive letter assignment of each drive.

Eg. F:\ video.avi to C:\
If you still get an error transfering the file from drive to drive.
Then I would recommend, you try to backup as much data of the drive producing errors as you can to another drive with enough free space.

Then format the Usb drive.
Scan for bad sectors or cluster, cylinders of the Usb drive and have a program mark the sectors not to be used to write or read data from.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Solution
You must log in or register to reply here.

TRENDING THREADS

Latest posts

Moderators online

Share this page

COMPANY
RESOURCES
FOLLOW
Top Bottom