PST = Primary Self Test

Most modern hard drives now will secretly scan themselfs for bad sectors and remember them. You won't notice the difference. So when you save stuff, it will be safe. I have not come across a hard disk that saved any of my stuff on a bad sector.

But remember, that its the no1 rule to always keep a copy, or backup your stuff, because when these modern hard drives fail, they fail in a big way and you loose everything.

Thanks!

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Joep - http://www.disktuna.com - video & photo repair & recovery service

Okay. So summarizing and swinging back to question
"I have some HDDs with badblocks, if I download files they can be recorded in these badblocks (bad sectors) or there is some technology that does not allow this and what is the name of this technology and if it works automatically"

- Drive self scans for errors. According to some sources it starts self scanning as quick as after 20 seconds being idle. I assume these are read tests. As drive itself has no idea which sector contains user data or not drive will make problematic sectors pending which are then reallocated at write and added to grown defect list rather than just reallocate them on it's own.

- ATA spec indeed reports write errors but it does not verify data so these errors are probably related to serious 'meta data' errors such as address markers not being found.

So to my surprise indeed, the drive's main strategy to prevent writes to bad blocks appears to be finding those blocks ahead of time. So then theoretically under 'perfect storm' conditions it would be possible to write data to 'bad sectors'?

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Joep - http://www.disktuna.com - video & photo repair & recovery service

Yet there are drives which reallocate sectors without any write operations... I have a Seagate ST2000DL003 which behaves like that, each time I plug it again (which I haven't done in a long time, as its whole contents have been transfered to a healthy drive), the number of reallocated sectors increases regularly, according to HD Sentinel, while the drive stays totally idle. Last time I checked (phew, that was almost 3 years ago !), it was at 368.

Could it be retrying (pending or any) sectors when idle and then when it all of a sudden gets a good read, then re-allocate? That way reallocation can be explained even when idle.

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Joep - http://www.disktuna.com - video & photo repair & recovery service

yes, i think it relocates it if it can recover data from a pending one.
at least it should
pepe

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Adatmentés - Data recovery

what is the name of this function and where is it located? does this prevent files from being saved in bad sectors of HD?

I still have doubts about this issue, if I download files to an HDD with bad sectors (badblocks) can these files be saved in these bad sectors? if files are saved in these bad sectors they will corrupt and the DVD burning will be bad

I have 2000 IDE HDDs and new HDDs in both I transferred or downloaded important files

I didn't see the further posts, others already replied.

Just an idea: there's a program named h2testw - originally developed for memory cards testing, but you can try that on HDD too. Firstly it overwrites the whole partition (-1 MB area) with it's own generated data, and secondly reads / verifies back the previously written data. If no error found you're the lucky guy, if error found, it could be your files on that bad block too.

I still have doubts about this issue, if I download files to an HDD with bad sectors (badblocks) can these files be saved in these bad sectors? if files are saved in these bad sectors they will corrupt and the DVD burning will be bad

I have 2000 IDE HDDs and new HDDs in both I transferred or downloaded important files

Nobody answered what is the name of this automatic technology of reallocate and issollate defective sectors of the HD where this function is located and if this function is present in HDDs of the year 2000 IDE 16GB