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Data recovery and disk repair questions and discussions related to old-fashioned SATA, SAS, SCSI, IDE, MFM hard drives - any type of storage device that has moving parts
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Error 5 - Reallocated Sectors Count

May 18th, 2007, 4:36

Hi to All!

I have a laptop Toshiba with 100GB HDD almost new. After a mechanical shock, the Hdd was damaged, surface scratch, and some sectors are not usable anymore.
I recovered all the files (almost 80 GB) from HDD (It is a SATA (v 6)). I used Hiren’s boot CD.
I have the error (5) Reallocated Sectors Count given by SMART. Every time when I boot and it says to replace the Hdd because I am in danger to lose all the data.
Question 1: There is any chance to repair (software repair) and use again the present Hdd?
What I have in mind: I want to isolate the sectors bad and to forget of that area of Hdd where the surface is bad and to reduce the usable size of Hdd from 100GB to 80GB for example.
I understand very clear that error (5) mentioned above means that all the spare area hidden, used to remap the bad sectors is full, but what I have in mind is to wipe all the information about the bad sectors after I reduce the size of disk to 80GB.
In order to reduce the size of the disk, I intend to access HPA and DCO area.
Question 2: Does this thinking make any sense or do I miss something to understand if what I want is possible?
Question 3: How can I delete the error (5) or how can I increase the space allocated in spare area for remapping of bad sectors? Is that area the HPA area? Then if I increase HPA area and reduce the usable area, how can I reset the error 5?
I was able to identify the sectors bad and I know where are placed. If I renounce at 20GB, I will be fine, the rest of 80GB is a clear surface.
I did a low level format (it took more than 6 hours), everything is written with 0 now.
I used a lot of software to diagnose and to try to solve the problem, but I need somebody with more experience than me to confirm if what I want is possible or not, and in case is possible, how I should do it, in few steps.
The software used: Toshiba Diagnostic Hardisk (from Hiren’s boot CD), HDD Regenerator, HDDErase, WipeDrive, Acronis Cleanser, Dban, Hdat2, Taft, SpinRite… and other.
All of them take a lot of time for analyses.
In case is nothing to be done and the Hdd is dying, I am prepared with a new 80GB, but I don’t want to renounce yet.
I hope I didn’t ask to many stupid questions and I hope that will be somebody who can answer to some questions!

Best regards,
Victor.

May 18th, 2007, 13:41

Hi,

The short answer is: forget it!
Be glad and very satisfied by the successful recovery of all your data, this disk is not reliable to store valuable data, it would fail soon probably.
just buy a new one.
regards,
pepe
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