I am trying to understand what is acceptable in the hard drive world. I just tested a hard drive using Hard Disk Sentinel and looked at the report. It sounds somewhat ominus but I remember manually defragging my hard drive fairly regularly and there were colored squares and I remember that the defragging program would move the bad squares to a different area of the hard drive. Is there a connection between sectors and those bad squares or are they two different things? Here is what the summation said:

There are 2 bad sectors on the disk surface. The contents of these sectors were moved to the spare area.
The drive found 2 bad sectors during its self test.
At this point, warranty replacement of the disk is not yet possible, only if the health drops further.
It is recommended to examine the log of the disk regularly. All new problems found will be logged there.
No actions needed.


It also says that there are 50 error correction bytes and that doesn't sound particularly good either. The bottom line is is this a hard drive that could be used on a computer or is it in bad enough shape that it should just be scrapped?

Hard Disk Cylinders . . . . . . . . . . . . . . : 319118
Hard Disk Heads . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . : 16
Hard Disk Sectors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . : 63
ATA Revision . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . : ATA/ATAPI-7
Total Sectors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . : 321670847
Bytes Per Sector . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . : 512
Buffer Size . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . : 16384 KB
Multiple Sectors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . : 16
Error Correction Bytes . . . . . . . . . . . . . : 50
Unformatted Capacity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . : 157066 MB
Maximum PIO Mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . : 4
Maximum Multiword DMA Mode . . . . . . . . . . . : 2
Maximum UDMA Mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . : 300 MB/s (6)
Active UDMA Mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . : 300 MB/s (6)
Minimum Multiword DMA Transfer Time . . . . . . : 120 ns
Recommended Multiword DMA Transfer Time . . . . : 120 ns
Minimum PIO Transfer Time Without IORDY . . . . : 120 ns
Minimum PIO Transfer Time With IORDY . . . . . . : 120 ns
ATA Control Byte . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . : Valid
ATA Checksum Value . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . : Valid

The last question is should I be using Hard Disk Sentinel or is there another program that would give me more usable data or better information on a given drive?

"50 error correction bytes" is telling you that the drive adds 50 ECC bytes to each sector for error checking and correction purposes. That is completely normal and is part of the design.

You need to show us the SMART attribute data. That's where bad sectors will be recorded.

BTW, the "Total Sectors" value of 321670847 is an unusual capacity.

321670847 sectors x 512 bytes per sector = 164.7 GB

What is the model number of the drive?

_________________
A backup a day keeps DR away.

Size sounds like a Deskstar...

_________________
Rescue IT Datarecovery service Sweden
Rescue IT Dataräddning Göteborg AB
http://www.rescue-it.se

This is the smart report for the drive:

S.M.A.R.T. Details
--------------------
Off-line Data Collection Status . . . . . . . . : Successfully Completed
Self Test Execution Status . . . . . . . . . . . : Successfully Completed
Total Time To Complete Off-line Data Collection : 5160 seconds
Execute Off-line Immediate . . . . . . . . . . . : Supported
Abort/restart Off-line By Host . . . . . . . . . : Not supported
Off-line Read Scanning . . . . . . . . . . . . . : Supported
Short Self-test . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . : Supported
Extended Self-test . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . : Supported
Conveyance Self-test . . . . . . . . . . . . . . : Supported
Selective Self-Test . . . . . . . . . . . . . . : Supported
Save Data Before/After Power Saving Mode . . . . : Supported
Enable/Disable Attribute Autosave . . . . . . . : Supported
Error Logging Capability . . . . . . . . . . . . : Supported
Short Self-test Estimated Time . . . . . . . . . : 2 minutes
Extended Self-test Estimated Time . . . . . . . : 63 minutes
Conveyance Self-test Estimated Time . . . . . . : 6 minutes
Last Short Self-test Result . . . . . . . . . . : Never Started
Last Short Self-test Date . . . . . . . . . . . : Never Started
Last Extended Self-test Result . . . . . . . . . : Never Started
Last Extended Self-test Date . . . . . . . . . . : Never Started
Last Conveyance Self-test Result . . . . . . . . : Never Started
Last Conveyance Self-test Date . . . . . . . . . : Never Started

We need to see the attributes, eg Reallocated Sector Count, etc.

_________________
A backup a day keeps DR away.

Is this what you are asking for?

No. Attribute Thre.. Value Worst Data Status Flags
1 Raw Read Error Rate 51 200 200 000000000000 OK Error-Rate, Performance, Statistical, Critical
3 Spin Up Time 21 182 181 000000000F1A OK Statistical, Critical
4 Start/Stop Count 0 98 98 00000000084B OK (Always passing) Self Preserving, Event Count, Statistical
5 Reallocated Sectors Co.. 140 199 199 000000000002 OK Self Preserving, Event Count, Statistical, Critical
7 Seek Error Rate 51 200 200 000000000000 OK Error-Rate, Performance, Statistical, Critical
9 Power On Time Count 0 84 84 000000002E7F OK (Always passing) Self Preserving, Event Count, Statistical
10 Spin Retry Count 51 100 100 000000000000 OK Event Count, Statistical, Critical
11 Drive Calibration Retr.. 51 100 100 000000000000 OK Event Count, Statistical, Critical
12 Drive Power Cycle Count 0 98 98 000000000847 OK (Always passing) Self Preserving, Event Count, Statistical
194 Disk Temperature 0 120 93 00000000001B OK (Always passing) Self Preserving, Statistical
196 Reallocation Event Count 0 200 200 000000000000 OK (Always passing) Self Preserving, Event Count, Statistical
197 Current Pending Sector.. 0 200 200 000000000000 OK (Always passing) Event Count, Statistical
198 Off-Line Uncorrectable.. 0 200 200 000000000002 OK (Always passing) Event Count
199 Ultra ATA CRC Error Co.. 0 200 200 000000000000 OK (Always passing) Self Preserving, Event Count, Error-Rate, Performanc..
200 Write Error Rate 51 200 200 000000000001 OK Error-Rate, Critical

5 Reallocated Sectors Co.. 140 199 199 000000000002
198 Off-Line Uncorrectable.. 0 200 200 000000000002

Your drive is reporting 2 bad sectors for each of the above attributes. These have been replaced with good spares.

This seems reasonable for a drive that has done 11903 hours (= 0x2E7F):

9 Power On Time Count 0 84 84 000000002E7F

I wouldn't be too concerned, but I would keep an eye on these numbers in case they start increasing on a frequent basis.

_________________
A backup a day keeps DR away.

@OP, just FYI defrag has nothing to do with bad sectors. Those red boxes weren't bad sectors being moved around, that's all handled by the HDD internally not by the OS. Defrag just moves around files to optimize access and fill in blank space between files from deleted data.

_________________
Data Medics - Hard Drive, SSD, and RAID Data Recovery Service Company