SeaChest Utilities Ability to Repair HDD Problem Sectors?

[kenitholson]

SeaChest Utilities was mentioned to me by fzabkar. viewtopic.php?f=1&t=36486

Reading the docs http://support.seagate.com/seachest/Sea ... uides.html noticed in
1. "SeaChest GenericTests" "...the Long Generic test has the ability to repair problem sectors"

2. "SeaChest SMART" "...the DST & Clean test has the ability to repair problem sectors"

Any reason to chose 1 vs 2 or are they the same test?

Also has anyone had experience with either ability to repair problem sectors?

Thanks

Ken

[labtech]

There is no such thing as "repairing sectors". It is a deceiving play on words that makes it seem true.
The sectors cannot be repaired. They can only be retired.

[fzabkar]

https://www.seagate.com/support/seatools/seatools_for_windows.pdf

If you have decided that the file or folder is replaceable, already backed up or just not important to you, then you can tell SeaTools to attempt to attempt to repair the sector.

By design, modern disc drives maintain spare sectors for reallocation purposes. Usually, sectors become difficult to read long before they become impossible to read. In this situation the actual data bytes in the sector are preserved and transferred to the new spare during a sector reallocation. Similarly, when a disc drive writes data and encounters a problem, the drive firmware retires the problem sector and activates a replacement before giving successful write status.

If you give permission to attempt to repair a bad sector, then SeaTools will attempt to write a 512-byte pattern of zeros to that single error sector. Usually, this action will assist the disc drive firmware in managing the problem by retiring the problem sector and activating a spare in its place.