Now I am trying HDDScan>Erase.
But it doesn't work. It only reads bad sectors, one after another, very slowly.

Have you tried?

http://hddguru.com/content/en/software/ ... tore-Tool/

No, but I am looking at MHDD, which has a lot of functions, one of them is to restore the factory size.

I don't know why the size was reduced to 31MB after that secure erase.

First I want to learn the basics of MHDD, because I don't know what sequence of steps to follow.
Even if I restore the size, I don't know if the sectors will be good again.

I wonder if those attempted scans I have done afterwards could have triggered reallocations (because of those Bad sectors-that probably are not Bad after all)...

This MHDD looks very good. ..

Trying MHDD:
NHPA (return factory size) doesn't work: "Fail. Try to repower HDD".

HDD Capacity Restore Tool

I have tried this, and it worked, apparently.
The capacity is restored, and HDDScan is scanning again!! whoooo

it seems that there are less "greens" than before the accident... too soon to tell......scanning...
the night is young

YESSSSS!!
At the 10% mark, greens are just 9, down from 51 before the accident!!

scanned 15%:
only 19 green blocks (before 112)

at 20%:
39 green blocks (before 179)

so, approximately now I have 1/4 of what I had before.

The transfer rate curve is noticeably smoother.

25%: 57 vs 227
30% 60 vs 269
35% 72 vs 324
40% 76 vs 355
45% 80 vs 389
50% 85 vs 414
54% 94 vs 471
58% 99 vs 500
62% 105 vs 527

The more you poke with parameters, scan and 'reallocation' (?) the more probably you'll ruin the drive... Good luck. I give up.

66% 107 vs 540
70% 107 vs 548
75% 113 vs 554
78% 116 vs 570
80% 116 vs 582
85% 116 vs 592
88% 120 vs 603
91% 122 vs 632
94% 125 vs 665
97% 128 vs 717
100% 128 vs 717


not bad!

The HDDScan has been greatly improved after the Secure Erasing.
But I don't know if the drive structure is correct right now. I will have to do more testings... I did a MBR erase with the Samsung utility. Don't know if this is bad or not.

Before and after Secure Erase:

I have also posted about this whole topic, here:

http://forums.storagereview.net/index.p ... 27117&st=0

you might find some interesting additional info.

p.d: I am going to sleep now.

The fact that your still using Windows to scan a drive tells me plenty...

_________________
Buy your friends Toshiba\Hitachi and your enemies Seagate.

I will scan today with MHDD.
I have used HDDScan first in order to compare with my previous results.

Now scanning with MHDD in DOS.
10 greens at 10%,
Basically, same results as HDDScan in Windows

35 greens at 20%.
Results are pretty similar.