I changed my PSU and now mechanical HDD shows warning?

Discussion in 'SSD and HDD storage' started by Smough, Aug 19, 2022.

  1. Smough

    Smough Master Guru

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    Hello, I am a bit confused here. Yesterday I changed my PSU, it was an old EVGA 600 watt that had around 4 years, I decided to change it because I was having major issues with games even after clean O.S install and troubleshooting a lot, it even sparkled once on its rear. With the new PSU seems like the issues are gone now, I got a Corsair rm550x 80 Plus Bronze, the guy at the store set it up for me and made a great cable management, but for some reason my mechical 1tb HDD now shows "warning" in CrystalDisk, 8 bad sectors and never did this before. I also have 3 SSD units, but they are all seem to be green.

    I called the guy from the store and asked him why this is happening now, he told me that the old PSU was giving incorrect voltages and that is why detection programs for storage couldn't show HDD errors and that the drive was always like that, now that the voltages are correct, everything is detected accordingly. Could this be true or he is covering himself and talking BS?
     
    Last edited: Aug 19, 2022
  2. teots

    teots Master Guru

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    It's common that faulty psu can cause errors and damage to hardwares. I don't think
    replacing of psu can cause bad sectors to hdd. What the computer store guy said is true.
     
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  3. I doubt this is true. If voltages were far-enough off to somehow affect sensors and SMART, I'm pretty sure there would be more obvious problems with file transfers.

    It sounds odd enough though to possibly happen on rare hardware, but I haven't heard of this before.
     
  4. mbk1969

    mbk1969 Ancient Guru

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    @Smough

    HDDs are prone to develop bad sectors over the time.
    In old times we used Norton Disk Doctor to locate and recollect data from bad sectors. Now you can use command "chkdsk e: /r" - only substitute "e" with proper drive letter.
     

  5. user1

    user1 Ancient Guru

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    I would check the voltages of the new psu, normally if errors occur from power related stuff, its from when the voltages are incorrect , not when they are correct. He's probably BSing .

    I would make sure your sata cables aren't loose either, I've had a drive that I thought was faulty, but ended up being fine after changing the sata cable. Otherwise the drive failing could be complete coincidence, it happens.
     
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  6. Zooke

    Zooke Master Guru

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    Sounds like bullshit to me. He's just trying to cover himself so that you don't blame him.
    But 8 bad sectors does not a failed hard drive make.
    Keep an eye on things, move any really important stuff to your other drives just as a precaution.
    Other than that, just carry on as normal and get a new one when you are able to, 1TB HDD's are not an expensive replacement item for a pc.
     
  7. Astyanax

    Astyanax Ancient Guru

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    Underpowered PSU can cause a dropping out HDD to develop logical errors that increment the pending sector value but are decremented when a successful write is made.

    SMART doesn't itself have a field correlating to "BAD" sectors though, just physical remapped and pending.

    Eh, not really.

    the magnetic surface is typically static and stable throughout the mechanical life, weak sectors are typically weak from the time the platter was originally manufactured (polarity leakage) or accidental degauss fields rather than age decay.
     
    Last edited: Aug 20, 2022
  8. vestibule

    vestibule Ancient Guru

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    @Smough
    I would fit a new drive, the Seagate BarraCuda is probably the best value out there, the price difference between 1 & 2TB is small, so it a NO brainer to go for the 2TB. You may even get a nice performance boost from a newer drive. :)
     
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  9. Caesar

    Caesar Ancient Guru

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    change the sata cable
    change the port
     
  10. Astyanax

    Astyanax Ancient Guru

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    Sata cables do not cause Sector errors.
     

  11. Smough

    Smough Master Guru

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    Did that, still the same. But it could be the sata cable as I just switched positions from the motherboard sata ports, but not the drive itself. I will give that a shot when I have some time, I don't like to keep opening my computer that much, may just as well go for a fully new drive and call it a day.
     
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  12. mbk1969

    mbk1969 Ancient Guru

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    How many HDDs you had and for how long time span? One or two HDDs for a couple of years?

    Theory is one thing, real life experience is another.
     
  13. Astyanax

    Astyanax Ancient Guru

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    Platter degradation is there from the time of manufacturing, Age does not introduce weak or decaying sectors and logical corruption is corrected with the next setting of the bits.

    I've got drives that are 20 years old at this point that still work and have no surface degradation
    And then theres a few drives that are barely a few years old with Slow sectors and failure to reallocate. :rolleyes:
     
  14. vestibule

    vestibule Ancient Guru

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  15. mbk1969

    mbk1969 Ancient Guru

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    https://kb.synology.com/en-global/D...alth_status_when_receiving_bad_sector_warning
    https://datarecovery.com/rd/what-are-bad-sectors/
    https://recoverit.wondershare.com/how-to-solve-the-issue-of-hard-disk-bad-sector-in-windows.html
    and many other professional sites (not some forums with noobs) stating that sectors can become bad during HDD usage.
     
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  16. Kaarme

    Kaarme Ancient Guru

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    If you carried the PC to the shop for the PSU replacement, the HDD might have received enough shaking during the trip to report bad sectors. Of course it's possible the shop technician was actually moving the PC around on the table while it was running, which isn't a great thing for mechanical HDDs. Maybe he didn't keep in mind there's one inside, being used to SSDs.
     
  17. Astyanax

    Astyanax Ancient Guru

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    No, all hdd's store the actuator away from the disk with a magnetic locking mechanism

    even this is a stretch, the shock from movement is distributed and dissipated throughout the entire chassis, HDD's have operational shock tolerance of about 30Gs

     

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