On Mar 14, 6:40 am, "Folkert Rienstra" <see_reply...@myweb.nl> wrote:
> <pau...@efn.org> wrote in messagenews:1173866711.145155.278150@y80g2000hsf.g ooglegroups.com
> > On Mar 13, 3:14 pm, Jax <inva...@no-mail.com> wrote:
> > > Home user with XP Pro.
>
> > > I bought some 160 GB hard drives a couple of years ago and they got
> > > filled up with data.
>
> > > I have now migrated all the data off these 160 GB hard drives and will
> > > now use the drives to hold backups.
>
> > > QUESTION ---> As the HDDs are now empty is it worth writing zeros,
> > > before using them again, in order to force the HDD to map out any
> > > defective sectors?
>
> > > QUESTION --> Or will mapping out of any defective sectors happen
> > > automatically when any bad sectors are next written to, which means it
> > > is not worth writing the zeros?
>
> > It's worth zeroing the data on the drives under two circumstances.
>
> > 1) You're selling them, and don't want any one to steal your bank
> > account info, etc.
>
> > 2) You don't want anyone to see your porn collection :)
>
> > If it has bad sectors, replace the unit. According to a very recent
> > google study of over 100,000 consumer grade hard drives,
> > those with read errors were 39 times more likely to fail within
> > 60 days than those without.
>
> Which says absolutely nothing if those without don't fail, now is it.
>

Of COURSE drives without bad sectors do fail. Otherwise the statement
would be different.

> And the exact phrase was:
> "After the first scan error, drives are 39 times more like-
> ly to fail within 60 days than drives without scan errors."
>
> Unfortunately there is no such thing as a 'scan error'.
>
I'd presumed it was a synonym for a bad spot on the drive in
question.



> Your 'read' errors appear under probational counts.
> "The critical threshold for probational counts is also one:
> after the first event, drives are 16 times more likely to fail
> within 60 days than drives with zero probational counts."
>
> There were other inconsistencies in the report as well, like lower
> risk numbers for the total lifetime (longer than 60 days).
>
> They also didn't say what they considered a failure and whether the
> 'failed' drives actually failed in a different system once replaced.
> Neither did they check whether it was the system killing the drives.

Actually, yes they did specify what they counted as a failure. I'm
paraphrasing because I don't have the report in front of me. "A drive
is considered to have failed if it was placed as part of a repair
operation".

>
>
>
> > It's worth checking the drive for bad sectors.