Worth writing zeros to my used hard drives?

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?

Jax 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.

I wouldnt bother myself, I'd just get another 250-500G drive 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?

Nope, it shouldnt have developed any and should be discarded if it has.

QUESTION -- Or will mapping out of any defective sectors
happen automatically when any bad sectors are next written to,

Yes.

which means it is not worth writing the zeros?

Correct.

"Jax" wrote in message
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?

Ah, a question that can only be asked if you know what the answer is.
Smart one.

Jax writes:
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?

I'd say write over the drive and use the SMART interface to detect
whether the HDD finds any bad sectors. If it does, replace the drive.

You do not have to write out zero's on them.

--

DaveW

___________
"Jax" wrote in message
...
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?

"Paul Rubin" wrote in message
Jax writes:
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?

I'd say write over the drive and use the SMART interface to detect
whether the HDD finds any bad sectors.

Nonsense, aren't you a regular here?
You don't need to do that to 'find' any. Bad sectors that are to be reassigned
by writes will already be known as candidate bad sectors and logged as such
under "Current Pending Sector Count". If there aren't any, none will be reas-
signed by writing. To detect any new you need to read the drive, not write it.

If it does, replace the drive.

Yup, who cares whether the cause is external.
You just keep replacing them until you get a clue.
Good for business, no.

"Folkert Rienstra" writes:
I'd say write over the drive and use the SMART interface to detect
whether the HDD finds any bad sectors.

Nonsense, aren't you a regular here?
You don't need to do that to 'find' any. Bad sectors that are to be reassigned
by writes will already be known as candidate bad sectors and logged as such
under "Current Pending Sector Count". If there aren't any, none will be reas-
signed by writing. To detect any new you need to read the drive, not write it.

These drives apparently hadn't been in use (or at least written to)
for a while. It is possible that bad sectors developed while the
drive was sitting on the shelf. I've certainly taken working drives
out of service, then had them fail when I tried using them a year or
two later.

On Mar 13, 3:14 pm, Jax 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.

It's worth checking the drive for bad sectors.

wrote in message oups.com
On Mar 13, 3:14 pm, Jax 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.

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'.

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.


It's worth checking the drive for bad sectors.

In comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage Jax 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?

Not really needed, since if you write new data, this will happen anyways.

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 will. But you may want to run a long SMART selftest to find weak
sectors before using the disks.

Arno