Surface damages

Surface damage; Damage to the data carrier surface, partial surface damage or damage to the hard disk. The damage to the surfaces can have a wide variety of forms, causes and consequences.

The so-called defective sectors are, in regular understanding, a decrease in the magnetization of the storage layer in the respective area. Hard drives recognize these faulty or potentially faulty areas and move this data. The area is then no longer activated and the defective sector is documented in the G list. Hard disks have a certain number of reserve sectors in order to compensate for the already existing (P list) as well as the defective hard disk sectors that will be added over time.

Defective sectors can also be the result of mechanical damage. Contact of the read/write heads with the surface of the data carrier (impacts, small scratches, fatal head crash) can lead to severe damages.