Does this warrant an RMA?

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RedShark

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OK, it looks like I've got bad sectors. The Vista Event Log says I do.

Western Digital's Windows diagnostic tool says SMART and Quick Test passed. I'm doing the extended test now, which is the full surface scan.

Speedfan, however, is giving me problems:

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0 Raw Read Error Rate 100 0 Watch
Warning: Raw Read Error Rate is below the average limits (150-200).
0 Spin Up Time 100 0 Watch
Warning: Spin Up Time is below the average limits (160-244).
10 Start/Stop Count 100 1 Very good
0 Reallocated Sector Count 178 170 Watch
Warning: Reallocated Sector Count is below the average limits (187-200).
1 Seek Error Rate 100 0 Normal
10 Power On Hours Count 100 0 Very good
10 Spin Retry Count 100 0 Very good
10 Calibration Retry Count 100 0 Very good
10 Power Cycle Count 100 1 Very good
10 Reallocated Event Count 200 0 Very good
10 Current Pending Sector 200 0 Very good
1 Offline Uncorrectable Sector Count 100 0 Normal
10 Ultra DMA CRC Error Rate 200 0 Very good
1 Write Error Rate 100 0 Normal

NOTE: not all warnings are reflected on fitness and performance overall values as relevancy is based upon the settings from the hard disk manufacturer who is the best entity deputed to define such relationships.

NOTE : your hard disk Spin Up Time attribute current value (100) is below the normal range (160 - 244) reported for your specific hard disk model. Recently purchased hard disks that were not yet power cycled many times might experience a low value here and it wouldn't be a problem as, after some time, the value should raise towards better ones. If, on the other side, your hard disk is not that new and it was powered on several times this might mean its mechanic is getting old. Usually this attribute is not so relevant by itself, but it might reinforce some other deduction when looking at the global picture.

NOTE : your hard disk has 170 reallocated sectors (this value is very large and your hard disk should be replaced). Hard disks do have spare sectors (usually from 256 up to 1024) used to replace bad ones. This remapping operation is transparent to the end user. Anyway, this can lead to degradated performances (because remapped sectors are in different places of the disk than the original ones and the head needs additional moving). If reallocated sectors grow over time, you might encounter some serious troubles. A backup of the most important data is suggested anyway.
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How can Western Digital's diagnostic think that 170 reallocated sectors are acceptable? That's a pretty poor standard. Given that Event Viewer and Speedfan complain, should I get an RMA number? Would Western Digital give me problems about it? Of course, I'll probably call them up anyway, I guess I'm just concerned that they're going to give me crap about it because their tool says there's no problem.
 
mattsaccount said:
How can Western Digital's diagnostic think that 170 reallocated sectors are acceptable?
Click to expand...
Why do you think it is unreasonable?
Bear in mind that not so many platters will pass a more stringent standard and prices would go up.
Also take note that drive sizes are massive now so its not surprising that a higher number of failed sectors will occur and will need to become part of the operational limits.
 
By the time I get multiple tools complaining about bad sectors, I would at least not use the HDD for anything critical. RMA is an option, as it doesn't seem to perform as expected. I assume this HDD is quite new?
 
170 bad sectors out of how many billions?

If the WD tool does the Advanced/Thorough test with the surface scan and it comes up completely clean, you can't get a more accurate survey of the drive's status. That's the one tool that can and does give such information, and if there's a problem of any kind, then it'll give you the disposition code you provide to WD to get an RMA given the drive is still covered by warranty.

It doesn't get much simpler.

If I've said it once I've said it too much but, here goes:

S.M.A.R.T. status should never be used as an indicator of drive health, unfortunately. The technology is a great concept, but in real-world practice, drives that report one thing are more often than not wrong, and reporting something else isn't "right" enough, as the case may be (inaccurate counters, thresholds that have been surpassed but still show good to go, etc).

I wouldn't trust any S.M.A.R.T. status variable as far as I could toss the drive physically...
 
Nenu said:
Why do you think it is unreasonable?
...
Also take note that drive sizes are massive now so its not surprising that a higher number of failed sectors will occur and will need to become part of the operational limits.
Click to expand...

Well, if you want to nitpick, I could say that CPUs contain a 1000x more transistors than they did a decade ago, and they perform billions of calculations per second, but I still expect every one of them to be correct :)

I don't know if 170 bad sectors is unreasonable, that's why I posted :)

Elledan said:
By the time I get multiple tools complaining about bad sectors, I would at least not use the HDD for anything critical. RMA is an option, as it doesn't seem to perform as expected. I assume this HDD is quite new?
Click to expand...

The drive was purchased in January 2007, so RMA is an option. This is a WD5000YS, and has a 5 year warranty. Thus there is no hurry--RMA will be an option into the future.

Joe Average said:
...
Click to expand...

The WD extended diagnostic (surface test) was a "pass," so I guess I'll not RMA it now and will instead just watch it more carefully. The number of reallocated sectors remained at 170 after the test was complete.

To be clear, the main reason I posted this is because I started getting events in event viewer saying the drive had bad sectors. As a consequence of those bad sectors, chkdsk reported several files were corrupted. That, to me, suggests the problem is noteworthy. However, given the results of the WD extended test, it probably wouldn't make sense to RMA it at this point until/unless more evidence comes to light.

Thanks for your responses everyone.
 
mattsaccount said:
Well, if you want to nitpick, I could say that CPUs contain a 1000x more transistors than they did a decade ago, and they perform billions of calculations per second, but I still expect every one of them to be correct :)
Click to expand...

None of the sectors you use are faulty, all faulty sectors have been mapped out and replaced with spare sectors.
This method is called redundancy.

The PS3 has a spare (redundant) CPU core .
Intel could have made a redundant core for their CPU's and had a lower quality operation but that wasnt the path they took.
Manufacturers are entitled to use whichever method they choose to make sure a product is of expected quality.

It hasnt proved to be a problem with hard drives, failure rates due to defective media arent anything to be concerned about.
 
Nenu said:
None of the sectors you use are faulty, all faulty sectors have been mapped out and replaced with spare sectors.
This method is called redundancy.
[..]
It hasnt proved to be a problem with hard drives, failure rates due to defective media arent anything to be concerned about.
Click to expand...

OP is getting event viewer messages about corrupted files due to bad sectors. I would say that's a problem.
 
OK, I've got an update.

I ran a full scan using chkdsk this time. This should have been redundant given that the WD tool's extended test reported no problems. After I did the scan using Western Digital's tool, the number of "reallocated sectors" according to SMART remained at 170 as you can see in the OP. After running chkdsk /r, the number of reallocated sectors increased to 203. This seems to be a problem--these are not sectors that were simply mapped out at the factory.

Finally, event viewer says:

"The device, \Device\Harddisk2\DR2, has a bad block."

There were three of these events yesterday, but no other events of this type since I reinstalled Vista last July.

These errors suggest that the sectors were in use at the time they failed, and that the drive is becoming more unreliable. I'm strongly leaning toward "RMA" time, but I'm interested in hearing your input. Thanks again everyone.
 
Well, despite the misgivings about SMART, the number of reallocated sectors is not just some estimate or something SMART came up with. A healthy HDD shouldn't suddenly find 33 new bad sectors during a simple scan. In my experience Windows doesn't whine about IO errors and bad blocks for no good reason either.

I would vote for either an RMA or using this HDD as a random stuff (external) drive.
 
Modern hard drives constantly monitor the integrity of the data going to and from the disk platters. If is normal for them to find an occasional bad sector and automagically remap that sector to a spare. As noted in the OP, there is a finite number of these spares, and their use degrades drive performance.

SMART is not perfect, but it is a good indication that bad things are happening to your drive.

The TB drive in my system right now has zero bad sectors.

Since you just found 33 more, I would say that this drive is rapidly heading south, and should be replaced asap.

Don
 
Well I think my decision was just made for me anyway, the disk just became inaccessible.

There are "The device, \Device\Harddisk2\DR2, is not ready for access yet." events in the event log now. Luckily there was nothing on there that was that important--and I pulled the only stuff that would be more of a hassle yesterday.

"The device 'WDC WD5000YS-01MPB0 ATA Device' (IDE\DiskWDC_WD5000YS-01MPB0_____________________07.02E07\5&339c2fe6&0&1.0.0) disappeared from the system without first being prepared for removal."

It's worth noting I've had issues like this one in the past with this drive. I tried plugging it into different SATA ports, but finally found that a different cable corrected the problem. However, now that it's happened again and given the previous two replies, I think it's safe to say this drive is toast.

RMA time :(

Edit: The WD tool now fails the SMART quick test and flags the reallocated sector count as unacceptable. The quick test also fails and tells me to check cables, but that's BS at this point since this is already my second cable and I've tried several SATA ports (as mentioned before).
 
Agreed, the bad sectors are growing.
It is indeed bad media and the drive needs returning.
 
OK, I'm going to close this thread since the problem is resolved. I've just setup an RMA with Western Digital.

I suspect I'll be able to coax more data off the drive, but for now I'm just going to wait for my advance replacement to arrive before plugging the faulty drive in again.

Thanks again for your help everyone.
 
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