Question - When Spinrite or whatever tools anyone uses show errors, how have you found the RMA process?
Do they acknowledge the output of these tools, or do you have issues with the vendor/manufacturer saying the drive is good when you know otherwise?
I have never had badblocks find any bad sectors without some of the SMART parameters also indicating trouble. Now, the SMART parameters rarely officially fail, but looking at the raw values of certain parameters, it is clear that they incremented during the badblocks run. And when I RMA such a drive, I have never had the manufacturer reject the RMA.