Troubleshooting an old 3TB MyBook Essential (WDBAC0030HBK-1)

[JYeager11]

Hi guys,

My very old (but seldom-used) MyBook Essential is my 2nd (ie, redundant) docs backup unit.

While trying to make space on it recently, I noticed a specific folder refusing to cooperate. Whenever I try deleting or accessing it, the MyBook just hangs and eventually gives me a Cyclic Redundancy Check Data Error.

Running CHKDSK on this drive is unusually slow (to be more specific, it's fast and then suddenly stalls, likely when it hits that folder) but if I wait it out several minutes, it eventually tells me there are no errors to fix. So I'm back to square one.

However, CrystalDiskInfo found 200 uncorrectable sectors.

I realize this is a very old product; but short of just throwing it away, what do you recommend I do? I assume those sectors are dead forever, but could I reformat the drive and continue to use the rest of it for a few more years without those sectors continuing to nag me? Or will they always be a problem and there's no point saving this thing, meaning I should just kiss it goodbye and buy something else?

Thanks!

 

[Nenu]

Remove it from the caddy and plug it directly in the computer.
With any luck its just the USB section that has a problem.
Even if it isnt, you may be able to get a better response plugged in directly.

 

[JYeager11]

Remove it from the caddy and plug it directly in the computer.
With any luck its just the USB section that has a problem.
Even if it isnt, you may be able to get a better response plugged in directly.

Apologies, as I'm no expert on the subject of HDDs... but are you asking me to crack the thing open? Because the unit is a single piece, stands on its own on my desk, and is plugged via 2 wires in the rear (power to AC + USB to PC). Edit: I found a used listing for it on eBay, if you want to zoom in on that rear connection.

I've also triangulated the issue to a specific folder (and whatever subfolders it might be hiding). So far, everywhere else I've snooped or deleted (to make space) I had zero issues : not even a hiccup. So the issue is very binary : I've either wandered into the corrupt sectors (in which case it just hangs and ends with an error) or - if I'm exploring anything else on this drive - it performs just fine, like it did on Day 1.

Pardon my noobness, but what would a full reformat do to this unit? Would it at least cordon off the uncorrectable sectors so nothing gets written on them going forward? Because I would be fine with a "scorch the earth where these 200 uncorrectable sectors exist and leave me the rest of the drive" option.

If I DO end up going the reformat route, do you recommend a QUICK or FULL format in a situation like this one? I don't mind letting it run overnight if I have to.

Thanks!

 

[Nenu]

It doesnt matter how its put together, remove the drive.
Yes, open it.


It doesnt appear on the surface to be a problem with the USB interface but I've seen stranger things.
Its worth testing without that to remove it from suspicion, or find it to be the problem!
When it comes to serious hard drive issues you want the least amount of potential failure points. Not only to make diagnosis easier but to also prevent further issues being created.

I have no idea what will happen if you format it because there is an unknown fault.
Only a low level sector format (not any form of quick format) will find bad sectors.
This will take a long time, similar to how long it takes to scan for bad sectors.

I used to use Spinrite or HDD Regenerator to fix drives that have had bad writes but since drives went over 1.8TB in size it doesnt work.
They also took forever to repair a whole drive.
Beware, the HDD Regenerator and HDDGuru websites appears to have been hacked, they immediately jump to a page on my router that wants me to click a button to complete some kind of change!
I no longer know how to undo/repair a bad or faulty write to a drive. Luckily I havent had to deal with one in the last 15 years!

The first stage diagnosing how knackered the drive is: connect it directly to a PC and see how it behaves.
Then you can format it if its still misbehaving.
Be sure to get your data off first.

 

[Denpepe]

Pardon my noobness, but what would a full reformat do to this unit? Would it at least cordon off the uncorrectable sectors so nothing gets written on them going forward? Because I would be fine with a "scorch the earth where these 200 uncorrectable sectors exist and leave me the rest of the drive" option.

You could do that but usually once sectors start to go bad chances are more will follow, I for one would not trust this drive with data I can not replace.

 

[JYeager11]

You could do that but usually once sectors start to go bad chances are more will follow, I for one would not trust this drive with data I can not replace.

Since I don't trust myself to crack this thing open as has been suggested (the fact that it's a very specific folder causing the problem makes me doubt it's a physical connection issue - as that would likely be intermittent - whereas there is nothing intermittent about this) then the last thing for me to try before trashing the unit is a full reformat.

Can you tell me what happens when I format a 3TB MyBook Essential drive with 200 uncorrectable sectors? This represents a microscopic portion of the drive, 99% of it is still usable (at full speeds too). You seem pretty sure more sectors will fall; but now that I've backed everything up, can you tell me if the formatting recognizes that there are sectors it cannot write on anymore and cordon them off (thereby scorching that earth)... or will it let me write on them all over again and bring me back to square one (non-responsiveness) whenever I try deleting or exploring anything on those sectors? If it just cordons off the sectors and they are never interacted with again, could this help the other sectors hold up longer? Maybe get another couple of years out of this thing?

Either way, I will start looking for a replacement unit. I was just hoping not to have to do it right away, budget is tight after a 2 year pandemic.

PS: I said I didn't trust myself to crack it open, but I probably will once I've tried everything else and I'm ready to trash it. Nenu made me too curious about what's inside.

 

[pendragon1]

get your data off it and trash it. it will get more and more bad sectors until one day you cant access anything. thats why this was there:

 

[Denpepe]

the drive should not write to the bad sectors anymore after a format or possibly even a defrag. There is always a chance this drive could keep going as is for years to come without further issues but I would not count on it.

I don't know if you move this drive around a lot, but if the bad sectors come from the head hitting a platter it's not going to get better, only worse.

 

[JYeager11]

the drive should not write to the bad sectors anymore after a format or possibly even a defrag. There is always a chance this drive could keep going as is for years to come without further issues but I would not count on it.

I don't know if you move this drive around a lot, but if the bad sectors come from the head hitting a platter it's not going to get better, only worse.

Thanks, I'll start looking for a replacement backup drive. Any recommendations?
I have a WD Passport Portable External that I use to carry documents around, that I find blazing fast and very convenient in size... can I just buy another and use it as a backup unit?

And although I use only SSDs on my new 5900x rig (M.2 for OS + regular SSD for docs) I haven't really considered SSD for long-term (backup) storage because when they first came out, it was said that SSDs require regular interaction to keep the data from disappearing. So to stick with HDD for backups. Has this proven to be paranoid hogwash? Would a SSD be just as reliable for backups, even if the unit is only used once a season?

 

[Denpepe]

Thanks, I'll start looking for a replacement backup drive. Any recommendations?

Not realy, been using an old external samsung HDD as a backup drive and also a WD possport, both seem to work well enough although the Samsung is pretty slow.

For long term storage I would still go spinning rust as those seem to retain data the best over long periods of time and even if the drive breaks you usually can still get to the data even if that means going trough a specialised company, SSD's when they die it's usually game over for the data on it.

 

[daglesj]

I get this a lot with customers externals. I get them in, power them up. If they fire up and the yellow warnings appear, its copy the data and dump the drive time. If they don't fire up or keep dropping out then as mentioned you tear open the caddy and hook them up bareback. Often it's just the cheap nasty caddy. Had plenty of 2/4TB HDDs handed to me in Seagate/WD USB3 caddies that struggle to do 60MBps, then when slipped into a £15 inateck, ********** or Yottamaster caddy will pump 160MBps+ all day long.

The best though are Mac users. For some reason a Mac will work just fine with an external drive. Then one morning the wind will blow in the wrong direction and they just wont recognise it anymore. I get handed the HFS/APFS formatted drive and hook it up to my PC that doesn't have native support (I use third party software) and it works just fine. I just copy the data off and reformat it and copy it back. I'd never use a Mac for data critical work for that reason. It must be a bug or something.

Hard Disk Sentinel is a good app for disk checking and repairs. I usually recommend a 2-4TB NAS drive and a third party USB3 caddy for external drive storage.

EDIT - Oh most odd the name ********** (O R I C O) is censored....