Faulty HDD?

Roman5 · 31 Oct 2012

I bought my new 1TB Caviar Black WD1002FAEX couple of weeks ago. The only thing I've put on the drive is a 7GB backup Acronis image of my SSD. Thing is, it would appear to be faulty. Normally my PC boots fine (from SSD with HDD connected), but couldn't get it to boot last night, it was hanging on the starting windows screen forever. Also when I loaded Acronis to see if I could access the 1TB drive, it took some time while Acronis was 'Analysing E:..' then it came up with 'failed to read sectors..'. After cancelling, it went into Acronis backup and recovery screen and I could see the drive and the backup image. But when I disconnected the drive, my SSD booted fine.

Having used Crystal Disk last night and HD tune, these are the results. There only seems to be one red block. Do I need to RMA it or just format it and see if it clears? But even if it does clear, does it suggest a dodgy drive?

Just rang the etailer, they said rma and collection will be ok but they'd like me to run WD's own Datalife Diagnostic Tool. So I better do that I suppose.

Roman5 · 31 Oct 2012

Oh well, it's all academic now as I've got an RMA sorted, collection tomorrow and then replacement drive in a few days. :)

As it happens, it took ages for the WD diagnostics tool to read the drive and the estimated time went up and up and up to around 40 hours before it got past the bad bit. Now it's showing under 2 hours left.

bobafetthotmail · 31 Oct 2012

Definetly a faulty HDD. Good to see that they accepted a RMA.

Roman5 · 31 Oct 2012

bobafetthotmail said:

Definetly a faulty HDD. Good to see that they accepted a RMA.

Yep, Scan computers are very good tbh. They made the RMA process very easy. In fact the collection was due for friday, but when I rang them back and said I'm at the dentist in the afternoon and might miss collection, they said no problem and re-booked for tomorrow, which is what I originally had hoped for. :)

I'm also RMA'ing a Dynamode IDE/SATA USB enclosure to them for a refund.

SATA USB-HD3.5SI-1-A IDE/PATA HDD Enclosure For 3.5" HDD from Dynamode - Scan.co.uk

The tiny rectangular light on the PSU doesn't illuminate, nor the light on the enclosure itself. Judging by the box it came in, I noticed a piece of sellotape under the semi circular transparent seal at one end of the box, suggesting it was already an RMA'd item they had intentionally or unintentionally sent me. It was very cheap anyway. I've now bought a different enclosure from play.com, an Icybox. Should be better and definitely looks nicer. Then I can start transferring stuff from my 3 old sata and ide drives.

Play.com - Buy Icybox / IB351ASTUB / 2 x 3.5 inch IDE / SATA / USB External Hard Drive Enclosure online at Play.com and read reviews. Free delivery to UK and Europe!

I've never ever received any faulty products from anywhere I've bought from in the last few years, then all of a sudden, I get two in one go!

Mark Phelps · 31 Oct 2012

Just an observation -- I don't buy WD drives anymore. I used to buy them all the time, then I had two fail on me within a few months, and one was only a few months old. Looks like their build quality dropped on recent units (within last year).

I only buy Seagate now -- and yeah, I know some folks call them "sleazegate" -- but I have yet to have a Seagate drive fail on me after a few months of use.

Britton30 · 31 Oct 2012

Mark Phelps said:

Just an observation -- I don't buy WD drives anymore. I used to buy them all the time, then I had two fail on me within a few months, and one was only a few months old. Looks like their build quality dropped on recent units (within last year).

I only buy Seagate now -- and yeah, I know some folks call them "sleazegate" -- but I have yet to have a Seagate drive fail on me after a few months of use.

Same experience.

Roman5 · 31 Oct 2012

Ironically, I was on the verge of buying this 2TB Seagate,

Seagate 2TB SATA III Performance HDD ST2000DM001 7200rpm 64MB Cache 7200rpm SATA II Compatible - Scan.co.uk

but others had said WD are more reliable so I went with the 1TB Cav Black which was actually a little more expensive. But I guess it's hit and miss with HDD's, either company will have good and bad drives. I would certainly liked to have had the extra 1TB.

Mark Phelps · 31 Oct 2012

I would be the first to agree that OLD WD drives were extremely reliable. I have a shelf of "old" drives that I replaced simply because large drives became so inexpensive. For example, I have a 2005 WD Caviar SE 200 GB SATA drive that had NOT problems in six years of use!

In contrast, the 2TB WD drive I used to replace it failed within four months.

Roman5 · 31 Oct 2012

Guys, I'm thinking of ringing Scan tomorrow morning and asking them to send me the 2TB Seagate instead of another 1TB Caviar Black, good idea? The Seagate is £6 cheaper but I wouldn't mind if I even did a straight swap without a refund on the difference. If you guys think that Seagate is as good or better than WD, then I'd MUCH rather have 2TB, which is what I wanted in the first place. Also, will there be any problem with my system seeing all 2TB? The drive description says: "The sure way to obtain native access to hard drives bigger than 2TB is to adopt the new BIOS standard called UEFI. If you are not there yet, Seagate has an alternative. The included Free DiscWizard software provides you with a means to effectively use this Seagate ST2000DM001 Barracuda 2TB drive, even with Windows XP and using the standard PC BIOS, so get your free copy to go to 2TB today!" Do I assume I'm ok up to and including 2TB out of the box without any tweaking needed?

Also, here's the result of the WD Diagnostic scan. I'm not going to try the repair (tempted) in case it fixes it and they say it's not faulty. Even if it fixed it, I wouldn't want to keep a drive that could still go bad again at any time.

Britton30 · 31 Oct 2012

I would go for the Seagate if Scan is cooperative about it. I think w7 can see 2T with no problem though. If I'm wrong someone will let us (me!) know.

I am running a Seagate Constellation 500GB drive as a data drive with OS on a SSD. It is an Enterprise class with a 5 year warranty and designed to run 24/7.