Windows 7: Corrupt partition, can't boot, Startup Repair loop, tried chkdsk

It is possible that you coppied a corrupted sector, but I do not think that would interfere with a diagnostic utility that checks for bad sectors. A corrupted sector is not the same as a bad sector. A bad sector is a damaged sector that cannot be written to anymore. It happens on nearly all drives during their lifespans, but it can start to happen in a catastrophic manner, as when a hard drive starts to fail and repeatedly more sectors become damaged when it spins. A full format will find bad sectors and allocate the rest of the drive to avoid those sectors when writing to free space.

If you do a full format and then the diagnostics pass, then it may just be that you had some bad sectors that built up and the drive is actually fine. If a full format still does not resolve all issues, i.e. maybe the diagnostic passes but your computer starts having similar issues again in a week or a month, it may mean your drive is failing.

I Googled some info about the Velociraptor. Apparently other people have experiences with theirs failing within a few months, and even their RMA drive fails too. Also, because I got mine OEM, it's possible that it was not handled or protected as well as it could have been, and my drive might have suffered physical damage before I even bought it. But I hope that's not the case.

I still have 4 more years of warranty on this drive. I'm thinking of keeping most of my data saved on the storage drive I have from now on, in case my drive fails again. But right now I am able to boot and run programs normally. Maybe after 1-2 years, SSDs will be cheaper and I can just get one of those for my primary OS, and still be able to try RMA this one after I have a drive I can boot with. Because I don't really want to be without a drive and not use Windows while I wait for RMA, and still have chance that the replacement drive will fail as well.

Basically, I will keep this re-imaged setup until I can't boot again, then I will re-format completely and run the tests. Hopefully try to buy myself more time until SSDs are cheap, then RMA this and get a brand new drive.

It is unfortunate that it is OEM. If it were WD bought, WD could send you a new drive and you just send the old one in the same box. Since it is OEM, you have to go through your system manufacturer, and those are dreadfully slow in most cases.

If you meant that the drive came with a pre-built machine like HP or Dell, then actually no, because I bought the drive separately from a local computer hardware store.

Ah, I guess I misunderstood what you meant when you said OEM. I thought you meant it came prebuilt into your machine. If you bought it off the shelf, then you should look into what WD offers. I know they used to offer free shipping, and they would ship a new drive right away for consumers with the consumer sending the old drive back in the new drive's box and packaging.

Well, the packaging for this drive was actually just the static proof bag. Hence the risk of damage.

What I was saying is that WD will supply you with the packaging to send it back. You will not have to use the old packaging.

How did the hard drive return go? Please let us know if you need anything more.

I didn't return it lol, I'm still using the reimaged drive. So far everything works normally. But I plan on buying a new SSD to replace it soon, hopefully prices will be down just in time. Once I get all my apps instaled on that, then I'll RMA the drive.

Glad the recovery from a system image worked. There are good tutorials on here for getting your SSD set up when you get it if you want some links.

SSD Alignment
SSD - Install and Transfer the Operating System
SSD / HDD : Optimize for Windows Reinstallation
SSD Tweaks and Optimizations in Windows 7