Weak sector on WD 3 TB Red keeps reappearing

OCdude

OCdude

OCdude

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Today I noticed a lot of my torrents had stopped due to I/O errors. Trying to access the data (or checking individual MD5 checksums) results in Explorer dying a slow death.

HD Tune and HD Sentinel report a weak sector and the official WD Diagnostic tool fails to complete the basic test (Status code 07 (failed read test element, failure checkpoint 109)).

After reading up on the HD Sentinel site, they say that a weak sector could be fine, try overwriting it.. So i've deleted the knackered data and re-downloaded it all. For a while, all seemed okay (the health went from 99% back to 100%), but a few hours later, it's gone back to 99% and a weak sector.

I'm not particularly happy having a non-perfect drive, but is having a weak sector enough for an RMA? According to HD Sentinel.... no?!

The overall SMART tests are considered a pass.

Appreciate any advice!
 
ED209 said:
if the WD software fails to run with a error code go to WD and do a RMA.

how old is the drive?
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Power on time is 736 days. According to the warranty check, its status is "In Limited Warranty" til May next year.

Would I have to go direct to WD or the retailer?
 
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Typical that I literally just chucked out all my old HDD packaging the other day :(

Wishful thinking.. but i'm assuming WD don't supply the packaging? ha!
 
Disco_P said:
WD support is amazing and you'll get a new drive very quick.
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+1 to that.

You can pre-pay for a drive and have it delivered in advance, then use the packaging to return your old drive and get full credit. Their response is excellent if you follow the process correctly.
 
malcolm said:
+1 to that.

You can pre-pay for a drive and have it delivered in advance, then use the packaging to return your old drive and get full credit. Their response is excellent if you follow the process correctly.
Click to expand...

That sounds good - just going through the RMA process atm, would I be right in thinking that you're referring to the "Advance RMA" option?

Also, I did a surface test over night and it's found the bad sector. Is one bad sector enough for an RMA? I can't see anywhere on the WD site that mentions the specific requirements

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Yes, advance RMA will be the process I referred to.

Normally a bad sector will be re-mapped and not used again, but in your case it may be one of the sectors that cannot be remapped.

If you get an error code when you run the WD drive analysis tool, they will replace it. The new drive may be a 'repaired' drive, but it will have all the SMART data reset and will have a new warranty date.
 
Ah ok thanks.

Currently running a chkdisk on it, which looks like it's going to take forever, but if if manages to fix/mark the bad sector, I might just suck it and see.

The the thought of shipping stuff this close to Christmas doesn't fill me with joy :(
 
I don't think they even checked my drive when I sent it in. It had an intermittent issue where it wouldn't start up after sleep and prevented shutdown but other than that it was perfect - SMART and other diagnostics came up clean. I sent it in and the day after they received it a replacement drive was shipped.
 
Chkdisk finished, sector marked as bad, WD tools still fail to complete the quick test, so I guess i'll RMA it regardless.

Thanks all
 
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OCdude said:
That sounds good - just going through the RMA process atm, would I be right in thinking that you're referring to the "Advance RMA" option?

Also, I did a surface test over night and it's found the bad sector. Is one bad sector enough for an RMA? I can't see anywhere on the WD site that mentions the specific requirements

Capture2.png
Click to expand...

Can this be done without erasing contents of Hard Drive or does it want to write to the drive possibly losing data.

I know some tests warn about that.

Edit
Spoilered the pic :)
 
Disco_P said:
I don't think they even checked my drive when I sent it in. It had an intermittent issue where it wouldn't start up after sleep and prevented shutdown but other than that it was perfect - SMART and other diagnostics came up clean. I sent it in and the day after they received it a replacement drive was shipped.
Click to expand...

I am having a lot of issues with a recent 6TB Red used for storage in my machine, keeps lobbing up errors on the disk relating to "An error was detected on device \Device\Harddisk1 during a paging operation" when I first got the drive and was copying some stuff to it (Around 3TB) I got BSOD and 2 more when reattempting to copy but after updating drivers it seemed to go away but it has popped up a few more times only for this drive and not its 2nd counter part and even mentioned a bad block but I ran quick and extended test via WD support tools and it came up clean after about 15 hours on the extended.

Its not the first time ive had problems with this drive which got corrupt and had its file system set to RAW which resulted in me wiping the partition and redoing it.
 
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alphaomega16 said:
I am having a lot of issues with a recent 6TB Red used for storage in my machine, keeps lobbing up errors on the disk relating to "An error was detected on device \Device\Harddisk1 during a paging operation" when I first got the drive and was copying some stuff to it (Around 3TB) I got BSOD and 2 more when reattempting to copy but after updating drivers it seemed to go away but it has popped up a few more times only for this drive and not its 2nd counter part and even mentioned a bad block but I ran quick and extended test via WD support tools and it came up clean after about 15 hours on the extended.

Its not the first time ive had problems with this drive which got corrupt and had its file system set to RAW which resulted in me wiping the partition and redoing it.
Click to expand...
Could be a faulty port or controller.
 
alphaomega16 said:
Can this be done without erasing contents of Hard Drive or does it want to write to the drive possibly losing data.

I know some tests warn about that.

Edit
Spoilered the pic :)
Click to expand...

Yeah the read ones are fine. There's several tests and it clearly warns of the destructive ones:

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So I've received my replacement (recertified) drive and copied over all my data.. but i've noticed that now ive zero'd the knackered drive, it's cleared up the dodgy sector (HD Sentinel says 100% health and nothing shows in the SMART log).

Is that going to cause issues when (if!) they test it ?!
 
I don't think it will. If they test it then I hope they have really advanced tests and tools etc that will show up the error regardless.

From my experience with a drive that had faulty sectors zeroing only helped the issue temporarily - it would reappear.
 
OCdude said:
So I've received my replacement (recertified) drive and copied over all my data.. but i've noticed that now ive zero'd the knackered drive, it's cleared up the dodgy sector (HD Sentinel says 100% health and nothing shows in the SMART log).

Is that going to cause issues when (if!) they test it ?!
Click to expand...

I don't think they'll bother to test it. They're happy to swap out the drive as long as it's under warranty.
 
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