Hard drive physically damaged?

Soldato
Joined
20 Oct 2002
Posts
3,469
Location
London, UK
Hi everyone, I bought another Western Digital 2TB drive online, and upon opening the packaging I discovered that the idiots who packed the drive did it completely wrong so the drive was vulnerable to damage if the box was impacted on its side (which is always very likely - see pics below to see what I mean), and when initially powering up the drive for the first time i heard a few strange click noises (not heard any since, mind), as well as noticing my entire system 'hiccuping' a few times (i.e. hanging for a second or two - no mouse movement), which I've never ever witnessed before in my years of using Windows Vista and hot-swapping literally dozens of SATA hard drives.

I've run the 'Quick' S.M.A.R.T diagnostic test using the Western Digital Data Lifeguard Diagnostics tool, which resulted in a "PASS", but when running the extended diagnostic, the progress bar just sat at 0% and remained in that state for over 8 hours; showing no signs of progressing.

After finally losing patience I tried to hit the 'cancel' button but it didn't seem to be doing anything despite the program itself still being responsive... it was as if it just stopped receiving commands or something, yet I was still able to create new files/folders on the drive using windows explorer while this was going on. :confused:

Arrived like this:
2dkhcll.jpg


Should've arrived like this (I should not even have that extra piece of foam):
28l5ikj.jpg



Right now I'm trying to run a full format but its been at it for nearly 2 hours with only 20% done, so I was basically wondering:

  1. Just from what I've said above does it seem pretty obvious that my drive is screwed? (especially considering the initial 'clicking' and hiccups which is definitely not normal).
  2. Is there a much quicker and easier way of finding out for 100% if my drive has a fault?
It seems that if my drive is suffering from a physical fault or damage, it is possible for this fault to exist but still apparently show no visible signs of fault at all? It's just that after already testing another one of these 2TB drives something definitely doesn't feel right for this one... but perhaps I'm being paranoid.

I'm using this drive as long term storage for data that will not be backed up, so whilst it is still non-life-critical data I do not want there to be a heightened chance of hardware failure because some numpty forgot to remove a piece of sponge from a cardboard box. :rolleyes:

Any help/ideas/suggestions would be very much appreciated! ;)
 
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I hate to tell you that the packaging you initially received is much better than most of the drives I've bought over the years. If you look at the specs of a modern HDD the non operating shock tolerance is surprisingly high.

8 hours for a full format of a 2Tb 5400rpm HDD is about right.
 
Hi Op

The best tools I have found for checking hard disks for correct function at a low level are the CLI Smart Tools GNU package (running under Linux or Cygwin for Windows) and Spinrite (GRC) - but this has some driver issues.

Seagate are shipping OEM drives out with a bit of cardboard wrapped round a drive in an anti-static bag...

Bob
 
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