Disk fails SMART, how do I repair it?

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computerdoc

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The disk is a 1 tb Cirago external drive - WDC WD5000aaks. It fails on one system for high reallocated sector count and on another system it comes up in Crystal Disk Info as warning for the same reason.

I want to use it as a utility drive without committing anything permanent or important to it. Can this problem be corrected with Spinrite or some other program? Are there some Western Digital utilities that might repair it?

What's the best way to go?
 
A full format should do the job, as it will tell the file system not to copy anything into the damaged part. It won't cure the SMART issue but if it is only used as a 'utility drive' it doesn't matter does it?
 
Once the drive starts getting bad sectors, particularly enough to trip the SMART tests, my experience has been that it usually quickly gets worse from there. The western digital lifeguard diagnostic tools can mark bad sectors in the firmware of the drive so they are not used, however if it has a lot it may just diagnose the drive as faulty.

If the data is not important you could format it and use it I guess. But a 1 TB drive is less that $80 these days, so it might be more bother than its worth.
 
Don't put anything important on it. It will eventually fail completely.

It will continue to get slower and slower and slower until it flat out just doesn't work one day.

I always replace drives that have tripped SMART, its just not worth it even for a test drive. You say its not important today until the day comes that a customers image is on it and it fails.
 
Bear in mind that SMART info is coming right from the HD itself. If the HD knows something is failing, it's almost certainly right... so stop using it. While there is a chance that the error lies in the SMART chips themselves, it's not worth risk. Backup the data and trash the drive.

I've got a secondary drive on my own system that's got a high reallocated sector count but 1) I'm aware of the risk and 2) it's regularly backed up. That drive will die; it's not in question. When it does, I won't be the least surprised.
 
Once I see errors I scrap it. You might say now you're keeping nothing important on it but it will come back to bite you along the way.
 
It looks like the consensus is to relegate it to the scrap heap.

Looks like I'll be getting one of those portable drives as a replacement.
 
When buying a new 1+ TB disk drive, read the user reviews at Newegg or some simlilar site. Newegg has a 5 egg rating system with 1 egg being the lowest. I take the sum of the 1 & 2 egg scores and divide that into the sum of the 4 & 5 egg scores. If the number is less than 5, I pass on it. This means there are at least 5 times more satisfied than dissatisfied customers. It is best to have at least 40 reviews but some newer products do not have that many.

You will find it difficult to find a disk drive of 1-TB or larger with a good score. Here is one large disk drive that I have used and does have a very high score:

SAMSUNG Spinpoint F3 HD103SJ 1TB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5 Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822152185

In general, the consumer disk drives above 750-GB are much less reliable than the smaller drives. There is a reason these huge disk drives are priced under $150.
 
computerdoc said:
sys-eng,

How do portable 1 TB drives fare? Are they the same or worse?
Click to expand...

Worse. Portable drives will always have higher failure rates for these reasons:

- Moving the drive while it is running.:eek:

- The drive is not handled with care when it is off either.

- Many portable cases are not cooled and the drives get hot.

- The power supplied to portable drives is not as stable.

- Many systems do not auto-detect eSATA drives consistently.
Not really a drive fault.


I have actually seen several times portable drives priced lower than buying the very same bare drive by itself.
 
Is the drive still under warranty? I just checked at Newegg & it looks like Cirago's warranty is 1 year parts/labor. I think Western Digital's standard warranty is 3 years.

Would this be considered an OEM drive since it was in an enclosure, therefore voiding WD's 3 year warranty?
 
Tekguy said:
Is the drive still under warranty? I just checked at Newegg & it looks like Cirago's warranty is 1 year parts/labor. I think Western Digital's standard warranty is 3 years.

Would this be considered an OEM drive since it was in an enclosure, therefore voiding WD's 3 year warranty?
Click to expand...

If the drive is purchased in the portable enclosure such as Cirago, then all warranty claims are handled by Cirago (not the OEM of the drive).
 
hard drive, interior or external, if it got bad sectors and fail the smart test, bin it.
you may by mistake put some important data on it and when you come to use the drive it totally fail
 
computerdoc said:
The disk is a 1 tb Cirago external drive - WDC WD5000aaks. It fails on one system for high reallocated sector count and on another system it comes up in Crystal Disk Info as warning for the same reason.

I want to use it as a utility drive without committing anything permanent or important to it. Can this problem be corrected with Spinrite or some other program? Are there some Western Digital utilities that might repair it?

What's the best way to go?
Click to expand...

Try something other than Crystal Disk to check the Smart values.
I have seen Crystal disk show faulty values and have other programs show Smart values as ok.

Or, do a thorough check with WD tools or gsmartcontrol. If anything is bad or questionable, toss-it.
 
This is the second ancient post that this user has randomly commented on that i've seen today. Just boosting post count without even reading fully. Reporting user.
 
ZenTree said:
This is the second ancient post that this user has randomly commented on that i've seen today. Just boosting post count without even reading fully. Reporting user.
Click to expand...

at least he's going through the posts. Much better than just posting Hi! to other new users to get the post count up.

But the topics and posts could be more useful.
 
It's about as useful as doing that. At least respond to a topic that was last commented on within a couple of weeks.
 
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