Hard Disk showing only 27 days of life!

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warrior047

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Hi,
In Hard disk Sentinel, its showing below message in RED.

The drive found 82 bad sectors during its self test.
There are 82 weak sectors found on the disk surface. They may be remapped any time in the later use of the disk.
850 errors occured during data transfer. This may indicate problem of the device or with data/power cables. It is recommended to examine and replace the cables if possible.
At this point, warranty replacement of the disk is not yet possible, only if the health drops further.
It is recommended to examine the log of the disk regularly.

Even HD Tune pro showed the same 82 bad ones in Health Tab.
Running the Error scan now.

Any advice on this? Is my hard drive dying? Please suggest
Its been 2.3 yrs :(

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warrior047

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HD Sentinel shows life as 27 days.
Should I buy another one and just dispose this off till it fails? Meanwhile taking the backup as such?

This was working pretty fine till yesterday!
Which one you recommend please, 1 TB or 2 TB?
 
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Shaun o

Shaun o

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Power, maybe.

But it is more likely to be about 2.5 years of heavy use.
The most common types of fail are the magnetic platter unable to store chunks of data.
Or the read and write heads of the drive wearing out, not being able to also write to parts of the platter.

82 weak sectors. Cannot store intended data mapped to it, for read write function.

In short the advice is to scan the drive, try to fix some errors, and then backup the contents or any important data to a new drive. Before it reaches a point of large data loss.
 
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MC_K7

MC_K7

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I would recommend to stop using the computer otherwise the drive might only degrade further until it becomes unusable.

If you open the computer, it would be only to back-up your data as soon as possible.

Almost every hard disk manufacturer will give you a minimum of 3 years warranty for their basic models, and 5 years for their high-end models. Since it's only 2.5 years old, it's most probably still under warranty. Just look at your disk manufacturer website for RMA procedure.

 
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warrior047

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Not sure, if its in warranty as such...HD Tune Pro error scan showing almost 10 damaged blocks i.e., 0.4% of my 1 TB hard drive...its seagate 1 TB Internal.

Am open to buy 2 TB internal...budget not more than 150$
But heard only 1 TB are better than 2 TB?
 
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ronintexas

ronintexas

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For standard computer use, and normal documents, you won't notice much of a difference in speed or performance of most drives. If you are utilizing large photoshop files, video files, databases, etc., you would start to see performance gains. The two biggest factors for a personal drive is going to be price vs. size and warranty period.

My favorite drive is the Western Digital Black series drives - they come with a 5 year warranty:
1TB: $90 - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA2W019M6559
2TB - $150 - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA2W019M6833
3TB - $200 - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA2W019M6835
4TB - $270 - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA2W019M6841

If you do not have a lot of data to store, and don't plan on adding a lot of files soon, I would recommend saving the money and getting the 1TB.

Something to consider as well - a SSD drive increases performance greatly - get a smaller hard drive and get something like this:
Samsung EVO 120GB: - $100 - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820147252
 
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MC_K7

MC_K7

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If your hard disk is going to die in 27 days, I'm pretty sure Seagate will honor their warranty and replace it. No need to buy a new one.



 
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warrior047

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Thank you, but how about the cavier green or blue one in WD?
 
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MC_K7

MC_K7

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If you go with WD I'd definitely pick their Black series. I always been told they're more reliable than the Blue. And the Black cost just a few dollars more and they offer 5 year warranty (instead of 3).

I own a WD Black 1TB and been using it for over three years now and no problem so far.

 
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ronintexas

ronintexas

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For Western Digital Drives, here is a "quickie" breakdown:
Blue - 3 year warranty, consumer grade drive - just the "basics". Good for average computer use drive.
Green - 3 year warranty, consumer grade drive - just the "basics", but adds "green features" (power utilization). Good for average computer use.
Red - 3 year warranty, specifically designed for use in NAS appliances, and designed to be on 24/7.
Black - 5 year warranty, specifically designed for high performance, and people who demand the most out of their drives.

WD Black is one of the brand names I seldom choose anything else on. It isn't that Seagate, the other WD drives or any other manufacturer makes substandard drives, they are all good drives for the most part. The reliability and performance of the WD Black is why I buy them.

I did buy a WD blue drive for a friend's machine a few years ago, he uses it on the weekends for a couple of hours, mostly for internet surfing (Facebook). Doesn't play games, and doesn't have a lot of data - budget was his primary concern. It has performed well form him.
 
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warrior047

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Hi all,
Thanks for the inputs. Update in HD Sentinel as below:
Its the same as I posted in the main thread. But the errors increased with sectors decreased?
However, the life time still showing 27 days with no change!

The drive found 80 bad sectors during its self test.
There are 80 weak sectors found on the disk surface. They may be remapped any time in the later use of the disk.
953 errors occured during data transfer. This may indicate problem of the device or with data/power cables. It is recommended to examine and replace the cables if possible.
At this point, warranty replacement of the disk is not yet possible, only if the health drops further.
It is recommended to examine the log of the disk regularly. All new problems found will be logged there.
 
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bryanl

bryanl

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It's possible the heads were disturbed at the time those 82 sectors were written, such as from mechanical shock, a power surge, or a brief brownout, in which case the HDD is probably fine in every other respect. Back up the drive to a new one and replace it, but don't throw it away. Later, you may want to run a diagnostic to substitute the 82 bad sectors with spares.
 
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warrior047

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Not sure....the errors increasing and the life expected decreasing. I thought, can I do format and complete re-partition?
 
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MC_K7

MC_K7

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Yes you can. I even suggest you do it. I think the file system will exclude the bad sectors during the format. Not that 82 sectors will make a big difference, but you might loose a tad bit of space.

Two things could happen from here: Either the number of bad sectors will remain the same (situation stabilized) and the drive will keep the same performance as before (so no problem) OR the number of bad sectors will keep increasing until performance decrease too much or even total failure.

You said the errors keep increasing, how many bad sectors now? And it still says "no replacement possible yet" I guess?

In any case, I strongly suggest to contact Seagate and see what they suggest you to do. I guess they'll probably propose to replace the drive despite the message that says otherwise. Remember, HD Sentinel is only a stupid software after all. It might not be perfect and could make wrong diagnostics... But you seem to take too much for granted what it says.

 
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ronintexas

ronintexas

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There is a conundrum here. On one hand, you have a $100 (probably less in cost) hard drive that has some physical errors, but according to the Seagate Diagnostics - not enough to make a warranty claim, so they won't RMA the drive. $100 is a lot of money to some people.

On the other hand, you have time (if you are paid $10 per hour, think of wasting 10 hours on this project) spent trying to figure out the drive, if it is bad or good....plus at some point, the drive will probably fail - it could be 30 seconds from now, or 5 years from now - no one knows....we just know that some errors are being produced now. When it fails, will you lose any data? If you do - how important is this data to you (do you have a backup)? Will you need to spend $500+ on hard drive recovery from a professional shop?

The way I look at the solution, is $100 worth the time, stress and headaches for a drive that will need to be replaced at some point? If you put a new drive in (pay $100 for the drive) and use the Seagate as a "scrap drive" for general purpose - maybe it will die in the warranty period....and maybe not. But your computer will still be functional.
 
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MC_K7

MC_K7

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^ +1 for ronintexas

Already wasted enough time on this. Time to call Seagate!

The diagnostic you are getting is contradictory. On one hand it says only 27 days of life left (which is really alarming!) and on the other hand it says "not critical enough to justify a replacement". This doesn't make any sense.

Contact Seagate and demand they replace the drive. Personally, I would not accept to work on a drive that only has 27 days of life left. This alone is enough to justify a replacement IMHO.

 
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