How to test new Seagate 4TB Expansion Drive? Should I reformat first?

disneytoy · Aug 1, 2014

Hello!

Just got in a 4TB Seagate Expansion Drive on my Win7 x64. I know these drives can be problematic.

I remember reading awhile back about running some type of test first before loading my files. Somehow test the "sectors" etc? What should I use for that.

Also, Should I do a fresh reformat of the drive before using?

Thanks in advance.

Max

Paperdoc · Aug 1, 2014

It's not likely that a brand new HDD will have bad sectors, but possible. There is a process call "zero filling" that can force a HDD to test itself and fix any problems of that type, although it would take probably about a day to run it!

By the way, if this is a brand new empty drive, it has not been Formatted yet. (Well, it HAS had a true "Low-Level Format" done at the factory, but you can NOT re-do that.) It needs two steps: Create a Partition, and then Format that. I am assuming that you want to use this as one large "drive" with ALL of that space - about 3.75 TB when done. I also assume you are not going to use this to BOOT from - that is, this is a data drive only and you boot from another unit as your C: drive.

You're already running a 64-bit version of Windows - good because that is necessary. The rest of what you need to do is all available for you in Windows' utility Disk Management. Go through My Computer ... Control Panel ... Administrative Tools ... Computer Management, and choose Disk Management. Look in the LOWER RIGHT pane - it SCROLLS so you can see all your storage hardware - to find your 4 TB unit. RIGHT click on it and choose to Create a New Simple Volume, and make sure you choose the GPT type, NOT the MBR type. In the options for Formatting to install the NTFS File System you can choose a Full or Quick Format. Choose Full and it will do the job for you. This job will take MANY hours - nearly a day, perhaps, so be patient!. The reason it takes so long is that THIS does the testing you asked for - it checks EVERY Sector on the HDD and makes a note of any it thinks is "Bad" so Windows will never try to use that one. When it is finished, back out of Disk Management and reboot so that Windows can update its Registry and show the drive in My Computer, ready to use.

disneytoy · Aug 2, 2014

Hi! Actually it come from seagate formatted with some PDFs and registration stuff. I just know these externals have a high failure rate.

nukemaster · Aug 2, 2014

Grab HD Tune and run an error scan. The free one should be able to do the scan as well.
http://www.hdtune.com/download.html

Also get your self a copy of CrystalDiskInfo since it can read smart attributes on most external drives. Smart Attributes can give you a warning before a drive fails
http://crystalmark.info/download/index-e.html

Seagate also has its own tool for testing, The long generic test would be best as I have seen misreported errors on the non generic tests(I think the software needs updates).

Please note seagate reports things in SMART differently than other drives so some readings may look high, but be just fine. As long as you do not pass a threshold for a value(aside of Pending sector reallocated. You want none of these ), chances are things are fine.

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How to test new Seagate 4TB Expansion Drive? Should I reformat first?

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