Is this drive bad or not?

[shooter124]

Hey,

I have a couple month old samsung hd501lj 500gb hd. When I run WD diagnostic or Seagate Seatools it won't pass the short drive self test (seagate) or the quick test in WD. in WD there is a check next to smart status but during the quick test WD gives me an error: Status code = 07 (failed read test element), Failure checkpoint = 127 (unknown test). Seagate just fails and doesn't give me any information. The drive seems to work fine. Does this mean bad things to come or should I just ignore this. Is it worth RMAing? It passes the thorough chkdsk. Thanks for any input!

 

[gent]

If it says Unknown Element or Unknown Test you need to run the Samsung disk utilities to find out what is failing.

 

[cyberjock]

You won't be able to RMA the drive without an error code from the HD manufacturer's program. They'll make you type in the secret error number, and if the error isn't 'severe' they won't RMA. Bad sector error isn't severe. But the 'Error: Too many bad sectors' error code is good for RMA. I swear i've never seen that error before .

 

[onestar]

Spinrite 6 is a very good disk drive tool and in many cases will "fix" a drive that is out of warranty. In your case, however I would use the Samsung tools and discover what options are available to you.

 

[shooter124]

i finally used the samsung tool for my samsung drive...

it passes the the diagnostic tests except when i run the surface scan that scans all of the disk it give an error at a specific lba, not sure if its more than one because i fell asleep but before i fell asleep i saw error: LBA XXXXXXXXX and then i woke up to the message your disk has errors try erasing the disk, or something like that. I already got an RMA # should i just send it in or is this trivial?

 

[SomeJoe7777]

I would send it in via your RMA. A properly working drive is not supposed to have any bad sectors. Drives that have detectable bad sectors are on their way to failing completely, it's just a matter of time.

 

[cyberjock]

Check the warranty information on what qualifies as a 'valid RMA'. I've seen situations where having bad sectors doesn't mean you can RMA it. And if you do RMA it, when it get's to the manufacturer they're gonna bill you for it. Yes, if there's bad sectors that means your drive could be heading out the door, but usually(and this is stupid IMO) they won't RMA it till it IS out the door. As long as your just standing in the doorway they don't care. Great situation to put their customer's data in eh?

Spinrite should be able to mark the bad sectors as bad so you can continue to use the drive and not have to deal with the bad areas.