WD HD fails, then replacement drive fails

[sub.mesa]

So funny people make judgements on a small set of statistically irrelevant experiences. Most people also are very generic about their idea of a 'failure'. They do not specify whether it was a mechanical failure or something like a bad sector or even bad cabling. In most cases they simply do not know. They only remember it was a 'green' that gave them troubles.

The truth, of course, is that all harddrives are susceptible to bad sectors and other problems that can arise in normal operating conditions. In these cases, the drive is not really bad - it is functioning within the specifications that was assigned to the drive. So actually it was their filesystem which failed on them, not being able to cope with the uBER specification.

In case of the OP, a lot of data is missing. The proper sequence to test is: surface scan + SMART scan immediate afterwards. If you do things like a long format, you lose the SMART data specifically bad sectors. Essentially, you are destroying evidence that you desperately need to analyse the problem.

The fact that you run XP is not helping as well, in combination with 4K sectors and misalignment issues. But you might start over with:
1) SMART scan (CrystalDiskInfo)
2) HDtune error scan (surface read)
3) SMART scan (CrystalDiskInfo)

The crucial thing here is Current Pending Sectors.

 

[Muse]

I'm not familiar with Silicon Image controllers built into motherboards, but plug-in cards using their oldest controller chips support 2TB drives.

Mine is the Si3512 controller by virtue of the Silicon Image siI3512 SATA chip running in BASE mode on a Gigabyte GA-K8n Pro motherboard. I'm pretty sure it does not support a 2TB HD. I sure pursued that and discovered it was a no go.

 

[Muse]

So funny people make judgements on a small set of statistically irrelevant experiences. Most people also are very generic about their idea of a 'failure'. They do not specify whether it was a mechanical failure or something like a bad sector or even bad cabling. In most cases they simply do not know. They only remember it was a 'green' that gave them troubles.

The truth, of course, is that all harddrives are susceptible to bad sectors and other problems that can arise in normal operating conditions. In these cases, the drive is not really bad - it is functioning within the specifications that was assigned to the drive. So actually it was their filesystem which failed on them, not being able to cope with the uBER specification.

In case of the OP, a lot of data is missing. The proper sequence to test is: surface scan + SMART scan immediate afterwards. If you do things like a long format, you lose the SMART data specifically bad sectors. Essentially, you are destroying evidence that you desperately need to analyse the problem.

The fact that you run XP is not helping as well, in combination with 4K sectors and misalignment issues. But you might start over with:
1) SMART scan (CrystalDiskInfo)
2) HDtune error scan (surface read)
3) SMART scan (CrystalDiskInfo)

The crucial thing here is Current Pending Sectors.

Well, I guess you are talking about the original drive. I lost a lot of data from it. Of course, I no longer have that HD because I sent it to Western Digital to get my credit card off the hook for the cross-shipped RMA drive. At the point where I RMA'd the drive I was unable to get any of my computers to recognize the drive. Running Data Lifeguard was out of the question.

It's the replacement drive I'm now concerned with (review posts in this thread), and by virtue of the fact that I have been unable to do a "Full Format" about 4 times on two different computers, yes both Windows XP boxes (well, one a desktop, the other a laptop). I do have a Windows 7 64bit Ultimate laptop I could use for formatting/testing/whatever.

Do you recommend my following steps 1, 2 and 3 outlined above in working with the replacement HD? Another poster here recommended trying a format using gparted, which I have not done yet.

Again, the drive is in a Western Digital ELEMENTS USB enclosure, my only means of running it. And to reiterate, I have 3 of these enclosures and 3 WD 2TB "green" HDs in them, and am contemplating the wisdom and efficacy of drilling big holes in the cases to facilitate cooler running of the drives.

So funny people make judgements on a small set of statistically irrelevant experiences.

I agree with that, I see that all the time on the internet, but a guy posting in here that he had 4 WD green HDs fail in one month in a cool environment suggests strongly that the contentions that WD green 2TB HDs are a junky lot are not specious. However, he did not specify the nature of the failures, it's true.

 

[Ketchup]

Mine is the Si3512 controller by virtue of the Silicon Image siI3512 SATA chip running in BASE mode on a Gigabyte GA-K8n Pro motherboard. I'm pretty sure it does not support a 2TB HD. I sure pursued that and discovered it was a no go.

Muse, you need a new computer, like yesterday! lol

 

[Muse]

Muse, you need a new computer, like yesterday! lol

Agreed. It's on my list. Of course, it's not a trivial set of decisions. It's my HTPC, and I do other stuff with it too. As an HTPC it has to accommodate my MyHD MDP-130 PCI HDTV card and its daughterboard, and they would have to work well, priority one. I'm not going to game with the box or do anything fancy. I'd like it to run pretty quiet, hopefully be able to keep using the same mid-tower case and 550w power supply (well, I could upgrade the PSU, but presumably the CPU would be energy efficient, so no need). I have some ideas, I've just been pretty busy with projects so haven't knuckled down on this project. Oh, and I have a couple of SSD's looking for a home. I don't believe the mobo I have in the box would even support one. That SATA controller is really the pits. :ninja: I don't think I need a powerful CPU, the HDTV card has a built in processor and AFAIK doesn't use the CPU cycles particularly if at all. Another requirement is dual DVI output, which I have by virtue of my BFG Tech GeForce 6600GT OC 128MB DDR3 AGP Dual DVI Video Card. I realize that AGP isn't apt to be a feature on my next motherboard. I need my dual monitor setup.

 

[Ketchup]

Agreed. It's on my list. Of course, it's not a trivial set of decisions. It's my HTPC, and I do other stuff with it too. As an HTPC it has to accommodate my MyHD MDP-130 PCI HDTV card and its daughterboard, and they would have to work well, priority one. I'm not going to game with the box or do anything fancy. I'd like it to run pretty quiet, hopefully be able to keep using the same mid-tower case and 550w power supply (well, I could upgrade the PSU, but presumably the CPU would be energy efficient, so no need). I have some ideas, I've just been pretty busy with projects so haven't knuckled down on this project. Oh, and I have a couple of SSD's looking for a home. I don't believe the mobo I have in the box would even support one. That SATA controller is really the pits. :ninja:

I am not sure about the HDTV card (drivers and whatnot) but I bet you could get a Pentium and board in there pretty cheap. Might not even have to leave the forums (FS/FT). Do you get the Newegg deal emails? Easy to find deals in there all the time.

 

[Muse]

I am not sure about the HDTV card (drivers and whatnot) but I bet you could get a Pentium and board in there pretty cheap. Might not even have to leave the forums (FS/FT). Do you get the Newegg deal emails? Easy to find deals in there all the time.

Yes, I'm on Newegg's email list. One guy at AVS forums pointed out some AMD deals. I suppose my concern is the dual monitor, somehow to get 2 DVI/HDMI connections somehow.

AMD CPU <------------

 

[KillerBee]

Around a year ago the drive stopped working properly. I got a lot of the data off it before it stopped working entirely. I tried to retrieve the rest of the data a few days ago and couldn't get the drive recognized by my computers.

Just an update on my replacement for a failing WD20EARS

Received same model from WD as yours - a recertified WD20EZRX (SATA III vs SATA II)
it's too bad I don't have a SATA III interface on m/b to take advantage
though the warranty on the replacement expires in only 4 months I guess it's better than nothing

Getting data off the old disk has been a problem since it has sector errors.
Windows7 times-out trying to read anything now so needed to switch to linux to clone the disk. Cloning 'disk to disk' hasn't worked with any block-level linux tools so far
so now using a file-based transfer Testdisk.

Testdisk comes as part of the "Redo Backup and Recovery" bootable disk
and probably most othe linux repair disks too.
So far it's been the only thing able to continuously read the drive and skip the bad sectors. It's slow - about 100G an hour on the good parts and painfully slower on the bad parts but it never fully times-out and keeps on going.
Also the Redo Backup and Recovery disk (Ubuntu based) includes a webbrowser by default so can still use the computer while it's working

I think it's going to take at least 48 hours to copy everything from the old to the new disk :|

 

[Muse]

I think it's going to take at least 48 hours to copy everything from the old to the new disk :|

Good luck with that. I heard that Robocopy would be more robust and less apt to lead to problems than COPY or XCOPY. Maybe what you are doing is the better means of dealing with data retrieval from a failing HD. I don't have any experience with Linux.

Interesting to hear that the replacement drive is SATA III vs SATA II for the EARS drive. I didn't know that. I'm planning (said so in recent posts in this thread) to rebuild my main desktop with a new motherboard, and whatever extra stuff I need to get with it (e.g. video card maybe, RAM, CPU obviously), and I figure SATA III is very possibly going to be supported. I could maybe slide the 2TB drive in the desktop! I basically have one of my WD ELEMENTS HDs permanently attached to the desktop anyway, so having it internally might be the better idea. I need one external as my data drive on my server machine, which is simply a laptop (!). I want a 2nd external for remote storage of my more important data, you know, in case the house burns down or something. I'm still concerned that the replacement drive they sent me may be dodgy at best. I'll look into that in the coming days.

 

[KillerBee]

Good luck with that. I heard that Robocopy would be more robust and less apt to lead to problems than COPY or XCOPY. Maybe what you are doing is the better means of dealing with data retrieval from a failing HD. I don't have any experience with Linux.

Interesting to hear that the replacement drive is SATA III vs SATA II for the EARS drive. I didn't know that. I'm planning (said so in recent posts in this thread) to rebuild my main desktop with a new motherboard, and whatever extra stuff I need to get with it (e.g. video card maybe, RAM, CPU obviously), and I figure SATA III is very possibly going to be supported. I could maybe slide the 2TB drive in the desktop! I basically have one of my WD ELEMENTS HDs permanently attached to the desktop anyway, so having it internally might be the better idea. I need one external as my data drive on my server machine, which is simply a laptop (!). I want a 2nd external for remote storage of my more important data, you know, in case the house burns down or something. I'm still concerned that the replacement drive they sent me may be dodgy at best. I'll look into that in the coming days.

I've been happy with my SataII 17-920 can't see needing to upgrade it
I'm sure anything you buy now will come with SataIII

Finally got most of everything moved off the old one
lost about 200G which couldn't recover but it was old stuff so no big deal.
The new one formatted good - just wish it had a longer warranty.

I do need to find a way to do better maintenance & reporting for Windows7.
ie: It never came out and told me directly - hey moron this disk is starting to go - you might want to check it.
Things just gradually started running slower and slower

A few scheduled chkdsks probably would have saved me.

 

[Muse]

Download a gparted live CD, http://gparted.sourceforge.net/livecd.php
And boot with that (pick if you want CD/USB/whatever), and try formatting with that.

What module from a gparted bootup would I run to attempt a format of the external 2TB HD? It's now quick-formatted by Windows XP, but failed 4 times to full format.

 

[tonyfreak215]

Have you tried using unstoppable copy? I have had some success copying files from zombie hard drives using this program.

http://www.roadkil.net/program.php?ProgramID=29

 

[Mfusick]

Green drives are less reliable it appears

 

[Muse]

A few days ago I decided to try to do a full format one more time, this time using my Windows 7 system. It had failed at least twice using my Windows XP systems, but succeeded in doing a Quick Format (as detailed in this thread). Well, it completed but I think it took way longer than it should, around 48 hours. In the past I full formatted these WD 2TB drives in something like 24 hours or less, IIRC.

So, yesterday I decide to see if I can start using the drive for backup purposes. I copy a folder with around 60GB data under it that's on one of my WD 2TB ELEMENTS HDs and paste it to the new one (also WD 2TB ELEMENTS, i.e. external USB enclosures, both HDs). This failed, at least partially, for some reason(s). I got error messages that looked like this:

-------------------------------------
Windows - Delayed Write Failed
-------------------------------------

X Windows was unable to save all the data for the file< >. The data has been lost. This error may be caused by a failure of your computer hardware or network connection. Please try to save this file elsewhere.

[OK]

-------------------------------------

No network connection was in effect. Both HDs were connected to the same Windows XP machine, i.e. by USB.

When I look at the properties now for the root directory of the copied-to HD, it indicates that there are 43GB data on the HD, i.e. used space. However, there's only one directory with any data in it and it's ..\Data (and subdirectories) off the root. Therefore, the properties for that directory should indicate the used space to be about 43GB, obviously. However, what's reported by Windows is about 2.5GB! I ran WD Data Lifeguard Diagnostics, Quick Test on the drive and it passes, but so what. I figure I will have to call Western Digital and insist on a replacement for this replacement HD. Before I do so, can I get some comments please?

 

[Zxian]

Run a full test on the drive. Quick tests often miss failures on the sectors of the drive. If the version you have can't do this, grab a copy of UBCD and use the Lifeguard tools from there.

Yes, you may need to ask for a replacement of the replacement. Shipping hard drives is a bitch. Who knows how the shipping company handled the drive between the WD centers and your home?

Drive failures happen. This is a plain and simple fact of life. That being said, your RMA procedure with WD is simple and straight forward. Register the drive, apply for an advance RMA.

Make sure you take screenshots and pictures whenever you can. Documentation goes a long ways and will cover you from any potential he-said-she-said scenarios.


The best way to test the drive would be to connect it (and only it) to your motherboard and run the WD diagnostics.

 

[Elixer]

-------------------------------------

No network connection was in effect. Both HDs were connected to the same Windows XP machine, i.e. by USB.

Your out of luck.
The drive has bad sectors.
My RMA'ed RMA drive just failed on me, with the exact error. Though, in my case, it is a seagate "certified repair" that didn't last over 1500 hours of use.
Called them up, and they said sorry, no warranty left.

 

[tweakboy]

Tough Luck. If your on RAID its understandable,, but I dont understand how 2 drives die like that out of know where. gl