Bad Sectors enough to warrant RMA?

[AkumaX]

I just got bad sectors on a 2 yr old Seagate 1.5TB hdd. In your opinion, is that enough to start the warranty process?

 

[taltamir]

just to be clear...
1. one single bad sector in the entire two years?
2. has it been reassigned? aka, are you saying that the drive only had one sector fail in its entire life, or that the drive had enough failed sectors to completely use up its spare space so that it can no longer reallocated failed sectors?
if it is the latter, and it has so many bad sectors that it ran out of spare space, then yes I think it is time to RMA.

 

[tweakboy]

How many bad sectors do you have ?

You cant fix the bad sectors with disk utilities or a format BUT you can fix it doing a low level format with free app.

I had 3 bad sectors and using max llf free app it removed the bad sectors and now chkdsk shows 0 bad sectors. I couldnt get rid of it with a format or disk util but a low level format did it. I wish I had saved the app soo I can remember the exact name,, just google her in.

As long as the drive is not physically damaged you can get rid of the bad sectors like I said above. gl let me know..

 

[tomt4535]

IIRC, You have to run SeaTools before you can RMA with Seagate. It will give you a failure code if the drive really is bad. Not too sure if they will let you RMA it without that code.

 

[taltamir]

How many bad sectors do you have ?

You cant fix the bad sectors with disk utilities or a format BUT you can fix it doing a low level format with free app.

I had 3 bad sectors and using max llf free app it removed the bad sectors and now chkdsk shows 0 bad sectors. I couldnt get rid of it with a format or disk util but a low level format did it. I wish I had saved the app soo I can remember the exact name,, just google her in.

As long as the drive is not physically damaged you can get rid of the bad sectors like I said above. gl let me know..

This is just incorrect
Low level formatting: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Low_level_format#Low-level_formatting_.28LLF.29_of_hard_disks

As you can see, your drive is not possible to low level format... however, a full format will perform a bad sector check, which will allow the drive to catch and reallocate bad sectors to the spare area... IF it hasn't been used up already. if it has been fully used up then it will not solve the issue.

 

[mv2devnull]

IIRC, You have to run SeaTools before you can RMA with Seagate. It will give you a failure code if the drive really is bad. Not too sure if they will let you RMA it without that code.

That is the procedure. Nevertheless, I've carried more than one Seagate back to the store, where I bought them from, and eventually received replacements. Not all of them were deemed bad by SeaTools. Could be store's policy rather than Seagate's.

Vendor of office desktops said that I should "RMA" to them a WD that has accumulated reallocated sectors rather than wait for a brick. IIRC those are RE-line models.


But slightly back to the OP. "Bad sectors". I wonder what calls them bad. SeaTools probably starts by reading SMART data and then continues to write-read test. Description of SMART attributes 05 and 197 do reveal some of what the user can and cannot see.

 

[Evadman]

I have a ton of those seagate 1.5tb drives in arrays, and all of them have bad sectors. Some over 200. I have not found them to be an issue, and none have failed yet. *shrug*.

 

[jjmIII]

IIRC, You have to run SeaTools before you can RMA with Seagate. It will give you a failure code if the drive really is bad. Not too sure if they will let you RMA it without that code.

No, they take them back with no code, and there is a field in the RMA form for no code. You will get a refurb drive as an RMA FYI.

I have a ton of those seagate 1.5tb drives in arrays, and all of them have bad sectors. Some over 200. I have not found them to be an issue, and none have failed yet. *shrug*.

Ya, every 1.5tb Seabait I ever owned (inclulding the supposed 'refurbs') had bad sectors....YAH!

I sell the sealed 'refurbs' on eBay for stupid money. Sold the last one and broke even buying a new 2TB F4 Sammy.