SpinRite shows many seek errors on a fairly new drive

[Synomenon]

I purchased a Seagate 7200.10 250GB hard drive back in April of this year:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/...p?Item=N82E16822148144

It's in this eSATA enclosure:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/...p?Item=N82E16817715002

Recently, the drive was infected with a virus so I zero-filled the drive using DBAN. Then I ran SpinRite at level 5 on the drive. While SpinRite was running, the SMART System Monitor built into SpinRite was showing thousands of seek errors on the drive.

Does this mean that this fairly new drive is bad? Should I RMA it to Seagate?

Update 1:
SpinRite is 10% complete and in the "seek errors" row it shows:
error count: 117684
minimum: 926
error rate: 1144
maximum: 1209

Update 2:
SpinRite is 80% complete and in the "seek errors" row it shows:
error count: 1083583
minimum: 926
error rate: 1397
maximum: 1900

Update 3:
SpinRite is finally finished and in the "seek errors" row it shows:
error count: 1485261
minimum: 926
error rate: 1521
maximum: 2293

 

[oynaz]

Try Seagate's diagnostics software, I believe it is called Seatools. You can get it for free off their website. It does a good job of telling you whether or not to RMA the drive.

 

[Synomenon]

Thanks. I'll try Seatools once SpinRite is done. It's been running for almost 11 hours now. I'll let it finish restoring good sectors.

 

[Synomenon]

It finally finished after 15 hours of running. Final results from SpinRite under seek errors:

error count: 1485261
minimum: 926
error rate: 1521
maximum: 2293

Just ran Seatools and did the long test. It said that the drive passed. No other details. I guess it's OK then.

 

[montag451]

Are you using Spinrite 6?

It is doubtful that Seagate would issue an RMA on the drive if their tool passes it as ok.
Bear in mind that the hdd manufacturers are more likely to make their tool less sensitive otherwise they will be RMAs on millions more drives.

Still, it is unlikely that their tool will just pass a drive that is suffering as bad as Spinrite indicates.

 

[Synomenon]

Yeah, I bought the latest version of SpinRite. So do you think my drive is ok?

 

[montag451]

I would run the following piece of software for the next 30 days (the free period), just to make sure.
Also, being very meticulous about backups.
http://www.sofotex.com/Active-...T-download_L50477.html

 

[JustaGeek]

If the long test has passed OK, the drive shoud be fine.

I would still run the chkdsk in Windows though - let the OS tell you if it "thinks" it can safely write to it.

 

[tcsenter]

Originally posted by: IsLNdbOi
It finally finished after 15 hours of running. Final results from SpinRite under seek errors:

error count: 1485261
minimum: 926
error rate: 1521
maximum: 2293

If the seek error tally was in white text vs. red text, then the seek error rate was within normal range. You can download SpeedFan 4.32 then use the S.M.A.R.T analysis tool to see how your drive's seek error rate compares with other drives of the same make and model.

 

[Synomenon]

The text was in white. That's seems kind of high for the normal range though doesn't it?

 

[RebateMonger]

Seagate will issue an RMA if you want one. They don't require that you even test the drive first.

 

[tcsenter]

Originally posted by: IsLNdbOi
The text was in white. That's seems kind of high for the normal range though doesn't it?

Drives encounter a number of seek errors during normal operation. As for how to interpret normal high, low, and average, its all relative to the statistical norms for that make and model of drive (design) and difficult to interpret in a vacuum. That's why I recommended SpeedFan's SMART web database to compare your drive with others of the same make and model.

 

[Synomenon]

I don't have any OS installed yet so I can't install Speedfan. I did look at a database on their website and my Seagate drive isn't listed.

 

[tcsenter]

Originally posted by: IsLNdbOi
I don't have any OS installed yet so I can't install Speedfan. I did look at a database on their website and my Seagate drive isn't listed.

Did you use Speedfan to submit your drive's SMART values using the 'perform in-depth online analysis of this hard drive' button from the SMART tab?

 

[Synomenon]

I didn't have SpeedFan installed before reformatting this drive. Installed it once before to see if I could control my fan speeds, but it didn't work so I uninstalled it and haven't had it on my system since. Even when I did have it, I never though to submit any info. using it.