WD HDDs, bad sectors on surface scan, good sectors on full format, repeat. What's going on?

[VirtualLarry]

Why won't these "bad" sectors remap? Are they just "phantom" bad sectors?

I do a surface scan, I get 14-15 "Pending" sectors. I do an NTFS full format, instead of getting "Remapped", the "Pending" goes down to zero, and the HDD shows "Health Status: Good" in CrystalDiskInfo.

Then I do a surface scan, the "bad" sectors show up again, in the Pending for SMART. Do an NTFS Full Format, the Pending go away, and Remapped stays at zero.

Weird, eh? So, should I trust this drive with data? It would be used as a secondary drive. I can imagine putting OS files on it, and having it show "bad" sectors in the middle of system files though.

Edit: I'm using a dual-drive Ultra Products SATA HDD dock via USB3.0, to my ASRock Deskmini, through an Orico USB3.0 hub. So these could be USB errors showing up, possibly.

I could mount the drive internally as SATA, but that would be a slight PITA, to get into the case and back out again. I've got a bunch of HDDs to test, and I thought that this testing methodology was solid.

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=8968490

I went looking for a firmware update, but ultraproducts.com doesn't seem to exist any more.

http://cirago.com/cdd3000.php

Cirago sells this same dock, for $80 (!), but they too, don't have any firmware updates.

 

[snoopy7548]

Why won't these "bad" sectors remap? Are they just "phantom" bad sectors?

I do a surface scan, I get 14-15 "Pending" sectors. I do an NTFS full format, instead of getting "Remapped", the "Pending" goes down to zero, and the HDD shows "Health Status: Good" in CrystalDiskInfo.

Then I do a surface scan, the "bad" sectors show up again, in the Pending for SMART. Do an NTFS Full Format, the Pending go away, and Remapped stays at zero.

Weird, eh? So, should I trust this drive with data? It would be used as a secondary drive. I can imagine putting OS files on it, and having it show "bad" sectors in the middle of system files though.

Edit: I'm using a dual-drive Ultra Products SATA HDD dock via USB3.0, to my ASRock Deskmini, through an Orico USB3.0 hub. So these could be USB errors showing up, possibly.

I could mount the drive internally as SATA, but that would be a slight PITA, to get into the case and back out again. I've got a bunch of HDDs to test, and I thought that this testing methodology was solid.

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=8968490

I went looking for a firmware update, but ultraproducts.com doesn't seem to exist any more.

http://cirago.com/cdd3000.php

Cirago sells this same dock, for $80 (!), but they too, don't have any firmware updates.

Had a similar thing happen with one of my WD 8TB drives (helium-filled). I was transferring files off of it from a USB dock and I got 24 "Current Pending Sectors". I did a zero-write and the count went down to 0, while the "Reallocated Sectors" count remained at 0. An extended scan with WD's utility showed no problems; same with HDTune Pro. I contacted WD support and they said if no errors were found after the zero write then I shouldn't worry about it.

I didn't have a fan on the drive, so its temperature got up to ~54C. Still within spec but on the higher end. That, along with the possibility of USB errors, could probably cause problems. It's also possible there was a power-related issue with the dock when it was accessing a particular section of the drive.

Yesterday I put the drive in my HTPC in order to copy files to it (~66% full now) and I didn't have a single error show up; temperature never went above 34C. Keeping my fingers crossed.

If the drive is still under warranty, contact WD and see what they say. You might get somebody who will tell you to RMA it; if not, and it's fairly new (2+ years of warranty left), I would just use it but keep a close eye on it.

 

[C1]

Surface scan is considered a more thorough test.

As in sports, women & finances, "sigma" is important. Remember, a 220 score is considered a bad game for a pro bowler.

An HDD that cant show consistent results for R/W s is potential for riches to rags.

 

[Dahak]

I would try it direct to a sata port instead of the dock to rule that out. As well as try WD diag tools. They do have a windows based one or usb/dos based

 

[mikeymikec]

chkdsk /b gets it to re-check sectors previously marked as bad by Windows (not the drive itself).