Western Digital WD20EARS bad? Please demystify!

[Muse]

I'm on my 3rd of this 2TB Advanced Format HD. I sent the first back, I have not returned the 2nd yet. Now I have to rub my eyes and wonder WTH is going on. The vendor is Dell and I ordered online and the first wasn't well packed and I thought that explained the bad sectors.

My desktop's SATA controller doesn't support this HD (it hangs), so I put the HD in an empty Western Digital Elements 2TB HD USB connection enclosure I have.

I formatted the first 2 using a Lenovo Thinkpad T60 running XP Pro, using the format utility from within Disk Management, choosing 4096kb allocation units. The choices within that utility are

Default
512
1024
2048
4096
8192
16
32
64

Now, advanced format HDs are designed to use 4096kb, right? So, I figured I should choose 4096. I plan to use the external HD with Windows XP laptops, the XP desktop and I also have a Windows 7 64bit Ultimate laptop (Lenovo Thinkpad T61).

The first HD was formatted using one of my Thinkpad T60's running XP Pro, and it was proceeding at a rate that would finish after about 5 hours total. It seemed to bog down considerably around 67% and it finished after about 7 hours. Western Digital advises to run WD Align against this drive if it will be used with XP, so I started it and after about 2-4 minutes it errored out saying "BAD BLOCKS." I ran Western Digital Lifeguard diagnostics Extended Test utility against the drive (again using the XP Thinkpad T60), and before it could complete it said "Too many bad sectors."

At this point I was convinced the HD was bad and I called Dell and arranged a cross ship RMA. I returned the HD last week and received a replacement, which I formatted in the same manner and also got the message "Too many bad sectors" from the Western Digital Lifeguard diagnostics Extended Test utility (running on the XP T60). I arranged another RMA cross-ship, got the drive Friday afternoon, began to format it (differently, see below) Monday morning at 6AM.

In another thread one guy said there could be problems due to equipment used, i.e. cable, controller, whatever. So, I decided this time to use my Windows 7 64bit Ultimate laptop (Lenovo Thinkpad T61), and a different USB cable. I went into Disk Mangement in Windows 7, and it looked to my eyes exactly like Disk Management in XP Pro. Again, I chose 4096kb allocation unit. The only difference I can see is that the formatting process is taking five times as long! WTF. 5x! Why? Does that mean Windows 7 is doing it differently? Does that mean the drive is trash? It's taking over 24 hours. I figure I'll run Western Digital Lifeguard diagnostics Extended Test utility on the drive when it is done. Don't know which computer to do it. I figure it shouldn't matter. I haven't sent the 2nd HD back to Dell yet (haven't had time), but now I'm wondering if it's indeed bad. The 3rd one (formatting now, should be done in about 6 hours) was packed as badly as the first. It's 79% formatted after 19 hours. What's a guy to think?

Comments, please!

 

[Muse]

The format finally completed after just over 24 hours. Windows 7 says it's Healthy. I plug the external drive into my T60 laptop running XP Pro and it isn't seen.

Edit: Oh, the Add New Hardware Wizard was active, it just didn't present itself. There was an icon in my tray.

Edit2: LifeGuard's SMART data indicates 140 reallocated sectors. I guess that's the clincher right there and it's a bad drive. I suppose maybe I should deal directly with Western Digital at this point. 3 duds from Dell already! D:

I'm going to start the Extended Test anyway... Or should I even bother? 140 reallocated sectors is not acceptable, right? Even one is not acceptable on a new HD, right?

 

[Zap]

For the long formatting time, that's why I always quick format.

3x bad HDDs in a row? Maybe your systems are not cut out for one of these Advanced Format HDDs?

 

[Nintendesert]

That's a lot of failures in a row. I'm hearing a lot of bad things lately from WD, I used to only buy them too. I just had a 1TB Passport go bad, head strikes. It wasn't even that old, maybe a few months.

I'll RMA it once I get back to the USA, but I'll be looking to purchase Samsung drives now. Seems the F4's have better quality right now than what WD is putting out.

 

[fffblackmage]

Is it necessary to choose 4K allocation? I just pick "default" for my Samsung F4. I have a few EARS as well, and though I haven't got around to messing with them much yet, I picked the default value when doing the formatting. They seem to be doing ok, so far.

That's a lot of failures in a row. I'm hearing a lot of bad things lately from WD, I used to only buy them too.

I'm not getting a very good impression of WD lately either. Samsung HDDs are getting much better, and WD just doesn't have an edge in the SSD market. Kinda makes me wonder how they'll fare in a few years.

 

[Muse]

For the long formatting time, that's why I always quick format.

3x bad HDDs in a row? Maybe your systems are not cut out for one of these Advanced Format HDDs?

But I'm putting them in a Western Digital Elements 2TB enclosure. Shouldn't they work in them?

Bad sectors are bad sectors, right?

3 bad drives in a row is nasty, yes, but if you read reviews at Newegg you'll see that multiple bad drives before the buyer gets a good one is not unusual. Also, it's possible that many of the buyers are not testing the drives.

Is it necessary to choose 4096K allocation? I just pick "default" for my Samsung F4.

But the WD20EARS is an advanced format HD. It's _supposed_ to be 4KB allocation units. It's a puzzle to me that Windows format supports all those other sizes, actually. I thought HDs were always 512 allocation units until advanced formatting was introduced. Well, I'm no expert, but I thought I read something like that recently.

 

[Gigantopithecus]

But I'm putting them in a Western Digital Elements 2TB enclosure. Shouldn't they work in them?

3 'bad drives' in a row? I suspect it's that enclosure wrecking them.

 

[frostedflakes]

The likelihood of receiving three bad drives in a row is so ridiculously small. It's time to stop looking at the drives and start looking at the user or something else in your system.

First of all, the cluster size you select when you format a drive has absolutely nothing to do with the physical sector size on the HDD. They need not line up, for example 4kB has always been the default cluster size for NTFS file systems, even for older disks that use 512 byte sectors. Choosing 4kB cluster size when you format the drive in Windows XP isn't enough to make it work properly. With advanced format drives in XP, you have to use the alignment tool for the drive to work properly. First thing I'd do is make sure you're following WD's alignment instructions to a T and aren't overlooking any steps.

edit: Thinking about it more doesn't WD also have a jumper setting on these drives that allows them to be used on XP? I think if the drive will only have a single partition, you can use this jumper to make it work properly on XP. However, if the drive will have multiple partitions, you can't use the jumper and will have to use the alignment tool on the drive's partitions.

It really doesn't sound like you've done a lot of reading up on these advanced format drives. Like I said I'd make sure you've read (or re-read) all the related articles and guides on WD's site, there's probably some step or other silly little thing that you're overlooking.

 

[Muse]

Frostedflakes (et al): In the OP I stated that I ran WD Align on the first HD after formatting as described. After a very few minutes it halted and said "BAD BLOCKS"

I am confusing cluster size with the size of the sectors, clearly. So it doesn't matter what allocation unit size I choose in Windows Format? I chose 4kb. Well, perhaps I should use "Default" but you say it doesn't matter.

Yes, the drive has a jumper setting if I'm going to use it with XP, and I am intending to just have one partition, so I could do that. I wasn't sure it was the smartest thing to do (use the jumper in lieu of running WD Align). For one thing, I may use the drive with a Windows 7 laptop, but my intention right now is to have it in the enclosure. WD's instructions don't seem designed for putting the drive in an enclosure. They do say they don't support 3rd party enclosures, but the enclosure I'm using is not 3rd party, it's a Western Digital Elements 2TB enclosure, however their instructions don't go into detail concerning that, they just say that if you do use the drive in a 3rd party enclosure it's up to you to contact the manufacturer and get specific instructions. I had to assume I'm OK with the WD enclosure, therefore. Maybe I should make an effort to get in personal contact with a WD technician for help at this point, assuming my 3rd HD here also fails LifeGuard testing. That test using the Extended Test should finish after midnight tonight, so I won't know the result until morning, assuming it doesn't quit with errors before that.

Edit: Why the devil would SMART test in LifeGuard report 140 sectors reallocated after formatting (the format process I used is described in detail in the OP) unless there are bad sectors? What could I possibly have done wrong to report all these bad sectors if the disk is indeed not bad?

 

[Zap]

Edit: Why the devil would SMART test in LifeGuard report 140 sectors reallocated after formatting (the format process I used is described in detail in the OP) unless there are bad sectors?

Wait... Are you sure it is reporting the right thing or you are reading it right? I just checked my own WD20EARS with DiskCheckup and mine also says 140:

Reallocated Sector Count
Status OK
Value 200
Worst 200
Threshold 140
Raw Value 0
Predicted TEC Date

I checked the help file and it says:

Reallocated Sector Count (ID: 5)
Represents the amount of spare sector pool available. Spare sectors are used to replace sectors that became bad for some reason (for instance, if a read error occurs). Therefore the more sectors reallocated, the worse the condition of the drive. A high value represents few reallocated sectors, a low value represents a disk in poor physical condition.

So, the high number is supposed to represent spare sectors and higher is better.

 

[Muse]

Wait... Are you sure it is reporting the right thing or you are reading it right? I just checked my own WD20EARS with DiskCheckup and mine also says 140:

Reallocated Sector Count
Status OK
Value 200
Worst 200
Threshold 140
Raw Value 0
Predicted TEC Date

I checked the help file and it says:


So, the high number is supposed to represent spare sectors and higher is better.

Oh, OK, then I misunderstood. I took reallocated sector count to be the number of sectors that had to be remapped during the format process, not the number available for remapping in the event of trouble. That, if true, is good news.

I'm wondering one thing right now: Why did the format process using my Windows 7 laptop (Lenovo T61, with Windows 7 64 bit Ultimate, with 4GB DDR2 and a faster 2.4GHz Core 2 Duo CPU) take 5 times as long as it did using my Windows XP Pro laptop (Lenovo T60, XP Pro, 3GB DDR2, slower 1.67GHz Core 2 Duo processor)? I took it to mean that the format was being delayed due to difficulties with the disk. Well, it will finish around 1 AM this morning and unless I wake up and go downstairs and check it out (completely possible!), I won't know until ~6AM.

Thank you everyone for your help!

Edit: BTW, Frys had an ad in my local paper this morning (Oakland Tribune) with the Western Digital Elements 2TB external HD selling for $89.99. I put a dibs on one, partly because it's a pretty good price (lower than I've seen it in a long time, I heard it sold for about that at Newegg before Xmas and that Target sold it for $70 on Black Friday), and I'm going to be in the neighborhood Thursday evening, likely, so I could pick it up. I don't have to buy it, but if I can pick it up before 9:00PM Thursday, I can get it for that price. If I get a second, I could support off site backup of my data by shuttling the drives.

 

[SickBeast]

This thread is museic to my EARS. :thumbsup::thumbsup:

:whiste:

 

[Zap]

This thread is museic to my EARS. :thumbsup::thumbsup:

:whiste:

You are such a poet.

Muse, just FYI the Elements is cheap, but IIRC only has a 1 year warranty.

 

[Muse]

You are such a poet.

Muse, just FYI the Elements is cheap, but IIRC only has a 1 year warranty.

Interesting info. Thank you. Newegg reviews indicate that there's no assurance what drive will be in the enclosure. Could be a WD black or a green. Don't think it's likely an EARS, though. Kind of doubt it would be an advanced format drive, don't really know though.

 

[Muse]

Well, it passed the Extended Test. The device is seen as Model Number: WD Ext HDD 1021, IDed by the controller in the enclosure, not the HD.

So, can anyone speak to my question, why did it take 5x longer to format on the Win7 laptop as the XP laptop?

- - - -
To quote from post #11 above:

I'm wondering one thing right now: Why did the format process using my Windows 7 laptop (Lenovo T61, with Windows 7 64 bit Ultimate, with 4GB DDR2 and a faster 2.4GHz Core 2 Duo CPU) take 5 times as long as it did using my Windows XP Pro laptop (Lenovo T60, XP Pro, 3GB DDR2, slower 1.67GHz Core 2 Duo processor)?
- - - -

If I took the last HD, which failed the test with "too many bad sectors" and reformatted it from the Win7 machine, would it turn up Pass? I haven't returned it yet.
- - - -

Speaking to my confusion about sector size vs allocation unit size, a little googling suggests I may have inadvertently chosen a decent allocation unit size from the many offered, being 4096kb. In fact, that may be the "Default" size, although Windows Format did not identify what "Default" would be. I formatted in NTFS, of course.

I believe the next step is to run WD Align against the drive (it will be used principally with XP machines) and hope it works OK!

 

[Muse]

I'm wondering if I do indeed need/want to run WD Align on the drive. At WD's page

http://support.wdc.com/product/downloadsw.asp?sid=123

it says:
- - - -
Description
WD Align will allow the user to realign partitions on internal Western Digital Advanced Format Drives (AFDs).

WD Align is intended to be run on your Western Digital Advance Format drive WITHOUT a jumper installed across pins 7-8.

WD Align is only necessary for users who have:

* Installed Windows XP to a WD AFD
* Cloned a source bootable hard drive with any Windows OS to a target AFD using a cloning tool other than True Image WD Edition
* Created single or multiple partitions on an AFD using Windows XP

The WD Align download file is a Windows installer file. Running the installer will install WD Align and create a Program Start Menu entry and a Desktop Icon for running WD Align.

Important: Although this program is designed to retain all data on any affected AFD, the program may be Data Destructive if interrupted while operating, which could result in the loss of all data on the affected AFDs. Please make sure to back up all data on attached AFDs prior to running this application.
Supported Operating Systems

* Windows XP - 32 bit
* Windows Vista - 32 bit
* Windows 7 - 32 bit
Description
WD Align will allow the user to realign partitions on internal Western Digital Advanced Format Drives (AFDs).

WD Align is intended to be run on your Western Digital Advance Format drive WITHOUT a jumper installed across pins 7-8.

WD Align is only necessary for users who have:

* Installed Windows XP to a WD AFD
* Cloned a source bootable hard drive with any Windows OS to a target AFD using a cloning tool other than True Image WD Edition
* Created single or multiple partitions on an AFD using Windows XP

The WD Align download file is a Windows installer file. Running the installer will install WD Align and create a Program Start Menu entry and a Desktop Icon for running WD Align.

Important: Although this program is designed to retain all data on any affected AFD, the program may be Data Destructive if interrupted while operating, which could result in the loss of all data on the affected AFDs. Please make sure to back up all data on attached AFDs prior to running this application.
Supported Operating Systems

* Windows XP - 32 bit
* Windows Vista - 32 bit
* Windows 7 - 32 bit
- - - -

It is indeed an AFD, but it's in one of their enclosures. It will be used primarily with XP machines. I suppose it can't hurt to run it. What do you think?

 

[Zap]

Dude, you are seriously trying too hard. If you partitioned with Win7, it is already aligned.

IDK about the formatting time. I always use Quick Format. If I seriously suspect a drive has been abused, I'll run the manufacturer's test. Once it is run, IMO there is no reason to do a full format.

 

[Muse]

Dude, you are seriously trying too hard. If you partitioned with Win7, it is already aligned.

IDK about the formatting time. I always use Quick Format. If I seriously suspect a drive has been abused, I'll run the manufacturer's test. Once it is run, IMO there is no reason to do a full format.

OK, so Windows 7 aligned the drive when it formatted the drive, right? The alignment is correct for the external enclosure drive to run OK on XP, then?

A community manager at WD Community forums today said he doubts that the 2 drives I RMAed really have bad sectors. He thinks XP probably wasn't able to correctly read the drives because they weren't aligned. I read WD's instructions before even starting all this and never got the idea that I was supposed to run WD Align before formatting, nor did I get the idea that it was a better idea to do the whole process from Windows 7 rather than XP. I only did that because the first 2 drives had problems.

 

[COPOHawk]

Dude, you are seriously trying too hard. If you partitioned with Win7, it is already aligned.

THIS. Don't worry about alignment.

If you are going to do a full format...I would do a low level format just to be sure. Case in point: I ordered 5 Samsung F4 2 TB drives...one of them had a partition on it. Ran Samsung utilities and it found some bad sectors on same drive. I ran the low level format...then ran Samsung disk check utility 3 times (TOOK FORVER) and it returned with no issues.

This would be my last resort before RMAing the drive. Normally when I find a bad hard drive, there are other obvious signs...like the partition corrupts or mechanical issue.

 

[Zap]

OK, so Windows 7 aligned the drive when it formatted the drive, right?

How many times do you need to hear it?

Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.

Okay, one more time, with feeling... Yes.

There, feel all better now?

Once it is partitioned, then the partition will not change by itself, so it will stay aligned with XP.

Jeez, I'm getting a bit grumpy now.

 

[MarkLuvsCS]

I purchased three 2 TB drives July 2010; 1 internal EARS and two external which crystaldisk info reports as EARS drive as well. The internal one and one external has had an increasing number of errors occur and has caused my system to lock up entirely or reboot. Crystaldiskinfo reported errors and was fortunate to get all my data off the drives before removing them from my system. I may have had some bad luck with the drives but temperatures were good: ~30s for the internal and ~40s for the external. I tried formatting and chkdsk without any luck.

My main drive is a 1 TB WD caviar black and so far no problems. I know hard drives will eventually go bad but after having my personal trouble and quite a few similiar problems found in newegg reviews (I know you need to take with a grain of salt). I've decided I'm going to try to stick with the Samsung drives. I have always purchased WD and will likely purchase more down the line but I currently have zero faith in their green drives.

 

[Muse]

How many times do you need to hear it?

Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.

Okay, one more time, with feeling... Yes.

There, feel all better now?

Once it is partitioned, then the partition will not change by itself, so it will stay aligned with XP.

Jeez, I'm getting a bit grumpy now.

I'm sorry, I don't mean to be a pest. I just don't comprehend what's exactly going on. I thought that Windows 7 didn't need the drive to be aligned in the same way that XP does and that therefore if the drive was aligned by Windows 7 maybe it wouldn't be aligned the way XP needs it to be aligned. See, I told you I don't understand this. Again, sorry. I understand grumpy and grouchy. I can sure get that way, but sometimes I'm not that way at all. If I'd known that Windows 7 would format and align the drive OK, I would have used it to begin with on the first drive and all this pain could have been avoided. Unfortunately, most of the info out there concerning WD20EARS pertains to using them internally, not putting them in an enclosure. The Western Digital Elements 2TB comes with a drive installed, but I got an empty one. I felt like a fish out of water. I think I should take some classes or read some good books.

 

[notposting]

I've had good luck so far with the Greens (knock on wood). Have a 1TB and two 1.5TB EADS, and two 2TB EARS drives in my WHS. Have a Samsung 1.5 as well. All seem to be running fine so I really can't complain. I'm still on "avoiding Seagate" mode fwiw.

 

[Muse]

I have always purchased WD and will likely purchase more down the line but I currently have zero faith in their green drives.

Part of the reason I've been worried about the drives being bad, and assumed that "too many bad sectors" reported by WD Lifeguard meant the drives were indeed bad was the reviews I read at Newegg and Amazon. I've not seen a lot people saying their WD Elements 2TB are bad, though, which is one reason I'm liking the Frys deal I mentioned earlier in the thread ($90 B&M pickup by tomorrow).

 

[Muse]

I've had good luck so far with the Greens (knock on wood). Have a 1TB and two 1.5TB EADS, and two 2TB EARS drives in my WHS. Have a Samsung 1.5 as well. All seem to be running fine so I really can't complain. I'm still on "avoiding Seagate" mode fwiw.

I've been seriously considering this very thing, and I may do it still, but I haven't determined exactly how to build my WHS, so I'm going to (for the time being, knock on wood, too!) use my extra Lenovo Thinkpad T60 as a server machine connected by ethernet to my wireless router (not N). My requirements and usage will be pretty light, so I think I may be OK like this for a while. I'm hoping to get it going in the next few weeks.