Another HDD issue

[blasterboomer]

I have an old WD1600AAJS HDD that i havent used in a few years now... so i did an error scan which came up all good then zero filled it and ran another error scan and checked SMART it was all fine... no errors whatsoever. i then tried to format the hdd within windows and it made the pc hang. This hdd has never been dropped or mistreated in any way so how could it suddenly develop so many errors after trying to format within windows...?





also now if i try to zero fill the drive it does 6.8MB/s write speed... but the read speed is ~65MB/s. is there any fix for this drive or is it useless even for non critical data.. thats if i can get it to format...

ps i cant use any bootable utilities as it doesnt have a monitor connected so i have to use remote desktop or teamviewer (this is not the OS drive and i dont care about any data that may be on it)

[blasterboomer]

Re: Another HDD issue

Update: this is how slow it is.. this is just the first pass and before it got all these bad sectors it wrote at around 65MB/s.. ive also tried it in another pc. same issue :/

[diif]

Re: Another HDD issue

Try downloading the Western Digital Tools for Windows.
http://support.wdc.com/product/downl...upid=612&sid=3

[SteveNielsen]

Re: Another HDD issue

I wonder if it is autonegotiating the speed correctly. For a test you could jumper it to force 1.5 Gb/s and see if it behaves more like a normal drive.

[blasterboomer]

Re: Another HDD issue



Tried the jumper... still same speed and after that full erase that took 5 hours i ran an error scan and its like this... looks like this drive is dying.

[SteveNielsen]

Re: Another HDD issue

Yeah, I'd say bad drive too.

[goontron]

Re: Another HDD issue

this isn't so odd. i wipe ~80 drives per day using badblocks (linux) and every single week i get two or three that are fine before the wipe starts but by the end they fail, usually getting very hot in the process.

[RJARRRPCGP]

Re: Another HDD issue

Tried the jumper... still same speed and after that full erase that took 5 hours i ran an error scan and its like this... looks like this drive is dying.

The randomness reminds me of how Maxtor DiamondMax 8s (especially 6E0xxxx) fail. Especially if it randomly hangs.

[RJARRRPCGP]

Re: Another HDD issue

I would get MHDD and write down the LBA addresses that HD Tune reported and use the "makebad" command in MHDD then "scan" in MHDD with "erase delays" option.

[blasterboomer]

Re: Another HDD issue

I thought well lets see if i can get this drive to reallocate some sectors so put a minecraft server on it and let a few people just do whatever they want and it made a few sectors reallocate... This drive just done another 2 passes on the gutmann erase and no extra bad blocks... so if i can get it to stabilize i might use it for non important data. i was surprised this morning when i got up and it was still running (not hot either) i expected it to have the click of death or some other problem..

should i try a board swap as i have 3 or 4 of this exact same drive but the other 3 are fine

[blasterboomer]

Re: Another HDD issue

Is there any program that can read a certain area of the hdd endlessley to see if any bad blocks come back in that area

[goontron]

Re: Another HDD issue

^badblocks (linux) just run a data destructive test. how strange, it makes a quantum bigfoot sound like a clock.

[momaka]

Re: Another HDD issue

Looks like it might be developing a bad write head or something.

I have a 500 GB Seagate with similar issues. Scans fine on a quick scan with HDTune, but not on a normal scan. On a normal scan, it get through about 2 or 3 blocks, marks them as bad in HDD tune, then the HDD drops out and makes the PC freeze.

My solution to that was: quick-format and pretend that everything is working fine . I split it into 3 partitions (so that hopefully, if one craps itself badly, I could still use the other two). I tried installing Windows XP on the first and failed 3 times - data would just go corrupt after Windows copied its files. On the second partition, though, I installed successfully. It's not like the second partition is all fine, however. It has the same problems as the first, but just a lot less often. So overall, the HDD is usable. Just not very trustworthy.

[RJARRRPCGP]

Re: Another HDD issue

Looks a lot like a platter issue and I would try to get it to remap, but it will be hard, at least at first.

The Maxtor DiamondMax 8s (aka "slimline") appear to have a firmware bug where it fails to remap and/or the SMART reporting a problem when it should.

[blasterboomer]

Re: Another HDD issue

i installed a virtual machine on it (vista as thats the only iso i had) and it worked fine.

[momaka]

Re: Another HDD issue

Yeah, just squeeze the last bit of life out of it. When it goes down, you can extract a nice pair of Neodymium magnets at the very least .

[blasterboomer]

Re: Another HDD issue

i might even keep the board as a spare for the other drives i have that are the same.. i tried a board swap so i know they are compatible

[chozo4]

Re: Another HDD issue

I've dealt with a 350gb drive that showed similar symptoms. What happened is that the drive had overheated due to being in a case that provided next to no airflow to the drive while it was being thrashed by swap activity all the time. As a result it was running slow, would develop hundreds of bad sectors etc. It would run perfect while cold but the moment it ran for more than a minute or so the speeds would drop from about 96mb/sec to ~6mb/sec read and write.

Being as you haven't used the drive in a while the grease inside on the spindle or otherwise may have dried up or other refuse may have somehow worked it's way in through the vent hole.

[cheapie]

Re: Another HDD issue

I've dealt with a 350gb drive that showed similar symptoms. What happened is that the drive had overheated due to being in a case that provided next to no airflow to the drive while it was being thrashed by swap activity all the time. As a result it was running slow, would develop hundreds of bad sectors etc. It would run perfect while cold but the moment it ran for more than a minute or so the speeds would drop from about 96mb/sec to ~6mb/sec read and write.

I've had two WD drives die that way. Both of them were Caviar SE 250GB drives. They seemed to just start running way hotter than usual one day. The first one then started making clunking sounds accompanied by a syslog full of messages stating that the "READ DMA EXT" commands that were sent failed. I didn't bother to try to recover any data, I just purchased a new drive and reinstalled the OS. The second one, on the other hand, made clunking noises but was eventually able to read everything. That one had slightly more important data, so I let it cool, then used dd to transfer everything to a new drive. That all worked fine, then once it was all off, I took it apart and made a speaker out of it.

These two things were enough to more or less turn me off from WD. Sure, I hardly ever buy hard drives, but when I do, they're generally Seagate now. I do have one WD drive still in use, but that's just because I haven't bothered to move the data to one of my spare drives yet.

[SteveNielsen]

Re: Another HDD issue

Many years ago I bought a new WD 80G drive. It ran hot from day one but it worked fine. I didn't crowd it and kept it ventilated. It never developed any bad sectors or suffered performance hits until the end, but it eventaully get hot enough to die completely and very quickly.