# 2TB harddisk failing



## Apocalypsee (Apr 14, 2020)

My Seagate 2TB ST2000DM001 is failing, I did chkdsk /r yesterday and that took 4 hours to fix. The harddisk is still bootable and currently backing up the file but the transfer rate is terrible as you can see below. The transfer jumps from few MB/s to zero.






I'm running Seatools and it failed the basic test. I wanted to use the DOS version but it gave a warning of data loss possible if used so I'm backing it up first. Is there any other tools to diagnose/fix this issues.


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## johnspack (Apr 14, 2020)

Back up any data now.  I have a dead Seagate 2tb with a lot of data on it I wanted to keep.  When it goes,  it goes dead.
Same model number too.  Back up now!!!


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## Nero1024 (Apr 14, 2020)

Backup all the data you can and don't switch off your computer until you did, because it may not turn on again if it's system drive


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## Apocalypsee (Apr 14, 2020)

johnspack said:


> Back up any data now.  I have a dead Seagate 2tb with a lot of data on it I wanted to keep.  When it goes,  it goes dead.
> Same model number too.  Back up now!!!


I'm doing it right now. Luckily I have some old drives where at least I can back up some of the files, if not all. There are no SMART data at all. My other 2TB ST2000VX003 works great though.



Nero1024 said:


> Backup all the data you can and don't switch off your computer until you did, because it may not turn on again if it's system drive


Its not a system drive, its just my backup/video drive. Mostly videos of numerous cartoon/movies and TV shows.


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## johnspack (Apr 14, 2020)

As long as it's not the DM001 model,  you should be okay.  I suspect a firmware failure,  I'm actually looking for a bios chip...  which will cost me 40us,  to get to the data on mine.
2tbs of data I'd rather not loose.  You'll notice by my specs I don't use Seagate drives any more.


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## Toothless (Apr 14, 2020)

Time for a new drive.


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## Melvis (Apr 14, 2020)

Yeah time to back up wheat you can, remove the Drive use a docking station then get a WD Black, Seagates well known for failing.


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## Apocalypsee (Apr 14, 2020)

I done some test; updating the firmware from CC26 to CC29 and do Seatools for DOS check. Still the same, Seatools stuck at 90% for more than an hour. I use Windows to check for errors, no errors but it did find 4kB bad sectors. I'm still slowly transferring some files, even though it stops transferring every few seconds it still transferring so I continue doing this all the files backed up so I can get rid of it


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## Regeneration (Apr 14, 2020)

There is no fixing bad sectors. Backup the data, RMA if still under warranty, if not, break with a hammer and toss to to garbage.


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## micropage7 (Apr 14, 2020)

Apocalypsee said:


> My Seagate 2TB ST2000DM001 is failing, I did chkdsk /r yesterday and that took 4 hours to fix. The harddisk is still bootable and currently backing up the file but the transfer rate is terrible as you can see below. The transfer jumps from few MB/s to zero.
> 
> View attachment 151426
> 
> I'm running Seatools and it failed the basic test. I wanted to use the DOS version but it gave a warning of data loss possible if used so I'm backing it up first. Is there any other tools to diagnose/fix this issues.


looks like there's nothing you can do in this case, do backup but not all in once
usually i copy some folders first then some folders

btw if you hear something unusual like clicking or unusual spin up and down, heavy reading. it's time to find new drive


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## windwhirl (Apr 14, 2020)

Regeneration said:


> There is no fixing bad sectors. Backup the data, RMA if still under warranty, if not, break with a hammer and toss to to garbage.



I agree with this. At best, bad sectors are marked as such, so that the drive doesn't use them again. But in general that's a sign that you should start looking for a replacement, and fast. I still have an old WD Caviar Blue IDE drive lying around, still usable in spite of a couple bad sectors, but in other cases it's just a bomb about to explode (case in point, my mom's laptop hard drive pretty much expired right after I backed it up and did one last chkdsk on it a month ago or so).



Apocalypsee said:


> I did chkdsk /r yesterday and that took 4 hours to fix



To be fair, whenever I do chkdsk on my 2 TB hard drives it takes more or less the same time each (I usually do chkdsk /f /r /v /x)


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## Regeneration (Apr 14, 2020)

Btw, OP should post a screenshot of SMART to ensure the drive is truly failing and not some other issue.


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## Apocalypsee (Apr 14, 2020)

Regeneration said:


> Btw, OP should post a screenshot of SMART to ensure the drive is truly failing and not some other issue.


SMART didn't report anything on the drive. I tried Crystaldiskinfo and AIDA64. This is what AIDA64 reported; nothing. Any other software that I can use?


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## Regeneration (Apr 14, 2020)

Post raw values of CrystalDiskInfo.

Make sure SMART isn't disabled from the BIOS. Try another SATA cable and port. If doesn't help, toss it to the garage.


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## windwhirl (Apr 14, 2020)

Apocalypsee said:


> SMART didn't report anything on the drive. I tried Crystaldiskinfo and AIDA64. This is what AIDA64 reported; nothing. Any other software that I can use?
> View attachment 151471



No SMART values at all?? All the more reason to change that drive ASAP.

If you want to try some other app, though, you could try HWInfo



Regeneration said:


> Make sure SMART isn't disabled from the BIOS.



I forget about that sometimes


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## jsfitz54 (Apr 14, 2020)

You could also try *Hard Disk Sentinal*: https://www.hdsentinel.com/download.php


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## Solaris17 (Apr 14, 2020)

CDI should work just fine. I trust it more than the others TBH. Is this hooked upto a USB dock? I've seen this kind of thing before on externally mounted drives.


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## Apocalypsee (Apr 15, 2020)

windwhirl said:


> No SMART values at all?? All the more reason to change that drive ASAP.
> 
> If you want to try some other app, though, you could try HWInfo
> 
> I forget about that sometimes


Tried HWinfo, still the same. SMART is enabled in BIOS and it detects my other two drive just fine.



jsfitz54 said:


> You could also try *Hard Disk Sentinal*: https://www.hdsentinel.com/download.php


Tried this, still the same






Solaris17 said:


> CDI should work just fine. I trust it more than the others TBH. Is this hooked upto a USB dock? I've seen this kind of thing before on externally mounted drives.


Tried this before, nope. Its still inside my system and not mounted via USB. None of the software works. Only Seatools in DOS read this drive as I recall seeing drive temperature when doing diagnostics.


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## bobbybluz (Apr 15, 2020)

As others have stated get as much as you can off of it while you can, it'll soon be a paperweight. I have a couple of Seagate external drives I had to take out of the case to attempt data recovery on. Both are only good for a few minutes before they quit working in a USB docking station so it's been an ongoing and tedious project. One of the external drives only had 57 days of use on it before failure but it was out of warranty because of the purchase date.


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## Apocalypsee (Apr 16, 2020)

Katrina said:


> Does the drive spin up? Is it clicking?
> 
> Can you see its correct model number and full capacity in BIOS?
> 
> Can you retrieve a SMART report from HD Sentinel?


Drive spin up, still working. No clicking sound

Yes it display correct full name in BIOS

No software can retrieve SMART report for this drive.

I already disconnect the drive as it cause very slow bootup and shutdown.


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## Readlight (Apr 16, 2020)

Using new expensive ST2000DM006-2DM164 no problem, turns on off a lot whit some lost, hidden found files.


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## Apocalypsee (Apr 16, 2020)

I don't know what drive to buy next. I still have Seagate drive but its VX003 and working longer than the failing DM001. I don't know whether to buy another Seagate drive or not.

Looking at Western Digital, looks like they 'rebrand' Green drive as Blue now. The only true Blue drive is 1TB as it still spins at 7200rpm but I really need more than 1TB, 2TB or preferably 3TB. WD Black are too expensive costing 1.5 times the Blue/Barracuda of the same capacity.


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## windwhirl (Apr 16, 2020)

Apocalypsee said:


> I don't know what drive to buy next. I still have Seagate drive but its VX003 and working longer than the failing DM001. I don't know whether to buy another Seagate drive or not.
> 
> Looking at Western Digital, looks like they 'rebrand' Green drive as Blue now. The only true Blue drive is 1TB as it still spins at 7200rpm but I really need more than 1TB, 2TB or preferably 3TB. WD Black are too expensive costing 1.5 times the Blue/Barracuda of the same capacity.


Well, if you're not jumping to SSDs like some others have done (nothing wrong with staying on HDDs, but SSDs are less pricey than years ago), Toshiba is still around and they do have a line of HDDs targeted at consumers









						PC | Toshiba Electronic Devices & Storage Corporation | Americas – United States
					

Notebook and desktop PCs help us to lead more productive and enjoyable lives.



					toshiba.semicon-storage.com
				




But you will have to check if they're available in your location...


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## claes (Apr 16, 2020)

My two cents:

Stop running chkdsk or any other utilities, at least until you have all of the data you want off of the disk.

A different cable and SATA port are worth trying the next time you reboot, especially if it's not clicking.

Do not buy a 3TB drive.

Good luck!


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## Apocalypsee (Apr 17, 2020)

windwhirl said:


> Well, if you're not jumping to SSDs like some others have done (nothing wrong with staying on HDDs, but SSDs are less pricey than years ago), Toshiba is still around and they do have a line of HDDs targeted at consumers
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Will look into Toshiba drive, thanks!



claes said:


> My two cents:
> 
> Stop running chkdsk or any other utilities, at least until you have all of the data you want off of the disk.
> 
> ...


I already retrieve most of what I wanted. Spend 3 days transferring files.

Already did swapping SATA ports and power cable. Still the same

Why do you say don't buy 3TB drive? Something wrong with them?


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## claes (Apr 17, 2020)

Apocalypsee said:


> I already retrieve most of what I wanted. Spend 3 days transferring files.


Nice, glad that worked out!


> Why do you say don't buy 3TB drive? Something wrong with them?


Yes. They have a tendency to fail sooner than other drives. I’ll admit that I don’t know why — once I read that they generally use odd/old platters (imagine 768GBx4), but I don’t really know how that correlates to failure rate (binning?). I think backblaze’s HDD statistics are valuable, though certainly not perfect, and would point to that data for drive reliability, but to forego a dumb internet argument about the quality/relevance of their work, I’ll endorse my own “authority” and say that, in my own experience with thousands of drives in RAIDs, that odd sized drives (1.5, 3, 5TB) fail more regularly than even sized drives (2, 4, 6TB...), with the exception of 1TB (mostly 4x256GB, platters, coincidentally).

Still, I’d be surprised if you could even find a 4TB drive new, let alone 2TB... I’d be wary of any resellers.

I don’t have much experience with 8TB+ drives, so can’t say much about them, but that seems out of your market anyways 

As far as 2 and 4TB drives are concerned, I’d recommend HGST or WD Red (or better WD), and to be sure it’s a 7200rpm drive in the latter case (WD).

That said, while good SSDs still cost twice as much, they also don’t often suddenly die without throwing up lots of errors, and they have longer warranties. It might be worth considering one for a drive of this capacity, particularly since HDDs are hard to come by in these capacities these days.

The market speaks for itself here, at least in NA: a 2TB, 7200rpm consumer drive from HGST costs $70 new, while a 6TB enterprise drive of similar breed is $150 (you can actually get a 8TB Seagate drive for that price). Either one should last 2-5 years, and until mechanical failure after that. Meanwhile, you can get a 1TB SSD for ~$120, ~$210 for 2TB, and either should last 5+ years (assuming their use isn’t write-intensive).

It’s a toss up with older hardware and a budget. If speed matters, you’re borked unless you have enough SATA ports for RAID (and, ideally, don’t mind buying used). If capacity matters you‘re looking at 8TB+ drives (or a lot of’m, but not the OP). What a strange world to live in... Google One 2TB only costs $100/yr? 12.50/m for 5TB of Dropbox... It really depends on your use.

At this rate, SATA is going the way of the dodo — personally, I wouldn’t buy a HDD unless it’s going to be in a RAID or similar. For active storage, SSDs offer greater security in the short term and the cloud offers greater security in the long term. For cold, tape is super cheap and Amazon glacier isn’t too pricey, either.

So... I’d just buy some used HGST HDS5C3020ALA632 (if you can find them) and throw them in a RAID  I do t know much about the 2.5” market, but probably worth considering (quieter and with stronger fault tolerance).


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## Apocalypsee (Apr 17, 2020)

claes said:


> Yes. They have a tendency to fail sooner than other drives. I’ll admit that I don’t know why — once I read that they generally use odd/old platters (imagine 768GBx4), but I don’t really know how that correlates to failure rate (binning?). I think backblaze’s HDD statistics are valuable, though certainly not perfect, and would point to that data for drive reliability, but to forego a dumb internet argument about the quality/relevance of their work, I’ll endorse my own “authority” and say that, in my own experience with thousands of drives in RAIDs, that odd sized drives (1.5, 3, 5TB) fail more regularly than even sized drives (2, 4, 6TB...), with the exception of 1TB (mostly 4x256GB, platters, coincidentally).
> 
> Still, I’d be surprised if you could even find a 4TB drive new, let alone 2TB... I’d be wary of any resellers.
> 
> ...


Thanks for the link, I'll avoid 3TB drive from now on

Talking about HGST (or Hitachi drive), I actually have plenty of 250GB, 320GB and 500GB notebook Hitachi drive. These are the drive I use to back up the dying drive. They all from old or dead laptop that either my family use or my friend give. All of them still working





I'll keep that in mind, I think I would go either for HGST or Toshiba drive. Toshiba drive are 7200rpm which is good since I put games on it. I don't know whether going for cheap 1TB SSD like SanDisk SSD Plus. If its reliable I could use it for dedicated game drive and use my existing 2TB drive as media drive.


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## windwhirl (Apr 17, 2020)

Apocalypsee said:


> Will look into Toshiba drive, thanks!



Be warned that Toshiba is shipping SMR (Shingled Magnetic Recording) in some of their drives too (just found out about that)... It's fine if you're writing data to disk *only once or very rarely*, but otherwise you may have to filter out a few of them...









						Toshiba desktop disk drives have shingles too – Blocks and Files
					

Toshiba told Blocks & Files yesterday that its P300 desktop disk drives use shingled magnetic recording technology (SMR), which can exhibit slow data write speeds. However, the company does not mention this in end user drive documentation. All three disk drive manufacturers – Western Digital...




					blocksandfiles.com
				






> _Blocks & Files_ asked Toshiba to confirm that the 4TB and 6TB P300 desktop drives use SMR and clarify which drives in its portfolio use SMR.
> 
> A company spokesperson told us: “The Toshiba P300 Desktop PC Hard Drive Series includes the P300 4TB and 6TB, which utilise the drive-managed SMR (the base drives are DT02 generation 3.5-inch SMR desktop HDD).
> 
> ...


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## Apocalypsee (Apr 17, 2020)

windwhirl said:


> Be warned that Toshiba is shipping SMR (Shingled Magnetic Recording) in some of their drives too (just found out about that)... It's fine if you're writing data to disk *only once or very rarely*, but otherwise you may have to filter out a few of them...


Thanks for the warning, but from what I read the one I interested in (the 4TB X300 model) does not use SMR. Looks like other manufacturer also started to implement SMR to their lesser drives, WD have some in Blue line too. That is one big minefiled that you most know what you bought or you'll get into trouble


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## Deleted member 191766 (Apr 17, 2020)

Apocalypsee said:


> I don't know what drive to buy next. I still have Seagate drive but its VX003 and working longer than the failing DM001. I don't know whether to buy another Seagate drive or not.
> 
> Looking at Western Digital, looks like they 'rebrand' Green drive as Blue now. The only true Blue drive is 1TB as it still spins at 7200rpm but I really need more than 1TB, 2TB or preferably 3TB. WD Black are too expensive costing 1.5 times the Blue/Barracuda of the same capacity.




If you are willing to try Seagate again, the 3.5" 2 TB Firecuda is a great drive; I believe the 3.5" version does not use shingling.


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## RealNeil (Apr 17, 2020)

I'm using a pair of 5TB Hitachi X300 drives in RAID in my i9-9900K system. This seems to be OK, but TBH my NAS with four 4TB Seagates in it is too.
I had problems with some 750GB Seagate drives a long time ago. I RMA'd them and they've been great ever since.


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## Apocalypsee (Apr 18, 2020)

Anwar.Shiekh said:


> If you are willing to try Seagate again, the 3.5" 2 TB Firecuda is a great drive; I believe the 3.5" version does not use shingling.


I don't mind buying Seagate again, but Firecuda from what I know have small solid state memory to speed up the drive by caching regularly accessed files. It works well if you install Windows on it, I don't know if games works as well as game files are larger.



RealNeil said:


> I'm using a pair of 5TB Hitachi X300 drives in RAID in my i9-9900K system. This seems to be OK, but TBH my NAS with four 4TB Seagates in it is too.
> I had problems with some 750GB Seagate drives a long time ago. I RMA'd them and they've been great ever since.


Thank you for sharing your experience with the drive. Sure Seagate made some bad drive but so does other manufacturer, I do have experience lemon WD drive back then so its unfair to say they bad just because of one drive is failing when the other is working.


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## Deleted member 191766 (Apr 18, 2020)

Apocalypsee said:


> I don't mind buying Seagate again, but Firecuda from what I know have small solid state memory to speed up the drive by caching regularly accessed files. It works well if you install Windows on it, I don't know if games works as well as game files are larger.




It used to be sold specifically for gaming; I believe it doesn't cache files but rather hard drive sectors such that if the sectors are sequential it doesn't cache (as the drive itself is then fast); this also means it is OS agnostic.










The original firecuda logo said gaming (now it says compute)


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## Mac2580 (Apr 19, 2020)

Apocalypsee said:


> I don't mind buying Seagate again, but Firecuda from what I know have small solid state memory to speed up the drive by caching regularly accessed files. It works well if you install Windows on it, I don't know if games works as well as game files are larger.
> 
> Thank you for sharing your experience with the drive. Sure Seagate made some bad drive but so does other manufacturer, I do have experience lemon WD drive back then so its unfair to say they bad just because of one drive is failing when the other is working.


I have a Firecuda 2TB (ST2000DX002) and a Toshiba X300 4TB (HDWE140). Ive owned the Firecuda since 2014 and it was used as my only drive till 2018 and now for media use. The Toshiba is a great drive for game use, it can be a bit loud though but is definitely quicker at loading games. Seagate is formatted MBR though, not sure if that has an influence on load times.


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## Deleted member 191766 (Apr 19, 2020)

What is worrying me about hard drives in general is the Unrecoverable error rate of 1 per 10^14 bits read; that is only 12.5 TB
(better drives can be 1 per 10^15)

Despite this, I have three 3.5" 2TB Firecudas


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## Apocalypsee (Apr 22, 2020)

I dismantle the drive PCB just to see the state of it. The physical contact to the drive is corroded, that is alarming though expected since I live in tropic country.





I clean up the PCB a little bit, just a simple toothbrush clean and then I did a bootup. I still have files I need to transfer. Seems like it's a little bit faster, but still the rate is still going up and down like on first post.


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## Deleted member 191766 (Apr 22, 2020)

You forgot to clean the motor contacts (to the right)
I use an eraser to clean contacts then apply a little silicone oil to avoid future corrosion.


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## Apocalypsee (Apr 22, 2020)

Anwar.Shiekh said:


> You forgot to clean the motor contacts (to the right)
> I use an eraser to clean contacts then apply a little silicone oil to avoid future corrosion.


That is already cleaned, you can see slightly the condition of the original contacts. it looks burned. Also the drive is still pretty much the same apart from slightly more reliable transfer rate but still only few MB/s, at most it will do 8MB/s. I can download the file off the internet faster than that


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## Deleted member 191766 (Apr 22, 2020)

That is one thing I like about hard drives, they tend to soft fail and give a chance at recovery. I am told that solid state drives can just stop working, but I don't know if that is still true.


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## R-T-B (Apr 23, 2020)

Anwar.Shiekh said:


> That is one thing I like about hard drives, they tend to soft fail and give a chance at recovery. I am told that solid state drives can just stop working, but I don't know if that is still true.



TLC/QLC ones can, yes.  But even they are getting better all the time.

I don't think many mlc ones have issues with sudden death.  Certainly no slc ones (good luck finding one though).


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