# WD3200AKS Bad sector fixed?



## Pinchy (Mar 13, 2009)

I bought two 320GB of these WD SE16's mid last year for my RAID array. At the end of the year, the array crashed for no reason, which led me to believe a drive had died. So I backed everything up and did a LOT of scans and such with the WD diagnostic tools (in DOS, not windows).

I originally scanned both drives with the full media scan, both reporting bad sectors. I then wrote zero's to both the drives and one didnt come up with any problems while the other still had the bad sectors. The one that came up with no problems has been in my PC since that day, operating fine.

Now the second one, I ran a few write zero tests and extended tests all to still fail. I recently dug up the receipt from the shop, emailed the shop and got an RMA number. As I was going to package the drive, I decided to test it one more time. I wrote zero's to the drive and did a media scan. What do you know...no more errors.

I did that media scan then restarted the computer and did a second one, both coming up with no errors.

Question is, can I trust the drive? I really cant be bothered waiting 1-3 months for an RMA drive and would much prefer to keep this drive, but I must be certain its going to function 100%. Could the zero writing thing have fixed the sector problems up...or?


Thx in adv


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## Pinchy (Mar 14, 2009)

**Bump**


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## niko084 (Mar 14, 2009)

It could have been an error or it could have re-mapped it and decided not to tell you about it..
Have to run the SMART test from Speedfan?


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## Pinchy (Mar 14, 2009)

niko084 said:


> It could have been an error or it could have re-mapped it and decided not to tell you about it..
> Have to run the SMART test from Speedfan?



Will run that test now. Thanks.


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## Pinchy (Mar 14, 2009)

Talking about that online scan on speedfan? If so, it looks all alrite to me.


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## niko084 (Mar 14, 2009)

Check that from time to time and make sure the error's are not getting larger..

From the looks of that, you may at some point had a bad or lose sata cable, possibly an unstable mainboard.

Keep an eye on it for a bit, if those numbers start flying up *millions*, then get rid of the drive.

But looking at it, I wouldn't worry too much about the drive being shot.

PS- I check my drives like that religiously, like twice a week. It just takes a second, and will let you know if you are having any problems hopefully before you have any.


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## newtekie1 (Mar 14, 2009)

A common way to fix bad sectors is to constantly write over them.  Sometimes it fixes them and sometime it doesn't.  Zero Filling the drives does this.

Personally, I wouldn't trust the drives and just RMA both.  I'd rather be safe than sorry.


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## Pinchy (Mar 14, 2009)

Well I never even knew about it lol.

Also - it wasnt a bad cable, as I tried 3 or 4 brand new cables at the time I was testing them and one used one which was working fine on another HD. 

The motherboard I was used is my current P5Q.

There was definately a problem, I mean my RAID array just crashed and was unreadable by windows. Had to use recovery software to get the little data that wasnt already backed up.


Attached is a SMART test I just ran on my current drive. This drive is the one that crashed in the RAID array and reported the bad sector on WD's full media scan but reported nothing after one Zero write test.


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## niko084 (Mar 14, 2009)

RMA THAT ONE....

See the pending and uncorrectable sector counts?
That drive is as good as gone.. They say they have spare sectors, but man once I see even 1 there pending, it's gone. Drives are not like old ones that can run for years with bad sectors.


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## Pinchy (Mar 14, 2009)

newtekie1 said:


> A common way to fix bad sectors is to constantly write over them.  Sometimes it fixes them and sometime it doesn't.  Zero Filling the drives does this.
> 
> Personally, I wouldn't trust the drives and just RMA both.  I'd rather be safe than sorry.



Yeah I agree with you there. If it was my drive I would probably just use it and see how it goes (esp coz I daily backup anyway). But seeing as I have no use for it anymore (sticking to one drive instead of going back to RAID), I dont want to risk it in someone elses computer.



niko084 said:


> RMA THAT ONE....
> 
> See the pending and uncorrectable sector counts?
> That drive is as good as gone.. They say they have spare sectors, but man once I see even 1 there pending, it's gone. Drives are not like old ones that can run for years with bad sectors.



 its been running in my PC for like 4 months now .

Maybe I should just RMA everything LOL.


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## niko084 (Mar 14, 2009)

Ya, I mean it may even go for a year, but as soon as you see pending / offline sectors the drive is damaged.


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## Pinchy (Mar 14, 2009)

niko084 said:


> Ya, I mean it may even go for a year, but as soon as you see pending / offline sectors the drive is damaged.



Yeah I know what you mean. Better safe than sorry. A good reason to do it now is because they still arent a year old and so I can send it straight back to the shop instead of WD. Only problem is I will need to buy a new drive for myself for the meantime.


Unrelated, but worth a mention, I had a WD3200AKs sent back to me from a customer (purchased end of 07) with so many problems its not even funny. Ran the speedfan SMART test with around five of those green bars as "problems" and a lot of "notes" lol.


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## niko084 (Mar 14, 2009)

Pinchy said:


> Yeah I know what you mean. Better safe than sorry. A good reason to do it now is because they still arent a year old and so I can send it straight back to the shop instead of WD. Only problem is I will need to buy a new drive for myself for the meantime.
> 
> 
> Unrelated, but worth a mention, I had a WD3200AKs sent back to me from a customer (purchased end of 07) with so many problems its not even funny. Ran the speedfan SMART test with around five of those green bars as "problems" and a lot of "notes" lol.



If you send them to WD, you can get an "advance" replacement if you give them a cc #.


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## Pinchy (Mar 14, 2009)

niko084 said:


> If you send them to WD, you can get an "advance" replacement if you give them a cc #.



Three questions about WD though:

How long does it take for them to RMA (shop says they will replace in 2-4 weeks).
Where do I have to send it?
What is a cc # :\

I mean I have to send this new drive from that computer I was talking about anyway (bought back in 07 means the year of RTB is over), I might as well send three at once lol.

EDIT- Ah rite the credit card thing.

Not offered to Aus unfortunately 

Double edit - I can choose Aus from the list although they say US/Can/Eu countries only. I'll look into it.


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