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  1. #1
    DF Super Moderator
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    Weird What is going on here? Dodgy Drive or not?

    This drive has given a warning in Crystal Disk.
    SMART reckons it's on its last legs -

    Untitled.png

    OK, fine. It's fucked, apparently. Lets run HD Tune full Error Scan against this same drive for 6hrs and see what happens

    Untitled2.png

    0.0% of damaged blocks! I've never had problems with this drive, it was used for a long period of time storing media and might be accessed knownagain.
    What gives?! Which do I trust!?

    Running WD DLG against it now. I have low level formatted it and filled with Zeros. All went perfectly. I mean really, what the actual fuck?
    SMART just being totally anal? Perhaps counting 'instant offs' or something?
    Last edited by DejaVu; 2nd March 2018 at 07:35 PM.


  2. #2
    DF VIP Member Over Carl's Avatar
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    Default Re: What is going on here? Dodgy Drive or not?

    3 Approaches to this:

    1: If you aren't storing important data, grab a copy of HDD LLF Format Tool and run a low level format. No need to pay for registration if you are only doing one drive, it will just run at a limited speed. Then carry on using the drive and keep your fingers crossed.

    2: If you are using it to store important data, remove it from your PC and put it in a padded box. Order your replacement drive, transfer contents, then bin the old drive.

    3. As step 2, but run LLF Tool on the old drive and sell it on eBay.

    If you have data that can't be retrieved or would take a very long time to put together again, factor the human cost of this vs the cost of a replacement drive and I think my mentality should make sense.

    Also I've sometimes found with drives that have smart faults that seem to work OK, Seatools (bootable CD) often reports issues even though drive seems good.
    Speedfan is also handy as you can get it to show your SMART data, then get a website to automatically analyse it for you and highlight what the potential issues are.

    Thanks to Over Carl

    DejaVu (2nd March 2018)  


  3. #3
    DF Super Moderator
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    Default Re: What is going on here? Dodgy Drive or not?

    No longer under warranty, I've checked most of them.
    Have a fair few drives to go through I've no need for so I think I will pass off on eBay the ones that come up pants (yet pass the surface test).
    Any that come up good, I'll offer up on here (with images of test results), if no go, I'll throw to the bay with those too.


  4. #4
    DF General DogsBody
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    Default Re: What is going on here? Dodgy Drive or not?

    I have a 1 TB quantum or maybe a Seagate in my daughter machine. Its been reporting as faulty on the smart table for the past 10 years, she just presses cancel and carries on. Its only got her games and things on and all is backup and not as a boot drive

  5. #5
    DF Super Moderator {{909}}'s Avatar
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    Default Re: What is going on here? Dodgy Drive or not?

    thought i'd post here rather than start a fresh thread, but whats the best way to test a drive? I've got 4 spare HDDs here, 3x1TB and 1x2TB and I just need one to use in my main machine, all my media has been shifted to my NAS now.

    The 2TB drive works perfectly, although crystal disk shows a warning that there are reallocated sectors so I'll probably ditch that one (the newest of the 4).
    The 1TB of the 3 I have installed at the moment has been in use for at least 6 years and has , for as long as i can remember given out random clicks, probably every 5 minutes or so and I've always intended to replace it, however crystal disk and HD Tune don't report any errors, even after a full scan overnight.

    2 of the other 1TB are WD Green, which I haven't tested but I seem to recall them both losing data at some point in the past (I thought it was one of these doing the clicking, but when I pulled em out it turned out to be the samsung). I'm gonna put em in the PC and scan em later one to try and find one that I can put some vague faith into, but it seems nothing can give a reliable analysis. SMART seems to be near useless.

    Thanks to {{909}}

    Mickey (6th March 2018)  


  6. #6
    DF Super Moderator
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    Default Re: What is going on here? Dodgy Drive or not?

    Quote Originally Posted by {{909}} View Post
    thought i'd post here rather than start a fresh thread, but whats the best way to test a drive? I've got 4 spare HDDs here, 3x1TB and 1x2TB and I just need one to use in my main machine, all my media has been shifted to my NAS now.

    The 2TB drive works perfectly, although crystal disk shows a warning that there are reallocated sectors so I'll probably ditch that one (the newest of the 4).
    The 1TB of the 3 I have installed at the moment has been in use for at least 6 years and has , for as long as i can remember given out random clicks, probably every 5 minutes or so and I've always intended to replace it, however crystal disk and HD Tune don't report any errors, even after a full scan overnight.

    2 of the other 1TB are WD Green, which I haven't tested but I seem to recall them both losing data at some point in the past (I thought it was one of these doing the clicking, but when I pulled em out it turned out to be the samsung). I'm gonna put em in the PC and scan em later one to try and find one that I can put some vague faith into, but it seems nothing can give a reliable analysis. SMART seems to be near useless.
    I find that SMART doesn't always detect a problem even when the drive is definitely an issue but if it does fail the drive I just replace to be safe. I find RAM/HDD testers to be reliable if they find an issue but if they come back clean I move to the next step of troubleshooting but don't rule them out as being the cause as I've learned in the past they aren't too accurate!


  7. #7
    DF Super Moderator {{909}}'s Avatar
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    Default Re: What is going on here? Dodgy Drive or not?

    It looks like all of these drives are fuckshitted. I actually have 5, 3 WD green (2tb and 2 x 1tb) all 3 have reallocated sectors, and the other 2 are samsung 1tb, both of which click randomly, but every HDD scanning and checking task I can throw at them comes up smelling of roses.

    Just bought 3 fucking 3TBs thinking this was the end of it, and now I need another!

  8. #8
    DF Super Moderator
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    Default Re: What is going on here? Dodgy Drive or not?

    ------------------------------------------------------
    EDIT - Before reading my ramblings below. 100% check the warranty, it's always worth switching drives although I've done a few, a lot now come back as 're-certified'.
    I don't know exactly what is meant by this, but I reckon WD scan these drives for faults, don't find any, reset the SMART info and dispatch them back as Warranty replacements.
    ------------------------------------------------------

    I'm thinking the reallocated sectors doesn't necessarily mean the drive is knackered. Clicking, yes bin it! Your drive is mechanical and anything clicking is not good.

    From information I've been reading, drives have a spare number of sectors that reallocates data to once the sectors have been flagged up and the size of the drive doesn't get effected. SMART controls this and the sectors are usually only relocated during a FULL format (quick formats do fuck all!)

    SMART is really just an indicator and I've come to realise that Crystal Disk is anal as fuck and only goes by the useless information SMART is able to give. SMART I believe will count a screwed sector if an 'instant off' happens and adds it to memory. Or if for whatever reason (perhaps a knackered file is found) a report may go to SMART explaining the file cannot be read. Delete the file, the sector is fine, but it's already marked with SMART.

    So to sum up, although SMART could be handy, it's just an indication and could be reporting false positives when in actual fact, your drive is not as fucked as SMART says it is.

    I've had warning thrown up by SMART on drives and Crystal Disk says the drive should not be used.
    However, a full Low Level Format on these drives with filling with Zeros has completed without a hitch. I've also scanned the same WD drives with WD DLG and they have also come back perfect.

    SMART stands for Self-Monitoring, Analysis, and Reporting Technology and although in most catastrophic cases, it can be quite accurate.
    But when you have a HDD that's been wrapped in cotton wool all it's life gets flagged as fucked even though it has thousands of hours of 'on time' but no real intensive use (media storage), in my personal opinion... it's SMART is Shit.

    I'm that confident that that is the case with one of my drives, I've backup my cloud accounts (filled with all my personal photographs taken with my phone) to my 2TB hard drive with a warning from SMART.
    Last edited by DejaVu; 7th March 2018 at 09:38 PM.

    Thanks to DejaVu

    {{909}} (10th March 2018)  


  9. #9
    DF Super Moderator {{909}}'s Avatar
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    Default Re: What is going on here? Dodgy Drive or not?

    for the price of a new 2TB its really not worth the risk, I have about 1200gig of data spread across a clicking samsung and a bad sector WD, I'm gonna grab a new drive, copy the shit straight over and shove these drives in a cupboard.

    The click on the samsung seems to only occur when data is requested from it, and not every time, I am not sure if there's some kind of sleep mode and the click is it waking up. Every search pulls up drives which have a constant clicking, but I've had these drives for donkeys now, I had my moneys worth out of em.

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