🚀 go-pugleaf

"Penang" <kalambong@gmail.com> wrote in message 
news:0be95232-1d86-4262-8806-9bfb0ed20e59@a3g2000prm.googlegroups.com...
>I need to to know if people with huge capacity SATA hard drives (500GB
> and up) have the following problem :
>
> Bought a new hard drive, install it, formatted the disk, install the
> OS, use it for 2 months, and then weird things start popping up.
>
> The hard drive that I am using is Western Digital's WD6400AAKS -- a
> 640GB hard drive.
>
> I bought it to replace my 250 GB drive, which is running out of
> capacity. I do a lot of video editing.
>
> Bought the hard drive back in 2nd of July this year. Install the hard
> drive into my PC, partitioned it into 2 logical volume (Drive C: and
> Drive D:) and then install the OS onto it. The OS that I use is Win
> XP. The HD is formatted under NTFS file system.
>
> Drive C: has 30 GB and the rest, about 570GB, falls under drive D:
>
> I ran chkdsk (check disk) on both partitions (chkdsk /f /r /x) and
> there wasn't any error. So I thought I had bought a good drive and was
> feeling very happy.
>
> It runs okay for 2 months, and then ...
>
> Sometimes when I start my PC, the PC can't find the drive.
>
> Other times, the PC can find the drive, but running extra ordinarily
> slow.
>
> I dropped down to the Command Prompt level, use "chkdsk" again to
> check what's wrong.
>
> The command that I use is still the same "chkdsk /x /r /f" --- to
> dismount the disk, and to "fix" the disk if there is anything wrong,
> and to check (recover) bad sector.
>
> Long and behold, there _ARE_ bad sectors !!
>
> Drive C has 82KB of bad sectors, and Drive D has 288KB of bad sectors.
>
> This is a drive that I'd just used for 2 months !! And the
> manufacturing date (the date stamped on the label of the drive)
> indicated that it was made June, 2008. In all account, this is a _NEW_
> drive, and it is developing BAD SECTORS !!!
>
> The 250GB drive that I used never gave me any problem. This 640GB,
> however, worries me !
>
> I know that 400KB of bad sector, for a 640GB (actually it's 597GB
> after formatted) hard drive, is insignificant. But still, bad sectors
> are still BAD SECTORS, and I am afraid that the bad sectors would
> spread !!
>
> That is why I am posting this message, asking the people who have more
> experience than me in using huge capacity hard drive --- is the bad
> sectors common occurrance?
>
> Or that I'm just too unlucky to get myself a lemon?
>
> BTW, the hard drive is EXTREMELY HOT, not warm, but VERY HOT !!! I do
> not have the actual temperature in it (I do not know if there is any
> utility out there that would give me the drive's actual temperature)
> but when I touch the drive, it was very HOT !!!
>
> Please, please help.
>
> Thank you !

My experience of 500GB drives has been disappointing, and your experience is 
no comfort!
I recently had a WD 500GB delivered - an AAKS like yours.  It was dead on 
arrival, but then it wasn't anti-static packed.  Just bubble wrap 
(polythene?) which ia probably very good at generating static.
Then bought a Seagate 500GB - it had lots of bad sectors whilst creating my 
first partition and was then condemned by Seagate diagnostics.  That's 
currently on it's way back to the supplier.
I am using full anti-static procedures including wrist strap, the ports I'm 
using are fine with my present WD 120GB and the voltages are ok with my DVM 
so I'm pretty sure I'm not killing them.
It all makes nonsense of any backup strategy which includes the assumption 
that a replacement drive can be acquired quickly.  My other drives are a 120 
WD and a 160 Seagate - both 3 years old and both 100% reliable.

The temperature will probably be in the SMART data which can be extracted 
with WD diagnostics but interpretation is not easy.

Phil