Advance RMA drive, but now old drive is working after a Zero Write

WD Internal Drives Desktop & Mobile Drives
1

I have a WD30EZRX 3TB drive that I thought had bad sectors.  It failed multiple DLG extended tests for “08-Too Many Bad Sectors Detected”.  It also wouldn’t even start a HD Tune Pro error check, as it said the first two “blocks” were damaged (each block is 1144MB).  So, I decided to AdvanceRMA the drive.

I got the new drive this earlier this week.  Before I sent my old drive back to WD, I decided to do a Write Zeros to it through DLG.

All of a sudden, once the Write Zeros finished, the EZRX has passed multiple extended tests of DLG, and it completely passed the Error Check of HD Tune Pro.

So now I have a couple questions:

  1. Should I continue to RMA the drive?  Or send the AdvanceRMA back?  Is the drive actually fine?
  2. If I send the AdvanceRMA back, what, if anything will come of the fact that the anti-static pouch it shipped in is opened?  I opened it with the intention of putting it in my machine, but had to wait for the zero-write to finish.  I never installed or powered it up though.
  3. If I send the AdvanceRMA back, what happens to the warranty on my current drive?  Am I still able to make a warranty claim/RMA later (due to bad sectors) should they develop?  Or by returning the AdvanceRMA, am I forfeiting that right?
  4. In SMART data, DLG is now showing 1 Reallocated sector (after a 2nd Quick Test after the Zero write), and 1 Raw Read Error Rate (There are no Reallocation Event Counts or Offline Uncorrectable Sector Count - Both are 0) .  Both of these were 0 before the Zero-Write.  HOWEVER, CrystalDiskInfo and HD Tune Pro both DO NOT report these in their SMART data.

Basically, I am more confused than ever as to whether my original WD30EZRX drive is actually bad, or whether it just initially had some sectors it couldn’t read that are now fine after a Zero-Write.  Any help would be appreciated.

2

Hi,

As a recommendation, will be better if complete the RMA process, this way will allow WD Support to determine what was wrong with the drive that was failing on you.

Please note that the warranty that you have left of your drive, will pass to the replacement drive.

3

Accidentally clicked “Accept as Solution”

So I ran an extended test on the replacement drive (a refurbished drive, not a new one).  I can’t even complete the extended test on the replacement.  So I then tried to write zeros to the drive.  It won’t write zeros to the drive.

How do I go about getting a replacement for the replacement?  I still have the original.  I will be sending the replacement back.

Do I wait for the one I’m sending back to be received, then do a warranty claim again?

4

I have the same issue as this poster (different drive) and would like to know the answer to the first 3 questions.

Basically: Can I return the advanced RMA replacement drive?
If I can, do I still get to retain the full (5 year) warranty on my original drive?
(I opened the anti-static packaging and ran some tests and grabbed smart data off of it but have not written to it or cloned my old drive).

THIS IS MY ORIGINAL DRIVE:

smartctl 6.0 2012-10-10 r3643 [i686-linux-3.7.5-pmagic] (local build)
Copyright (C) 2002-12, Bruce Allen, Christian Franke,

=== START OF INFORMATION SECTION ===
Model Family:     Western Digital RE4 Serial ATA
Device Model:     WDC WD1003FBYX-01Y7B1
Serial Number:    WD-WCAW3517****
LU WWN Device Id: 5 0014ee 2b2ab626d
Firmware Version: 01.01V02
User Capacity:    1,000,204,886,016 bytes [1.00 TB]
Sector Size:      512 bytes logical/physical
Rotation Rate:    7200 rpm
Device is:        In smartctl database [for details use: -P show]
ATA Version is:   ATA8-ACS (minor revision not indicated)
SATA Version is:  SATA 3.0, 3.0 Gb/s (current: 3.0 Gb/s)
Local Time is:    Sun Jun  9 13:39:58 2013 UTC
SMART support is: Available - device has SMART capability.
SMART support is: Enabled

SMART Attributes Data Structure revision number: 16
Vendor Specific SMART Attributes with Thresholds:
ID# ATTRIBUTE_NAME          FLAG     VALUE WORST THRESH TYPE      UPDATED  WHEN_FAILED RAW_VALUE
  1 Raw_Read_Error_Rate     0x002f   200   200   051    Pre-fail  Always       -       16
  3 Spin_Up_Time            0x0027   179   170   021    Pre-fail  Always       -       4050
  4 Start_Stop_Count        0x0032   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       124
  5 Reallocated_Sector_Ct   0x0033   200   200   140    Pre-fail  Always       -       0
  7 Seek_Error_Rate         0x002e   200   200   000    Old_age   Always       -       0
  9 Power_On_Hours          0x0032   099   099   000    Old_age   Always       -       1136
 10 Spin_Retry_Count        0x0032   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       0
 11 Calibration_Retry_Count 0x0032   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       0
 12 Power_Cycle_Count       0x0032   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       121
192 Power-Off_Retract_Count 0x0032   200   200   000    Old_age   Always       -       11
193 Load_Cycle_Count        0x0032   200   200   000    Old_age   Always       -       112
194 Temperature_Celsius     0x0022   113   097   000    Old_age   Always       -       34
196 Reallocated_Event_Count 0x0032   200   200   000    Old_age   Always       -       0
197 Current_Pending_Sector  0x0032   200   200   000    Old_age   Always       -       1
198 Offline_Uncorrectable   0x0030   100   253   000    Old_age   Offline      -       0
199 UDMA_CRC_Error_Count    0x0032   200   200   000    Old_age   Always       -       0
200 Multi_Zone_Error_Rate   0x0008   200   200   000    Old_age   Offline      -       0
____________________________________________________________________

The Pending Sector Count rose to around 40 at one point in time, but is now sitting at 1 (I ran checkdisk twice and it repaired some things, I found files that had been “rescued” by it later and replaced them).

This all started one day when I turned on my computer and logged into windows, shortly after everything became sluggish, then stopped responding, I tried to bring up the security options dialog (ctrl+alt+delete) and got the message “Log on process has failed to create the security options dialog” and a mostly black screen. Let it sit for some minutes but no change so forced the machine to power-off by pressing and holding the power button.
(I should note that my drive is somewhat noisy, always has been and I understand this to be typical of the series, but during the above period it was quite loud, I understand this may be due to the heads moving rapidly over areas they’re having trouble reading for whatever reason.)
I started back up and checked various things, no real problem until I opened speedfan to glance at smart values and saw to my surprise red and a value for Current_Pending_Sector that was I believe around 10 at first. I checked back later and it had climbed to the teens. I restarted and booted into parted magic, the value was now in the 20s and I tried to run a short test but got read error with an LBA value. G-Parted also placed a flag indicating bad/pending sectors.

Long story short I tried to run tests but got nowhere. Put in an RMA (I had another drive [old and out of warranty] with similar problems and it deteriorated rapidly with lots of data loss so I didn’t feel like taking chances as I don’t currently have a spare drive I can use to backup). Did some more research (sadly not the easiest thing when everyone recommends zeroing as the only solution) and found that certain tools (HDAT2, MHDD) can force re-examination and/or reallocation of bad sectors without necessarily destroying data. Running these cleared up the pending count to where it now sits at 1 (I’ve been unable to find this last one so far but I’m going to go on another hunt).

The Raw_Read_Error_Rate has actually been present since I got the drive (well not day one) and gradually creeped up, but as it is still low and hasn’t climbed rapidly I was under the impression it isn’t a problem.

Presently I’m writing this from the system in question, I’ve been using it as normal and nothing has cropped up in the past several days.

Any opinions? Should I really go with the (older revision) replacement? I’d hate to send back an otherwise good (and up till now completely reliable) drive that I bought.

This is the first real trouble I’ve had with a WD product and I’ve been buying and recommending for some years now.