I have a WD7501 AALS on a small WIndows 2003 SBS Server. It shows as offline in Disk Management. It shows no partitions ot volumes. I cannot get it to come back online using Disk Management.
I have tried using diskpart and it can see the drive and two partitions. I can’t see any volumes. diskpart can’t get it back on line.
If I boot a live Linux disk. After a significan wait I can see the partitions, mount them and access the data. GParted can see the partitions and the ntfs files sytems on them. It recognizes them as corrupted. It tells me to run “chkdsk /f” - twice. But I can’t, WIndows doesn’t see the volumes.
Running the WD diagnostices I get a failure “Cable Test:: read diagnostics sector error”.
Any idea what the problem is and can it be fixed?
I decided to try to reformat the drive. I was able to do that. I can now read and write to the drive it is recognized but I am still getting the cable test error. I also ran the Seagate diagnostis and it also failed.
AIUI, a DLG “cable test error” is often due to a problem with DLG rather than the drive. As for SeaTools, its failure to detect your drive may be due to an inability to communicate with your SATA controller.
Instead, try a more comprehensive SMART diagnostic. Look for reallocated, pending, or uncorrectable sectors.
HD Sentinel (DOS / Windows / Linux):
http://www.hdsentinel.com/
HDDScan for Windows:
http://hddscan.com/
See this article for SMART info:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S.M.A.R.T.
Seatools detected the drive just fine. What I meant was the drive failed the Seatools tests.
GLG does report the SMART ststus of the drive and it appears fine.
Gparted indicate it sees problem with the drive file systems. Linux utility ntfsfix also reports problems.
I will try some of the diagnostics you pointed too.
ISTM that if the file system is corrupted after a format, then there must be a problem with bad sectors or weak heads. In such cases the SMART status of the drive will still be OK as long as the number of reallocated sectors has not exceeded a set threshold. This threshold could be anywhere from 500 to 2500, depending on the HD manufacturer and model.
I am now pretty much convinced there is aproblem with the drive so I am replacing the drive before it goes completely out. I will contact WD and set up an RMA. This is a recertified drive I recieved recently as a replacement of a failed drive.
