# [Help] 'Caution' in CrystalDiskInfo for External HDD



## quagmire (Apr 12, 2014)

My 7 month old  WD My Passport 1TB External HDD was running fine until now.
Hadnt checked smart values until recently Windows recommended a chkdsk. And after 6 hours this is what it shows:



Spoiler



*www.thinkdigit.com/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=14163&d=1397299979



*www.thinkdigit.com/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=14164&d=1397300056





I later ran CrystalDiskInfo and the values are here:




Spoiler



*www.thinkdigit.com/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=14165&d=1397300373




The Raw values of the Current Pending Sector Count show : 1C9  (The equivalent decimal value is 457)
Does this mean I have 457 bad sectors?  


After checking multiple times the values don't seem to be decreasing.



According to   [MENTION=135617]rijinpk1[/MENTION] in the other thread only RAW values are important.  Is that right? 


Spoiler






rijinpk1 said:


> Current Pending Sector Count
> 
> 
> > Current Pending Sector Count S.M.A.R.T. parameter is a critical parameter and indicates the current count of unstable sectors (waiting for remapping). The raw value of this attribute indicates the total number of sectors waiting for remapping. Later, when some of these sectors are read successfully, the value is decreased. If errors still occur when reading some sector, the hard drive will try to restore the data, transfer it to the reserved disk area (spare area) and mark this sector as remapped
> ...








Is my hard drive going bad?  
Should I try the WD Diagnostic Utility ?
Should I RMA the HDD?  Please help.


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## whitestar_999 (Apr 12, 2014)

every hdd has some extra free good sectors beyond the usable space on hdd to replace physically bad sectors.only when reallocated sectors count value increases from zero does it indicate that there are indeed bad physical sectors on disk.your hdd has identified bad sectors but it is not clear if they are bad physically or just corrupt data.try writing large amounts of random data(big & small files) to hdd while crystaldisk is running in the background to maybe trigger reallocation/completion of these pending sectors.only way though to surely trigger this is by full formatting the drive.


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## rijinpk1 (Apr 12, 2014)

keep an eye on read error rate also.check whether it is increasing while copying data from that hard drive. .. better back up important data first and give it for rma.


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## whitestar_999 (Apr 12, 2014)

^^read error rate is not a reliable indicator.on newer seagate drives with long term usage it has 7 figure raw value.pending sector count has to reset to zero before thinking about RMA as it is possible that it may only be corrupt data issue & not physical bad sector.also i am reading about people now getting refurbished drives in RMA even for WD(internal ones though,no idea about external).


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## rijinpk1 (Apr 12, 2014)

whitestar_999 said:


> ^^read error rate is not a reliable indicator.on newer seagate drives with long term usage it has 7 figure raw value.pending sector count has to reset to zero before thinking about RMA as it is possible that it may only be corrupt data issue & not physical bad sector.also i am reading about people now getting refurbished drives in RMA even for WD(internal ones though,no idea about external).



seagate and wd has different strategies for these values. if there is any value for read error rate for wd, then it indicates that there occured some reading error.  for seagate it is on some logarithmic scale and only a certain number of bits from total of 48available  indicating read error(upper bits.. lower bits indicates sectirs i guess) rate and is calculated  using logarithm.


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## quagmire (Apr 13, 2014)

Thanks for the reply guys.



whitestar_999 said:


> every hdd has some extra free good sectors beyond the usable space on hdd to replace physically bad sectors.only when reallocated sectors count value increases from zero does it indicate that there are indeed bad physical sectors on disk.your hdd has identified bad sectors but it is not clear if they are bad physically or just corrupt data.try writing large amounts of random data(big & small files) to hdd while crystaldisk is running in the background to maybe trigger reallocation/completion of these pending sectors.only way though to surely trigger this is by full formatting the drive.



   Buddy I have almost 350GB of data in the hard drive and nowhere to back it up. Not sure I will be able to format.
Will try the copying large files and get back.

So right now my 'Uncorrectable Sector Count' is 0, means I have zero bad sectors?



rijinpk1 said:


> keep an eye on read error rate also.check whether it is increasing while copying data from that hard drive. .. better back up important data first and give it for rma.



I have 'Read Error Rate' of C46 (= 3142). 
Wikipedia says lower 'Read Error Rate' the the better. This value has clearly crossed the threshold but CrystalDiskInfo shows Blue indicator 

Buddy any pointers to where I can find the WD RMA policy (I mean SMART value thresholds)?


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## tkin (Apr 13, 2014)

The drive may fail soon enough, no one can predict when it will happen, so backup the most critical data right now. The readings mean some sectors have gotten corrupt(physically), and the drive had replaced them. Like in my ADATA external hdd there had been this error for over 1 year now, but nothing had happened since, the corrupt sectors had not increased since then, still I never keep any important data there.

*i.imgur.com/nFitMIg.png


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## quagmire (Apr 13, 2014)

^Bro [MENTION=52329]tkin[/MENTION] , In your other thread how did you find out the SMART threshold values for RMA?

Am I eligible for RMA? Which number exactly indicates damaged sectors?

I read the that the data from the software tools provided by manufacturer can be used only once so I am having second thoughts on using 'WD Diagnostic Utility'


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## tkin (Apr 13, 2014)

quagmire said:


> ^Bro [MENTION=52329]tkin[/MENTION] , In your other thread how did you find out the SMART threshold values for RMA?
> 
> Am I eligible for RMA? Which number exactly indicates damaged sectors?
> 
> I read the that the data from the software tools provided by manufacturer can be used only once so I am having second thoughts on using 'WD Diagnostic Utility'


I never found out the threshold, my drive failed the second time when they tested it in front of me, so I got a RMA, just submit for RMA, 90% chance they'll give a new one, just try.


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## whitestar_999 (Apr 14, 2014)

btw raw values do not correspond to threshold values in a simple manner.e.g.in case of your read error rate of c46(3142) it may be possible that WD set,say 5000(just example),as 1 unit meaning once you have 5000 errors your current read error rate value will decrease by 1.this is why crystaldisk shows it as alright.it is not possible to know exact threshold values(i.e.the raw values-normal values relation using which you can deduct at which raw value threshold will be reached) & also manufacturers set their own limits well above threshold values for RMA(once it crosses threshold values hdd is useless anyway & will get RMA if under warranty but with extra user anger so companies don't wait for threshold values to be reached).


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## quagmire (Apr 21, 2014)

Ran a SMART Test and Quick Drive Test on WD Drive Utilities. Here are the results:

SMART Test : Passed

Quick Drive Test : Failed 




Spoiler



*www.thinkdigit.com/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=14211&d=1398022055





Hardly any info on what the Quick Drive Test results indicate.

From  here :



> Quick Drive Test The Quick Drive Test is identical to the Full Drive Test except the full media scan is not performed unless an error is detected during testing. The Quick Drive Test may not identify all media related errors but can be used to test basic functionality of a drive. If you suspect media issues, use the Full Drive Test function. If a media-related failure is detected, the WD Quick Tester will report the failure and give the choice to continue or abort the operation. If further testing is required, do not use the drive until such further testing is performed.







Another person with a similar problem on another forum says this :  



> Purchased Brand New 1TB Western Digital MY Passport drive External USb 3.0 from Amazon.com
> 
> For fun of it ran Western Digital Diagnostic tools. "Quick Drive test Failed"
> 
> I immediately contacted Western Digital Support and they informed me not to pay attention to error message.








Should I apply for RMA?  Won't  they be running the same software there?  

Very little information on WD website about RMA. [Link1] [Link2]

Please advice.

[Complete Drive Test may take more than 6 hours so will post the results once I complete it]


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## tkin (Apr 21, 2014)

Yes, apply for the RMA.


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