Disk drive diagnostic tool are they definitive ?

alan27 wrote:
Hi All Can anyone let me know if the disk drive diagnostic tools are definitive. If I run the Western Digital Data LifeGuard Diagnostics tool on my 4 x 2Tb WD-20EARS CAVIAR GREEN 2TB 64MB 7200 SAT and they all came back as passed, can I yes 100% that the disk are ok ? Or is there a possibly they could still be bad ? Thanks Alan

Vendor thresholds for bad sectors are much higher than the ones I personally use. So I always look at the smart data (which Lifeguard will show you) in addition to their pass/fail. If you see a trend of increasing reallocated sectors, then the drive is almost certainly failing even if it hasn't reached the vendor threshold yet.

I have tested drives I knew were failing, but the vendor tools still passed them. Waited another week, and then they failed. So in my experience, if the vendor tools report a fail, then the drive is certainly bad. However, if they report a pass, it does not guarantee that the drive is good.

Are you having issues with your drives? Maybe you could post the details.