Drive OK after high Reallocated Sector Count

I presume this is a SeaGate drive? Can you connect it to an internal SATA port in the PC and check it using SeaTools?

What was the reallocated sector count on the drive?

Windows might well tell you the drive is ok, as long as all the sectors are reallocated properly. That doesn't mean that the drive is healthy (as usually more failures happen quickly). And seek times the include the reallocated sectors get longer, since the drive has to divert its course to grab the reallocated data.

Seatools is a better tool, but even there Seagate has a higher failure threshold than I would like. You can also use acronis drive monitor (free download) to see the actual SMART counts.

Hi.
Yes a Seagate ST32000542AS.
The reallocated sector count jumped from 0 to 1550 overnight. I ordered a new disk from Newegg that day. Two days later the count jumper to 3900 and this message "Disk 1 did not pass SMART self-assessment test." So i pulled the disk and replaced it.
Its a a pain in the rear for me to connect the disk to an internal SATA drive - its connected to an external drive enclosure via usb at the moment.

So I should just let the old drive go I guess, even though Windows thinks its fine? Just seems like such a waste. Ah well.

The disk is failing. I wouldn't trust it.

mdgm wrote:
The disk is failing. I wouldn't trust it.

I'd check on the Seagate site to see if it is still under warranty. If so, I'd RMA it (using failure code 659DC7AE. See http://www.seagate.com/staticfiles/supp ... codes.html)

I certainly wouldn't use it, except perhaps as a doorstop.

munka wrote:

Hi. Yes a Seagate ST32000542AS. The reallocated sector count jumped from 0 to 1550 overnight. I ordered a new disk from Newegg that day. Two days later the count jumper to 3900 and this message "Disk 1 did not pass SMART self-assessment test." So i pulled the disk and replaced it. Its a a pain in the rear for me to connect the disk to an internal SATA drive - its connected to an external drive enclosure via usb at the moment. So I should just let the old drive go I guess, even though Windows thinks its fine? Just seems like such a waste. Ah well.

Windows cannot read SMART data when the disk is connected via USB. Requires a native SATA connection and proper motherboard BIOS support.

As StephenB recommended, just RMA it to Seagate. You do NOT need to run Seatools to establish a Seagate RMA.

claykin wrote:
Windows cannot read SMART data when the disk is connected via USB. Requires a native SATA connection and proper motherboard BIOS support

I don't know if the Windows OS itself uses SMART data (on either internal or external drives). If it's reporting this drive as healthy, it probably doesn't.

Acronis Drive Monitor will read SMART data for drives connected with USB adapters - at least it does on the PCs I have. Seatools and Lifeguard also run. Firmware updates are probably a bigger issue, that seems to be hit or miss.

claykin wrote:
...You do NOT need to run Seatools to establish a Seagate RMA.

Totally true, and worth repeating. There is some mis-information on this topic on various threads here and other forums. Seagate recognizes that some people can't run Seatools for various reasons. The Seagate link in my earlier post has "self-service" codes you can use instead of Seatools.

Of course you run a risk if you return a good drive under RMA. But this one isn't good - it would fail at this point (~3000 reallocated sectors, and fails the drive's built-in self-test), but there really is no need to spend the time.