Is my hard drive dying?

I have a WDC WD20EARS and I’m running 64-bit Windows 7.

I recently got a notification from Windows saying there was a CRC error reading a file. I got the latest version of Western Digital Data Lifeguard Diagnostics and checked the SMART info for this drive. The diagnostics tool declared the drive healthy according to the SMART status. I then ran the Quick Test which almost immediately gave me an error message:

"Quick Test on drive 3 did not complete!

Status code = 07 (Failed read test element), Failure Checkpoint = 97

(Unknown Test)

SMART self-test did not complete on drive 3!"

After that I ran the extended test which found some bad blocks. It tryed to fix them but it gave me this message:

“Error was detected while repairing bad sectors.”

and that was it.

I did ‘chkdsk /r’ on the drive the file was on. Windows found some bad blocks and did some corrections.

Here is an excerpt from the chkdsk output:

CHKDSK is verifying file data (stage 4 of 5)...
Read failure with status 0xc000009c at offset 0x1b6946a1000 for 0x10000 bytes.
Read failure with status 0xc000009c at offset 0x1b6946a1000 for 0x1000 bytes.
Read failure with status 0xc000009c at offset 0x1b6dccd2000 for 0x10000 bytes.
Read failure with status 0xc000009c at offset 0x1b6dcce1000 for 0x1000 bytes.
Read failure with status 0xc000009c at offset 0x1b72cc52000 for 0x10000 bytes.
Read failure with status 0xc000009c at offset 0x1b72cc61000 for 0x1000 bytes.
Read failure with status 0xc000009c at offset 0x1b777dd2000 for 0x10000 bytes.
Read failure with status 0xc000009c at offset 0x1b777de1000 for 0x1000 bytes.
Read failure with status 0xc000009c at offset 0x1b777de2000 for 0x10000 bytes.
Read failure with status 0xc000009c at offset 0x1b777de2000 for 0x1000 bytes.
Read failure with status 0xc000009c at offset 0x1b777de3000 for 0x10000 bytes.
Read failure with status 0xc000009c at offset 0x1b777de4000 for 0x1000 bytes.
Read failure with status 0xc000009c at offset 0x1b777de3000 for 0x1000 bytes.
Read failure with status 0xc000009c at offset 0x1b777de3000 for 0x1000 bytes.

Windows replaced bad clusters in file 15386
of name \*filename*.
Read failure with status 0xc000009c at offset 0x1ba63339000 for 0x10000 bytes.
Read failure with status 0xc000009c at offset 0x1ba63339000 for 0x1000 bytes.
Read failure with status 0xc000009c at offset 0x1baabf9a000 for 0x10000 bytes.

Windows replaced bad clusters in file 15397
of name \*filename*.
  21744 files processed. File data verification completed.
CHKDSK is verifying free space (stage 5 of 5)...
  31146642 free clusters processed. Free space verification is complete.
Adding 8 bad clusters to the Bad Clusters File.
Correcting errors in the Volume Bitmap.
Windows has made corrections to the file system.

-----------------------------
32 KB in bad sectors.

After that I re-ran the quick test in the Data Lifeguard tool, but still got the same message as before.

From my own experience with different hard drives, I would say this one is dying. The drive is still under warranty, however I’m not sure the store will replace it since the SMART status passes. I would be interested in hearing an expert’s opinion and suggestions on how to act in this situation.

elusion

//Edit: Replaced the images with text as Opera browser did not load them.

Hi any hard drive running errors needs to be replaced start a RMA with WD.

You are suggested to backup all data first. You have to do full format of drive (if possible delete all drives and create only one). Now check HDD again with chkdsk  drive: /f from command prompt. Please do it only when you have sufficient spare time. If empty HDD is reported again read error then surely it have problems.

If HDD is making sound then don’t torture it.