Drive is refusing to reallocate bad sectors

WD Internal Drives Desktop & Mobile Drives
1

I have a WD1003FZEX I have had for 9 months and has started to develop some issues. Apparently it can write to some sectors but not read them, the Current Pending Sector (CPS) count increases (it went up to 11 after running chkdsk on just the first 200GB partition, but it seems now the highest it gets within that 200GB is 1 when doing a scan) but if I zero fill (or whatever other pattern) CPS resets to zero, the other critical attributes remain at zero like ‘Reallocated Sector Count’, ‘Reallocated Event Count’ or ‘Offline Uncorrectable’. I do another scan, CPS increases again, and again it resets to 0 after a zero fill (I lost count how many times I’ve done it) without reallocating anything.

I have another WD1003FZEX I ordered at the same time, and there appears to be no issues with that one. I’d rather exhaust my options before doing RMA (if my situation is RMA worthy). Frankly, I don’t want a refurbished drive as a replacement nor do I want to waste money buying another a brand new one.

ID Current Worst ThresholdData Status
(01) Raw Read Error Rate 200 200 51 183 ok
(03) Spin Up Time 180 169 21 1991 ok
(04) Start/Stop Count 100 100 0 966 ok
(05) Reallocated Sector Count 200 200 140 0 ok
(07) Seek Error Rate 200 200 0 0 ok
(09) Power On Hours Count 97 97 0 2761 ok
(0A) Spin Retry Count 100 100 0 0 ok
(0B) Calibration Retry Count 100 100 0 0 ok
(0C) Power Cycle Count 100 100 0 583 ok
(C0) Unsafe Shutdown Count 200 200 0 15 ok
(C1) Load Cycle Count 200 200 0 950 ok
(C2) Temperature 108 104 0 35 ok
(C4) Reallocated Event Count 200 200 0 0 ok
(C5) Current Pending Sector 200 200 0 1 warning
(C6) Offline Uncorrectable 200 200 0 0 ok
(C7) Interface CRC Error Count 200 200 0 0 ok
(C8) Write Error Rate 200 200 0 0 ok

2

Hello,

you can try writing zeroes to the drive using WD DLG and the repartition it. I

Data Lifeguard Diagnostic for Windows

3

I’ve done a zero fill dozens of times and Current Pending Sector Count goes to 0 usually until it is read again, but doing a scan is not guaranteed to make it increase again.

Earlier today it went to zero without being reallocated doing a long format (that actually checks for bad sectors) on the drive.

4

For unknown reasons now the suspect LBA is no longer unstable. There are still zero reallocated sectors.

ID# ATTRIBUTE_NAME          FLAG     VALUE WORST THRESH TYPE      UPDATED  WHEN_FAILED RAW_VALUE
  1 Raw_Read_Error_Rate     0x002f   200   200   051    Pre-fail  Always       -       311
  3 Spin_Up_Time            0x0027   175   169   021    Pre-fail  Always       -       2233
  4 Start_Stop_Count        0x0032   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       977
  5 Reallocated_Sector_Ct   0x0033   200   200   140    Pre-fail  Always       -       0
  7 Seek_Error_Rate         0x002e   100   253   000    Old_age   Always       -       0
  9 Power_On_Hours          0x0032   097   097   000    Old_age   Always       -       2791
 10 Spin_Retry_Count        0x0032   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       0
 11 Calibration_Retry_Count 0x0032   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       0
 12 Power_Cycle_Count       0x0032   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       594
192 Power-Off_Retract_Count 0x0032   200   200   000    Old_age   Always       -       15
193 Load_Cycle_Count        0x0032   200   200   000    Old_age   Always       -       961
194 Temperature_Celsius     0x0022   109   104   000    Old_age   Always       -       34
196 Reallocated_Event_Count 0x0032   200   200   000    Old_age   Always       -       0
197 Current_Pending_Sector  0x0032   200   200   000    Old_age   Always       -       0
198 Offline_Uncorrectable   0x0030   200   200   000    Old_age   Offline      -       0
199 UDMA_CRC_Error_Count    0x0032   200   200   000    Old_age   Always       -       0
200 Multi_Zone_Error_Rate   0x0008   200   200   000    Old_age   Offline      -       0

SMART Error Log Version: 1
No Errors Logged

SMART Self-test log structure revision number 1
Num  Test_Description    Status                  Remaining  LifeTime(hours)  LBA_of_first_error
# 1  Short offline       Completed without error       00%      2787         -
# 2  Short offline       Completed without error       00%      2782         -
# 3  Short offline       Completed without error       00%      2780         -
# 4  Short offline       Completed without error       00%      2780         -
# 5  Short offline       Completed without error       00%      2780         -
# 6  Short offline       Completed without error       00%      2780         -
# 7  Short offline       Completed without error       00%      2780         -
# 8  Short offline       Completed: read failure       10%      2748         36363680
# 9  Short offline       Completed: read failure       10%      2748         36363680
#10  Short offline       Completed: read failure       10%      2748         36363680
#11  Short offline       Completed: read failure       10%      2747         36363680

SMART Selective self-test log data structure revision number 1
 SPAN  MIN_LBA  MAX_LBA  CURRENT_TEST_STATUS
    1        0        0  Not_testing
    2        0        0  Not_testing
    3        0        0  Not_testing
    4        0        0  Not_testing
    5        0        0  Not_testing
Selective self-test flags (0x0):
  After scanning selected spans, do NOT read-scan remainder of disk.
5

I would RMA the unit.
If after 9 months the drive is delivering this behavior it might got dead soon.
And you will loose all your non backed up data.
After all, vendor refurbished drives are factory re-certified.