I ran the test on an internal HD from WD Dashboard. Results showed this message. What does error code 7 mean? Dashboard status showed normal health for the HD. An Acronis backup failed on one partition, showing block errors. I ran chkdsk /f /r on the partition several times, but the Acronis backup still failed.
This is what the Wiki page showed:
Rate of seek errors of the magnetic heads. If there is a partial failure in the mechanical positioning system, then seek errors will arise. Such a failure may be due to numerous factors, such as damage to a servo, or thermal widening of the hard disk. The raw value has different structure for different vendors and is often not meaningful as a decimal number. For some drives, this number may increase during normal operation without necessarily signifying errors.
How can I determine whether the error is significant for my HD?
I ran the repair utility suggested in the wikifixes article. Dashboad still fails the extended test with error code 7. The short test still shows a normal result.
I could replace the long out of warranty drive, but I would like to complete the Acronis backup so I can restore to any new drive.
cat0w is probably a bot, and wikifixes.com is just trying to make you download some software that has nothing to do with the problem. The text on that page is VERY generic and not at all related to an error in WD dashboard…
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Well, I’m not a bot, and I’m here because I’m hitting the same error code in WD Dashboard. Any idea why this error shows up? Certainly not for any of the vague reasons listed on that wiki page…
“incorrect or failed installation or uninstallation of software that may have left invalid entries in system elements”, really? How is that related to WD Dashboard not being able to run a SMART check?
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I am assuming we are talking about a SATA drive.
Dashboard reports the Self Test result reported by the drive directly, so you can find the meaning of the error codes in the ATA ACS specification. There is a version posted here https://people.freebsd.org/~imp/asiabsdcon2015/works/d2161r5-ATAATAPI_Command_Set_-_3.pdf.
The relevant piece is Table 132. An error of 7 means the read element of the test failed.
Table 132 — Self-test execution status values
Value Description
0h Indicates a previous self-test routine completed without error or no self-test status is available
1h The self-test routine was aborted by the host
2h The self-test routine was interrupted by the host with a hardware or software reset
3h A fatal error or unknown test error occurred while the device was executing its self-test routine and
the device was unable to complete the self-test routine.
4h The previous self-test completed having a test element that failed and the test element that failed
is not known.
5h The previous self-test completed having the electrical element of the test failed.
6h The previous self-test completed having the servo and/or seek test element of the test failed.
7h The previous self-test completed having the read element of the test failed.
8h The previous self-test completed having a test element that failed and the device is suspected of
having handling damage.
9h-Eh Reserved.
Fh Self-test routine in progress.
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Thanks for the information. However this error happens at the very beginning of the test, so I suspect it’s not an actual SMART self-test error, but WD Dashboard not doing the right thing (lack of permission, wrong command or something). It really feels like a bug in WD Dashboard to me.
Can you show us a SMART report from CrystalDiskInfo?
Hello @fzabkar, thanks for taking interest in this problem.
Here are the screenshots from CrystalDiskInfo
It finds one bad sector. Is this really why the WD software won’t even start looking at the disc?
Overall I am unable to determine if there’s just one bad sector, marked as such, and life goes on, or if this disk poses a high risk of losing data suddenly.
The SMART tests are vendor specific. All I can say for certain is that the drive had difficulty reading certain sectors and has marked them for replacement with spares.
The raw values (0x18 and 0xD8?) appear to be LBA counts. For example, 0x18 (= 24 decimal) represents 24 LBAs, but in reality these would correspond to 3 physical sectors (1 physical sector = 8 logical sectors).
Edit: I need new specs. Sorry.
Thanks for the replies. So, 27 “current pending” sectors and 3 uncorrectable sectors (whatever that is).
But ReadyNAS: Reallocated sector errors increasing on disk(s) - NETGEAR Support says Disks replacement should only be considered when Reallocated Sector count is increasing on a regular basis.
and reallocated sectors are still 0 on this disk…
The numbers posted by @ Cerberus are correct.
The recommendations in that NETGEAR article are a matter of opinion. I would replace that drive.
Thanks, I now understand better all this.
Initially I had completely misunderstood the dialog box in CrystalDiskInfo (my second screenshot). It shows settings for the threshold for warnings, not actual counts for the disk.
I hope all this is useful for the next reader too.
For now, I am ordering a new drive 
I am getting this error and would like to know why. None of the posts here so far provide any useful information.
To Summarize all above; It’s some kind of hardware-failure, and disk should be replaced. Why the error occurred is irrelevant IMHO, unless it’s a drive still under warranty, so forget all the tech-talk. In my case I simply assume “OLD AGE”, where I suddenly experienced very low and even freezes in especially writes on a 1,5 TB from 2009 with a LOT of UPTIME (former raid5 member), now cold storage. Hence the test. Replace and discard.
