Having ordered one of western digital’s 2tb play machines for our presentation facility, i was less than impressed to find problems with the unit four days after i began using it. windows write errors appearing with every single attempted copy of any file meant that of every two attempted USB transfers, at least one was simply not making it on to this machine. After contacting western digital to have this issue resolved and running the data lifeguard diagnostic over a two day period as per the western digital representative’s instructions, bad sectors were detected on the drive which the software in question stated could not be repaired. western digital stated that the drive need to be returned for testing and, most likely, replacement.
Having nonetheless recommended this unit to my employer as a suitable media playback device which included storage as opposed to simply being hardware which would stream media (and thus require a further purchase of an external storage unit), i took the precaution of having him run the data lifeguard diagnostic software on his own purchase prior to using the drive for anything. Although this did reveal bad sectors which were unrecoverable - as per the unit which i had puchased previously - the NEXT unit, which western digital sent to replace his own purchase off my recommendation, has now ALSO reported the same unrecoverable bad sectors on his second unit.
So, back goes his replacement unit.
What is western digital doing with these machines? Is this fault simply poor quality control? Is the next replacement received via RMA going to simply reveal these ‘bad sectors’ once more? Or is this some form of fault with western digital’s data lifeguard diagnostic software? are western digital addressing this? how can a replacement unit not be fully tested before leaving their european facilities? surely a faulty hard drive should be identified and taken out of production before it can be sold on to consumers?
Come on, western digital. let’s have some answers on this one, if you don’t mind.
