In Mar, 2011 I bought 3 retail boxed Barracuda 7200.12 ST31000528AS 1 TB HDD's. I installed 2. Win7 64 Pro apparently poles the SMART data off the HDD's. In Nov, 2011, Win7 suddenly started giving me warnings my #2 HDD was failing. I installed and checked with SpeedFan 4.45 and it had a B76/2934 hex/dec Reallocated Sector Count. See my first pic. I ran SeaTools for DOS, got the Warranty Validation Code, and RMA'd it. I used the extra drive I purchased in 3/2011 to replace the bad drive. The new RMA drive I received from Seagate in Nov, 2011, is now a spare drive.
Today I happen to run SpeedFan 4.46 and now my 3/2011 #2 retail boxed HDD is showing 68/104 hex/dec Reallocated Sector Count. SpeedFan puts the "Fitness" of the drive at 73%. See my 2nd pic. I ran the SMART and Short tests in SeaTools for Windows and it passed:
--------------- SeaTools for Windows v1.2.0.6 ---------------
5/5/2012 4:00:00 AM
Model: ST31000528AS
Serial Number: XXXXXXXX
Firmware Revision: CC49
Identify - Started 5/5/2012 4:00:00 AM
SMART - Pass 8/6/2012 2:46:49 PM
Short DST - Started 8/6/2012 2:47:59 PM
Short DST - Pass 8/6/2012 2:49:00 PM
Identify - Started 8/6/2012 2:50:22 PM
=========================================
Should I be worried about this? Without a "Warranty Validation Code" from SeaTools, I won't be able to start the RMA process, at least not from their Website. I am getting a little tired of dealing with all these problems. I have spent more time fixing computer problems than what I originally built this PC system for.
This is my SpeedFan pic for the HDD which went bad in Nov 2011:
This is my SpeedFan pic for the #2 HDD which is currently in my system:
