Barracuda XT, Barracuda, Barracuda Green, DiamondMax and other desktop SATA and IDE drives

[rkattan]

I bought last week the Seagate 7200.12 ST31000528AS 1TB SATA2 harddisk, installed, install windows and my apps, moved my data, and everything was ok, yesterday i had some issues: windows being a bit slow, scrolling web pages would pause for a couple of seconds then continues, once every 2-3 minutes, but today nothing from that, everything seems just fine

now i was just messing with the everest 5.0 to see system details and i saw that the SMART is reporting 202 reallocated sectors .... tried SeaTools for windows, the smart quick test says PASS, but the short and long DST (Drive Self Test) both fail !!!!

should i worry? RMA? what should i do !!!!!!!!!

Message Edited by rkattan on 08-07-2009 01:36 PM

[rkattan]

update:

reallocated sector count increased up to 241, anche chkdsk on one of my partitions reports 4kb bad sectors

[docdoc]

I have similar issues with these drives. A brand new pair (bought them today) both fail the Long DST. What motherboard ar eyou using? I am using an ASUS P5P43TSD.

[HughR · Accepted solution]

I would consider that many relocated sectors reason to RMA a new drive.  But note that I'm not an expert.

DST failing is not good.  But try using SeaTools -- then Seagate will more likely accept your results.  My preference is SeaTools for DOS because it takes MS Windows out of the testing.  Mind you, SeaTools for DOS doesn't support some host adapters.

[docdoc]

The DST tests were performed using SeaTools. After an hour of testing (i.e. isolating the fact that one of the NEW ST31000528AS drives was crippling the performance of the system) it finally took itself offline. During reboot the BIOS indicated SMART issues with the same drive. Seatool SMART check verified.

Oh well, back to Fry's tomorrow to return this DOA. This time I am going to purchase a Western Digital Caviar 1TB SATA Hard Drive * Black * WD10000LSRTL

Sorry Seagate, these issues have lost you a customer.

[dvdeo]

Same for me. 2 drives. I have striped them. Then after one day of one drive started to report delays. Work is impossible. However SeaTools are smart and do not report errors as drive is readable. However HDD regenerator tool reported a lot of delays, but 0 bad sectors. Ok. Then I thought that it is just one drive. I have reinstalled the system now without RAID because I saw problems reported with Intel Matrix Storage Manager. So everything worked fine ... for a week. After a week second drive did the same thing. A lot of delays. Before there were 4 different drives installed and no problems. So I conclude that it is not a problem with Intel motherboard, not a problem with RAID. The problem is with those ST31000528AS drives. Will return those and buy another non-Seagate. This model is unreliable.

[docdoc]

Return them (if the store you bought them from will allow you) or RMA them to Seagate.

Must be a bad batch out there ... I bought four (4) of the 1 TB drives (from Fry's Electronics) and took them all back. I was able to get a store credit. Then I used that to purchase four (4) of the Samsung 1 TB drives. I have not had an issue with them in over 2 months.

I used to be a solid Seagate buyer until this experience. Not any more. 

Good luck.

[rkattan]

I've opted to RMA, contacted my supplier, send the disk back to RMA, and in the meanwhile i got another 500GB seagate drive to use till the rma is back), worked with it for 3 weeks till my replacement 1TB came back, copied my stuff back to the 1TB drive, and ran a smart test just to be sure the new 1TB is still good, and noticed that the 500 GB disk has already 1 reallocated sector !!!!!!!!!!

sorry SeaGate, I used also to be a solid Seagate buyer until this experience. Not any more too, next time will go for other brands....