Seagate 500GB 7200.12 problem

[Krow]

Ive already a seagate 7200.11 500GB fry up on me. I got it RMA'ed and now I have a 7200.12 500GB drive. I have 3 drives on it(135+135+194GB). Drive 1 is about 30% used. Drive 2 is 95% full. Drive 3 is about 145GB used. Also, I use another HDD 160GB Hitachi for OS, which in 3 years has never given me any problem.

Drive 1&2 haven't yet given me any problems. Drive 3 is beginning to give me a headache now. There are two video files which won't copy anywhere. I was taking a backup of my HDD on my friend's 1TB and apart from these two all of my HDD was bakd up.

One of those was copied 85% and then it froze. After a while, when i went to my computer, all the three drives had disappeared and only my other HDD was displayd. I tried restarting, but I still couldnt see the drives either in ubuntu/kubuntu or XP. I had to shutdown the PC and wait for arond one minute and reboot it to see the drives working again. The same thing happened with the other file. Both files are playable as far as they copied on the external HDD. These are the only two files which give tis problem.

Bad sectors? When i tried chking the disk using tuneup, it froze when going through step 4 of 5 checking file data at around 50%. Again the drives disappeared.

I have double backed up my HDD, so i can format it. Wat isthe prob and what should I be doing ideally?

[desiibond]

^^Techalomaniac. Download seagates discwizard and do low level formatting of entire HDD and see if that works. If it is unable to fix the problem, could be Firmware related issue. anyways, contact RMA and explain the problem.

[Krow]

Okay. So here's what I'm going to be doing by tonight :

- Try copying those files to PD, HDD1
- Delete those files with tuneup shredder
- chkdsk
- Use Seagate's LLF tool
- chkdsk
- Keep reporting to you guys here
- Finish my Seagate Curse mala (108 times).

Sound good? All the above steps can be modified with the exception of the last one.

[desiibond]

no need to do chkdsk if you are going to do LLF. use seagate diagnostic tools instead of chkdsk.

[pimpom]

Are you by any chance trying to copy a large file (>4GB) from an NTFS partition to a FAT32 partition?

This should not cause system freeze, etc. But I 'm asking just to rule out the obvious.

[Krow]

All my partitions are NTFS. I use FAT32 only for up to 4GB pen drives. As I stated previously, only 2 files are causing the problems. All the other ones around them (same format and diff formats) are copying just fine.

So I downloaded Seatools for windows and ran some tests on the rogue HDD.

SMART check - fail
Short Drive Self Test - fail
Long DST - fail
Short Generic Test - Pass
Long Generic Test is on now. This one's pretty slow.

What do these results mean?

[Krow]

Also, my system doesn't freeze in totality (sorry for not communicating clearly). It hangs sure, but only for 30 odd seconds. After that I can access the other HDD nice and smooth but the rogue one disappears.

[hell_storm2006]

Oopsie... Looks like your HDD is going dead! Get an RMA. Typical Seagate.

[Krow]

Long Generic Test failed too. Also, drive is no longer visible in My comp.

For my Hitachi HDD,
SMART test - Pass
Short DST - Pass
Long DST - Pass
Short Generic - Pass
Long Generic - Didnt run this one.

Seagate! This is the RMA'ed HDD and giving me errors. Talk about customer satisfaction!

Now shutting down and restarting and then trying to copy rogue files to pendrive.

[Krow]

Called up Seagate Hotline.

"It appears that there are some bad sectors in ur hard disk sir. Don't worry sir, we can replace it. Please visit one of our service centers and u will receive a new hard disk within 4-5 days."

At least he spoke politely.

Company is a noob twat sending defective pieces for RMA too! I will not be recommending Seagate to anyone for some time now.

Anyways, just for the kicks, I am gonna LLF this drive. I have an LLF tool called HDD LLF tool v 2.36. I am gonna b using that. Now that RMA is on the cards, plz suggest some ways in which I can torture this HDD. Is there any Prime95 like HDD testing software?

[Krow]

LLF is on. The LLF tool used was downloaded from hddguru.com.

[Krow]

Awesome news! Formatted the drive using a vista trial DVD after the LLF. As soon as I clickd on the drive, this message was displayed.

Warning! The selected disk may fail soon. Please select another disk for installation.

RMA on Monday for sure. All potential Seagate customers, beware.

Do HDD's degen over a period of time or are they bad from the start? If I disk check when the HDD is new, will it be the same as the result after say 6 months?

[Krow]

It gets even better. SeaTools for Windows says that the HDD is a truckload of mashed bananas! Failed all tests again! Brilliant. X(

[hell_storm2006]

That's why i never advice for Seagate even if its 12! Always WD!

[Krow]

It seems that I'll have to keep running around for 5 years for replacement of hdd!

5 yr warranty! Companies shud give 5 yrs peace of mind.

[desiibond]

^^haha. looks like you are going to have a long standing relationship with seagate RMA. All the best!!

This is the reason why I am suggesting to get two 500Gbs instead of a single 1Tb in TDF these days. You never know when the HDD crashes

[Krow]

Hope I make good friends with them! Next time I'll buy 2xHdd. But that'll be a long time from now. At least 6 months or so.

[hell_storm2006]

I think Seagate has reduced their warranty to 3 years now! They don't trust their own products you know!

[desiibond]

yeah. go for WD for now. atleast they look stable.

[Krow]

Originally Posted by hell_storm2006

I think Seagate has reduced their warranty to 3 years now! They don't trust their own products you know!

I noticed that. They trust their customers to not fling the HDD's on their ugly faces though. That can be dangerous.

Originally Posted by desiibond

yeah. go for WD for now. atleast they look stable.

Sure. Do u feel that these HDD failures are a way to increase sales of external HDD's? Conspiracy, eh?