Question Drive failed SeaTools Long Generic last year, but now passing

[CrispyBytes]

Hi,
I have a Seagate Ironwolf drive which started reporting error in CrystalDiskInfo around this time last year.



I ran a Long DIagnostic on SeaTools twice, both of which failed, and passed the Test Code on to Seagate, who authorised a return.

The thing is, that I had to buy a new drive to copy the data to, and then started the process, but never got around to actually wiping the drive and sending it back.

I've now decided to get back to the return and have contacted Seagate to see if they will still honour it after the delay (the warranty expired at the end of 2022, but the Test Code was sent to them in July 2022).

The drive has actually been mounted the whole time.

I decided to run a Long Diagnostic in SeaTools again last night, but this time it passed. I had changed the partitions on the disk as I was working through backing up the data, so when I ran ST there was 4GB of unallocated space. I have now allocated that to a new partition (so that the whole disk is now allocated to two partitions) and am in the process of running a Long Diagnostic in ST now.

I noticed that CDI is also no longer reporting any errors (screenshot take after I finished the ST diagnosis).



I am just wondering why I might not be seeing errors anymore. Could it possibly be:

1)There is some kind of healing process which stops using faulty sectors
2) Errors of this type are simply intermittent
3) The diagnostics only pick a subset of sectors, and so the test might sometimes pass if faulty sectors are selected for testing

My other question is whether I should still be trying to return the disk. My gut feeling is "yes" because there clearly was a problem, and even if it was resolved somehow, it makes it more likely that it will return in the future.

I hope that SeaGate are still prepared to take it back, given that it did show errors under the original warranty period.

Any thoughts would be much appreciated.

 

[SkyNetRising]

I am just wondering why I might not be seeing errors anymore. Could it possibly be:

1)There is some kind of healing process which stops using faulty sectors
2) Errors of this type are simply intermittent
3) The diagnostics only pick a subset of sectors, and so the test might sometimes pass if faulty sectors are selected for testing

You had 8 pending sectors before. Pending - doesn't mean, it's bad.
It means -at some time drive could not read those sectors (for some reason).
Pending sectors get resolved by overwriting them. If write fails, then sector gets relocated and relocated sectors count gets increased.
If write is success, then no relocation necessary.
Pending status gets cleared either way.

My other question is whether I should still be trying to return the disk. My gut feeling is "yes" because there clearly was a problem, and even if it was resolved somehow, it makes it more likely that it will return in the future.

Well - health of your drive is fine now. You have no pending, no relocated sectors.
You do not have case for RMA anymore.

 

[fzabkar]

Your drive now has 35 Reported Uncorrectable Errors.