Hard drive failed, re-formatted, is it ok?

[dxtrmorgan]

Hello,
I have a WD 3TB hard drive that failed. (Lost a ton of stuff...) It has been re-formatted, and now boots up. Had a lot of bad sectors found. Is it 'bad' or now that it shows up is it use-able again?

 

[cliffro]

I'd RMA it ASAP and not trust it with anything.

 

[house70]

Did you do a low-level format? I would recommend that vs. a plain formatting. Low-level formatting usually restores the HDD to factory-like settings, as it zeroes the whole HDD. Plain formatting just marks written blocks as available; some old data still remains on the HDD until it is overwritten.
A good read:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disk_formatting
There are various tools to perform a disk wipe, I usually use Killdisk.

 

[house70]

i have also noted that the larger the HDD capacity, the less reliable they are in single-disk data back-up solutions. I limit myself to 1.5 GB, and even then I prefer to use a RAID 1 configuration. For larger capacity HDDs I would ONLY use a RAID 1 solution. I have "burned" myself before, so I speak from my own experience.

 

[dxtrmorgan]

Thanks to all. I don't know about the format, I had a more 'computer saavy' friend do it...

house70: are you recommending not using a 3TB?

Thank you.

 

[house70]

Thanks to all. I don't know about the format, I had a more 'computer saavy' friend do it...

house70: are you recommending not using a 3TB?

Thank you.

Not without a RAID 1 setup. That would require a second HDD of equal (or larger) capacity and an enclosure that supports RAID1.
They don't have to be fancy or anything. I use Synology for mine. I know you can build a network-attached-storage (NAS) system from scratch, but usually ends up more expensive than a plain 2-disk enclosure.
As I mentioned, in my experience, the larger the HDD, the less reliable on a long run they are. Everyone's mileage may vary....

 

[dxtrmorgan]

Best answer selected by dxtrmorgan.

 

[Mousemonkey]

This topic has been closed by Mousemonkey