[SOLVED] I think my My Passport is failing?

[PurpleChange]

My new build is going great, still monitoring though. I plugged in my Western Digital My Passport HHD backup while HWiNFO was running and got a S.M.A.R.T. warning - reallocated sectors, it was 75 then. I ran a few other things including WD's Lifeguard Diagnostic for Windows.

Sure enough, she's reallocating sectors. Now it's 185. I unplugged the drive.

LUCKILY it's only 2 years old and under manufacturers warranty.
Unluckily, this is my backup drive... my only backup. So I guess you could say it's not backed up. This is my important stuff drive (not backed up lol).

My noob questions: First I just want to confirm that this is a problem. My research says reallocated sectors going up is BAD and the drive is failing. Right? I don't want to RMA a drive that isn't broken.

Second. Does anyone have recommendations to get what I can off the drive before it fails? Advice on this is all over the place. I trust Tom'sHardwareForums. Some say try to just clone it ( I don't think I have the extra storage space anyway) others say copy/past large chunks and still others say to move smaller folders one at a time. I estimate I only need about 1/2 of it (500G of 1Tb).

I'm thinking (hoping) I caught this early enough not to be catastrophic. I haven't noticed the drive acting unusual but I hardly ever use it so I likely wouldn't have noticed.

Thoughts? Thanks!

 

[popatim]

Yes, Reallocated going up is a bad sign.
Not having important things backed up is a bad thing. (A backup is a second or more copy kept on separate devices)

As for what to get off the drive, Everything that you deem important and cant again get elsewhere. After that move down the list to the things that would be more painful to get. For me that would be re-ripping my movie collection. LoL
Your first job though, is getting another external drive so you have some place to store these important files. You need one to be a real backup drive anyways.

 

[PurpleChange]

Yes, Reallocated going up is a bad sign.
Not having important things backed up is a bad thing. (A backup is a second or more copy kept on separate devices)

As for what to get off the drive, Everything that you deem important and cant again get elsewhere. After that move down the list to the things that would be more painful to get. For me that would be re-ripping my movie collection. LoL
Your first job though, is getting another external drive so you have some place to store these important files. You need one to be a real backup drive anyways.

Thanks! I have a brand new HDD in the new PC. It should hold all this until WD replaces the external drive. Then I can use that as intended ( a true backup). Hopefully that will do. It has to.

 

[popatim]

Nice!