Problems with new Western Digital Raptor Drives

[fnbrowning]

I’ve had two WD Raptor Enterprise Serial ATA Hard Drives {WD360GD} fail in as many weeks! And get this - - with this replacement drive, their Western Digital Data Lifeguard test found bad sectors and moved/repaired them and declared the drive “Passed” even while my WinXP system event log was still filling up with “The device, \Device\Harddisk0\D, has a bad block.” every two-three minutes.
I can’t imagine the system board has anything to do with the errors, it is an Intel D875PBZ Desktop Board – one of the most stable in the industry.

Several questions: Are there any reports about bad Raptor drives?
Is the Western Digital Data Lifeguard test worthless?
and What’s up with Western Digital quality control?

<i>"I'm your biggest fan, Ms Blake . . . .
Well, the most heavily armed anyway"</i>

 

[dhlucke]

First of all, a couple bad drives doesn't mean that Western Digital has bad quality control. Did you get them at the same time or from the same vendor? It's possible you got them from a bad batch. It happens.

I haven't used the WD data lifeguard tools in years. Not sure what to tell you there.

I haven't seen much AT ALL written about the Raptors since they're pretty expensive for what you get. I wouldn't lose complete faith though since WD in general has been pretty good and you might have just had some bad luck.

They're also pretty new. It's probably too soon to tell if they're the Deathstar for WD like you pointed out in another thread. In IBM's case though people were reporting daily that their drives were dying.

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[fnbrowning]

dhlucke;
>>"Did you get them at the same time or from the same vendor?"<<
No, 1st drive was from vendor. 2nd drive was was the replacement direct from Western Digital.

>>"haven't used the WD data lifeguard tools in years."<<
Please let me know if you have a utility you can recommend.
As you can imagine, the next WD replacement drive is going to get tested bi-weekly for awhile, and I don't really trust Data Lifeguard.




<i>"I'm your biggest fan, Ms Blake . . . .
Well, the most heavily armed anyway"</i>