Problem with Western Digital's WD6400AAKS

[Penang]

I need to to know if people with huge capacity SATA hard drives (500GB
and up) have the following problem :

Bought a new hard drive, install it, formatted the disk, install the
OS, use it for 2 months, and then weird things start popping up.

The hard drive that I am using is Western Digital's WD6400AAKS -- a
640GB hard drive.

I bought it to replace my 250 GB drive, which is running out of
capacity. I do a lot of video editing.

Bought the hard drive back in 2nd of July this year. Install the hard
drive into my PC, partitioned it into 2 logical volume (Drive C: and
Drive D and then install the OS onto it. The OS that I use is Win
XP. The HD is formatted under NTFS file system.

Drive C: has 30 GB and the rest, about 570GB, falls under drive D:

I ran chkdsk (check disk) on both partitions (chkdsk /f /r /x) and
there wasn't any error. So I thought I had bought a good drive and was
feeling very happy.

It runs okay for 2 months, and then ...

Sometimes when I start my PC, the PC can't find the drive.

Other times, the PC can find the drive, but running extra ordinarily
slow.

I dropped down to the Command Prompt level, use "chkdsk" again to
check what's wrong.

The command that I use is still the same "chkdsk /x /r /f" --- to
dismount the disk, and to "fix" the disk if there is anything wrong,
and to check (recover) bad sector.

Long and behold, there _ARE_ bad sectors !!

Drive C has 82KB of bad sectors, and Drive D has 288KB of bad sectors.

This is a drive that I'd just used for 2 months !! And the
manufacturing date (the date stamped on the label of the drive)
indicated that it was made June, 2008. In all account, this is a _NEW_
drive, and it is developing BAD SECTORS !!!

The 250GB drive that I used never gave me any problem. This 640GB,
however, worries me !

I know that 400KB of bad sector, for a 640GB (actually it's 597GB
after formatted) hard drive, is insignificant. But still, bad sectors
are still BAD SECTORS, and I am afraid that the bad sectors would
spread !!

That is why I am posting this message, asking the people who have more
experience than me in using huge capacity hard drive --- is the bad
sectors common occurrance?

Or that I'm just too unlucky to get myself a lemon?

BTW, the hard drive is EXTREMELY HOT, not warm, but VERY HOT !!! I do
not have the actual temperature in it (I do not know if there is any
utility out there that would give me the drive's actual temperature)
but when I touch the drive, it was very HOT !!!

Please, please help.

Thank you !

 

[spodosaurus]

<snip lots>

1. Have you run the WD diagnostics utility yet?

2. Do you have sufficient airflow through your case? (front and rear
case fans are good things).

Ari


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[Rod Speed]

I need to to know if people with huge capacity SATA hard
drives (500GB and up) have the following problem :

No they dont.

Bought a new hard drive, install it, formatted the disk, install the
OS, use it for 2 months, and then weird things start popping up.

The hard drive that I am using is Western Digital's WD6400AAKS -- a 640GB hard drive.

I bought it to replace my 250 GB drive, which is running out of capacity. I do a lot of video editing.

Hard core porn eh ?

Bought the hard drive back in 2nd of July this year. Install the hard
drive into my PC, partitioned it into 2 logical volume (Drive C: and
Drive D and then install the OS onto it. The OS that I use is Win
XP. The HD is formatted under NTFS file system.

Drive C: has 30 GB and the rest, about 570GB, falls under drive D:

I ran chkdsk (check disk) on both partitions (chkdsk /f /r /x) and there wasn't
any error. So I thought I had bought a good drive and was feeling very happy.

It runs okay for 2 months, and then ...

Sometimes when I start my PC, the PC can't find the drive.

Likely because the bad is first physical sector.

Other times, the PC can find the drive, but running extra ordinarily slow.

Likely because its retrying on the bads.

I dropped down to the Command Prompt level, use "chkdsk" again to check what's wrong.

The command that I use is still the same "chkdsk /x /r /f" --- to
dismount the disk, and to "fix" the disk if there is anything wrong,
and to check (recover) bad sector.

Long and behold, there _ARE_ bad sectors !!

Drive C has 82KB of bad sectors, and Drive D has 288KB of bad sectors.

Post the Everest SMART report on the drive.
http://www.majorgeeks.com/download.php?det=4181

This is a drive that I'd just used for 2 months !! And the
manufacturing date (the date stamped on the label of the drive)
indicated that it was made June, 2008. In all account, this is a
_NEW_ drive, and it is developing BAD SECTORS !!!

The 250GB drive that I used never gave me any problem.
This 640GB, however, worries me !

I know that 400KB of bad sector, for a 640GB (actually it's 597GB
after formatted) hard drive, is insignificant. But still, bad sectors are
still BAD SECTORS, and I am afraid that the bad sectors would spread !!

Not spread so much as that many bads do indicate the drive is likely
dying or that the rest of the system does have a serious problem.

That is why I am posting this message, asking the people
who have more experience than me in using huge capacity
hard drive --- is the bad sectors common occurrance?

Nope, the drive is likely dying or that the rest of the system does have a serious problem.

Or that I'm just too unlucky to get myself a lemon?

Impossible to say yet until its clear if the drive is dying or if the system has a problem.

BTW, the hard drive is EXTREMELY HOT, not warm, but VERY HOT !!!

Thats certainly bad and may well be the cause of the bads.

I do not have the actual temperature in it (I do not know if there is any
utility out there that would give me the drive's actual temperature)

Yes, the Everest SMART report will show the drive internal temp.

but when I touch the drive, it was very HOT !!!

Please, please help.

Post the Everest SMART report on the drive.
http://www.majorgeeks.com/download.php?det=4181

And do something about the drive temperature. If its mounted adjacent
to another drive, have a free slot between the drive and the other drive.

If there is no way to have a free slot adjacent to the drive, add a fan blowing over the drive.

 

[Arno Wagner]

I need to to know if people with huge capacity SATA hard drives (500GB
and up) have the following problem :

Bought a new hard drive, install it, formatted the disk, install the
OS, use it for 2 months, and then weird things start popping up.

The hard drive that I am using is Western Digital's WD6400AAKS -- a
640GB hard drive.

I bought it to replace my 250 GB drive, which is running out of
capacity. I do a lot of video editing.

Bought the hard drive back in 2nd of July this year. Install the hard
drive into my PC, partitioned it into 2 logical volume (Drive C: and
Drive D and then install the OS onto it. The OS that I use is Win
XP. The HD is formatted under NTFS file system.

Drive C: has 30 GB and the rest, about 570GB, falls under drive D:

I ran chkdsk (check disk) on both partitions (chkdsk /f /r /x) and
there wasn't any error. So I thought I had bought a good drive and was
feeling very happy.

First mistake: Chkdsk doe snot check the disk at all. It only lok
s at the filesystem medatada. Use a long SMART selftest for a disk
ckeck (can be started with most SMART tools).

It runs okay for 2 months, and then ...

Sometimes when I start my PC, the PC can't find the drive.

Other times, the PC can find the drive, but running extra ordinarily
slow.

I dropped down to the Command Prompt level, use "chkdsk" again to
check what's wrong.

The command that I use is still the same "chkdsk /x /r /f" --- to
dismount the disk, and to "fix" the disk if there is anything wrong,
and to check (recover) bad sector.

Long and behold, there _ARE_ bad sectors !!

Nad, Vey bad.

Drive C has 82KB of bad sectors, and Drive D has 288KB of bad sectors.

This is a drive that I'd just used for 2 months !! And the
manufacturing date (the date stamped on the label of the drive)
indicated that it was made June, 2008. In all account, this is a _NEW_
drive, and it is developing BAD SECTORS !!!

So? The technical term is infant mortality. It happens and is
one of the reasons youy need backup.

The 250GB drive that I used never gave me any problem. This 640GB,
however, worries me !

I know that 400KB of bad sector, for a 640GB (actually it's 597GB
after formatted) hard drive, is insignificant. But still, bad sectors
are still BAD SECTORS, and I am afraid that the bad sectors would
spread !!

Any bad sectors are significant. The occasional single one might not
be, but that is 800'000 bas sectors, if your diagnosis is right,
an a reason to toss the driev.

That is why I am posting this message, asking the people who have more
experience than me in using huge capacity hard drive --- is the bad
sectors common occurrance?

Or that I'm just too unlucky to get myself a lemon?

I would think lemmon.

BTW, the hard drive is EXTREMELY HOT, not warm, but VERY HOT !!! I do
not have the actual temperature in it (I do not know if there is any
utility out there that would give me the drive's actual temperature)
but when I touch the drive, it was very HOT !!!

Speedfan, e.g., displays dirve temperature. Temperature is one of
the main HDD killers.

So, get a SMART utility, run along SMART selftes and
look at the SMART attributes (or post them here). Chkdsk
is unusable for HDD diagnostics.

Arno

 

[CBFalconer]

.... snip ...


many years ago that answer cured a problematic drive I had....

Note the snip level on this. It carries the same information that
your post did. Please snip anything that does not bear on your
replies.

 

[Arno Wagner]

The temperature will probably be in the SMART data which can be extracted
with WD diagnostics but interpretation is not easy.

Temerature is not a standardized attribute, but any decen SMART
utility will have a current drive database or at least a best
that typically works. Both speedfan and the smartmontools
usually get the temperature right. If they get it wrong,
it will be some completely unrealistic value, so you will
know.

Arno