RAW Read Errors, help!

[xkm1948]

Try the drive on a different system

See my post above

 

[drdeathx]

See my post above

Ahhhhhh, could be driver but doubtful on that. I may have missed it but is there a firmware update?

 

[xkm1948]

Ahhhhhh, could be driver but doubtful on that. I may have missed it but is there a firmware update?

No. I cannot find anything firmware related on WD's support page for my model. And looks like I am not along on this. Check out the newegg reviews for similar drives:

Western Digital WD Black WD1002FAEX 1TB 7200 RPM 6...

Western Digital WD Black WD2002FAEX 2TB 7200 RPM 6...

 

[xkm1948]

Here is the download page:

http://support.wdc.com/product/download.asp?groupid=613&lang=en

 

[drdeathx]

At this point, I would contact WD and show them all the issues over the net and demand a different model drive......

 

[xkm1948]

At this point, I would contact WD and show them all the issues over the net and demand a different model drive......

Already did. Guess what. They deleted my thread in their customer support section. I posted it last night. I woke up this morning to find my thread was deleted.

What I posted---facts about the RRER porblem, the current pending sector problem. My concerns for their drive's quality control. What if I receive another RMA that is a refurbished drive which has problems as well?

This is what WD's support team's response:


"I have escalated your case for one of our support specialist to contact you as soon as possible.

Regards,
Robothief.
"

Well, I am not so sure what to do now. While it is cool that they honor their 5 year warranty, it is simply annoying to reply on pure luck that you will receive a functional replacement drive.

 

[drdeathx]

Already did. Guess what. They deleted my thread in their customer support section. I posted it last night. I woke up this morning to find my thread was deleted.

What I posted---facts about the RRER porblem, the current pending sector problem. My concerns for their drive's quality control. What if I receive another RMA that is a refurbished drive which has problems as well?

This is what WD's support team's response:


"I have escalated your case for one of our support specialist to contact you as soon as possible.

Regards,
Robothief.
"

Well, I am not so sure what to do now. While it is cool that they honor their 5 year warranty, it is simply annoying to reply on pure luck that you will receive a functional replacement drive.

Why the hell did they send a refurb. i would have been pi$$ed. At this point I go to phone and not email support and climb the ladder. They are giving you the run around and that is bullshit. Tell them you are a member here and you will start negative PR and that should pull their jock strap tighter.

 

[xkm1948]

Why the hell did they send a refurb. i would have been pi$$ed. At this point I go to phone and not email support and climb the ladder. They are giving you the run around and that is bullshit. Tell them you are a member here and you will start negative PR and that should pull their jock strap tighter.

You will not believe what they used for shipping me this replacement:

An used WD cardbox which still has tape mark all over from previous use.
One static proof plastic bag containing the drive, taped close
Two pieces of plastic pieces holding the bag
And one piece of paper---RMA closed for your case.

No bubble wrap, no packaging peanuts. The drive was pretty much dangling inside the box.

 

[drdeathx]

You will not believe what they used for shipping me this replacement:

An used WD cardbox which still has tape mark all over from previous use.
One static proof plastic bag containing the drive.
Two pieces of plastic pieces holding the bad
And one piece of paper---RMA closed for your case.

No bubble wrap, no packaging peanuts. The drive was pretty much dangling inside the box.

I would tell them that too. To be honest, I would be all over this and get a second drive for free due to their incompetence. Provide a link for this thread. Due to their poor service in this instance, I would never buy anything from Western Digital period just the same reason I will never buy EK from their Nickle plating debacle when they only gave 90 days for replacement of bogus product. These companies will not wake up when it comes to service. Social Media can be a big factor in peoples decision and I would hope this thread costs them hundreds of sales. I will say OCZ has always been great with service. I had a SSD go bad and they upgraded me to a Revo Drive(PCIE) drive at no charge...

 

[xkm1948]

It is getting better.

I just got off (or I'd rather say after 10mins of waiting with no response) the phone with WD's tech support line. Now at least one thing is clear.

All the replacement drives WD send out for RMA are refurbished drives.

Isn't it nice? The girl on the support line confirmed all the do is a write-zero on the returned drives and send them right out as replacement. And she asked me if I want to have another replacement, with a refurbished drive.

I told her no, I want a replacement with a new drive since It's been 3 weeks and I don't want to deal with this mess any more. And that's where she disappeared. She said "I'll go get my supervisor" and i was left on the phone. After 10 mins of nothing I hang up.

Do not buy WD people. Looks like this is how they treat their customers. Really good job!

 

[Aquinus]

If you read the RMA process for WD, they want it packaged a certain way so the drive is really secure. Using the original box is really what they want or a box that they've used to send a drive back to you. I've done several RMAs with 1TB drives from WD and they've always gone smoothly. Yes, they give you a refurbished drive, but that really means that they know what the problem was and they replaced components to fix it. It goes through the same quality tests as new drives and in defense of refurbished WD drives, I have several that are still working with over 27,000 hours of heavy use. It sounds like really bad luck, but WD's higher capacity drives are known to have a higher failure rate. That's why I don't get WD drives bigger than 1TB. I have several FAEX drives working great, one refurbished and one OEM. I'm sorry your experience has been this bad though, that sucks. The last drive I sent back, I got back 6 days from the day I put it in the mail. I've had the exact opposite experience.

I don't know if it makes a difference, but I usually print out some output from smartctl in linux and I highlight the issues in SMART and put that in the box with the drive.

 

[drdeathx]

Anyway, hopefully more members will chime in and then send them the link to this thread. A Western Digital Boycott until they take care of you...

 

[xkm1948]

I requested an advanced RMA. I expected a properly packaged HDD. Come on, even eBay seller has better packaging than WD's RMA department.

I will give WD one more day since they promise me to contact me ASAP.

I used Seagate products mostly in the past, never had a problem. The last time I am having so much problem with HDDs are with those IBM glass platter ones.

 

[xkm1948]

Anyway, hopefully more members will chime in and then send them the link to this thread. A Western Digital Boycott until they take care of you...

Thanks for your help man! Really appreciate it.

 

[xkm1948]

Thank you so much drdeathx. I gave WD customer support a link to Techpowerup here as well as some other forum links and reviews. These were done last night.

This morning I got a phone call directly from WD's Customer Support Manager Jim Case. He promised a complete refund and a new WD Black 2TB AND a WD RE4 2TB drive for compensation.

Well, I accepted his resolution consider how much pain I have been through with lost data & reinstalling OS.


Quick question. How stable is this WD drive I am using right now gonna be? I am seeing the following stats right now

400+ RRER values,
63 Pending Sectors
140 reallocated Sector count
15 offline uncorrectable.