Bad drive in need of replacing. Immediately or do I have a few months?

[WhiteLotus]

So, as I was trying to copy some files over to a removable drive to take to the parents for Christmas (hope you all had a good one by the way) my computer went into mega laggy mode. Did a bit of investigating now that I am home and Defraggler has come up with this.

Now I would like a few new drives anyway and this is an old storage drive (WD Green from 2011? maybe? EDIT Just checked it's from 2009. At least.)
How long do you think I have?

Also currently getting the WD Data Lifeguard tool and will scan with that. EDIT - Scanning - going to take 4 hours....

Thanks in advance!

 

[qubit]

Get the data off it immediately and replace it asap. Don't use it anymore.

Only the other day I had one of my Greens die on me after transporting it. All data lost. However as it was the backup drive I copied the data from the master drive to a spare.

 

[Kursah]

I prefer to use Crystal Disk info and Speccy, but they'll likely say the same. Issue with HDD's is that errors like this can plateau or they can keep getting worse...there is no "sure" expiration time guestimate on a failing hard drive...but when you start to see errors like this, it is best practice to replace that drive if it contains critical data that is irreplaceable (if that's the case, you should be backing it up anyways...but I know not all folks can do that).

I'd replace the drive...especially if you're noticing this issue as you work with the drive...it's not good and will get worse. 21K+ errors usually means pending major/catastrophic failure coming very soon. But it could as I said before plateau and last a few months...heck I have HDD's I use for simple storage/kid drives that have reported a few dozen errors for years that still work fine. But not 21,000+...I'd use that for target practice and replace it asap.

 

[WhiteLotus]

Yea I read that 2000 is considered high. And i was all like "but but but mine has 21,000... can't be that bad... right?"

So off to the eStores I go!

 

[DarthBaggins]

There are always good deals on HDD's online so go snag one

 

[SuperSoph_WD]

Happy New Year, @WhiteLotus

I'd second the suggestion to backup your data ASAP and replace that WD Green drive! If you decide to go with the same model as a replacement, you should keep in mind that there's no WD Green brand anymore. We have recently consolidated our mainstream PC product storage lines to only the WD Blue family. Meaning that all current WD Green capacity, cache and form-factor configurations will remain available through their lifecycle, but under the WD Blue brand. The previously known as WD Green drive is now a part of the 5,400 RPM-class drives.

Unfortunately, as sad as it might sound, your WD Green HDD might fail very soon and there's no way to predict exactly when that will happen. However, I'd not trust any data with the hard drive because according to the SMART attributes in your screenshot, it seems like you have quite the number of unstable sectors (waiting to be marked as remapped a.k.a. bad sectors).
You can still try running the QUICK and EXTENDED tests from the WD's Data LifeGuard Diagnostics for Windows overnight and check the results in the morning. Either way, always make sure you have a copy of your data stored somewhere else. Having multiple backups is the best way to prevent any potential data-loss headaches in the future.

Best of luck! Hope I was helpful.
SuperSoph_WD

 

[micropage7]

back it up somewhere, when you can access it
replacing harddisk is easy but the data is more important

 

[RejZoR]

Run CrystalDiskInfo (CDI) on it please. But personally, I wouldn't wait even for a day. I'm running CDI as resident program for this very reason. As soon as it'll warn me about any issues with the drive I'll just replace it. Just to be on the safe side. I don't have super sensitive data, but it's years of stuff that's hard to replace. Besides, HDD's are cheap these days. Replace it.

 

[xkm1948]

Make sure you write zero to your RMA drive before sending it in, provide if you have sensitive information on the hard drive. I had a Seagate drive sent back to me with stuff I can still access using file recovery tool, some spreadsheets of a small company. Neither WD nor seagate has the time to complete wipe your HDD before sending it out as a replacement for someone else, so better safe than sorry.

 

[Ferrum Master]

Make sure you write zero to your RMA drive before sending it in, provide if you have sensitive information on the hard drive. I had a Seagate drive sent back to me with stuff I can still access using file recovery tool, some spreadsheets of a small company. Neither WD nor seagate has the time to complete wipe your HDD before sending it out as a replacement for someone else, so better safe than sorry.

A naughty boy...

 

[SnakeDoctor]

Install Harddrive sentinel - let it monitor the health of the drive over time , but best to replace .

Look like has 1000+ bad sectors - Backup and replace drive asap.
The drive is also quite old 12/30/2010 (out of warranty) so best to replace.

 

[peche]

get your data out that drive as soon as possible, the last time i "trusted" a failing hdd lost like 950mbs of movies, then if a disk is showing errors of fails will be replaced immediately, a hard drive could fail in any moment and a already failing disk could die tomorrow, in a week..or now... you will never know...

 

[qubit]

get your data out that drive as soon as possible, the last time i "trusted" a failing hdd lost like 950mbs of movies, then if a disk is showing errors of fails will be replaced immediately, a hard drive could fail in any moment and a already failing disk could die tomorrow, in a week..or now... you will never know...

Yup, I'll second that. One of my 2TB Greens failed the other day just from removing it from a PC, transporting it in the car to another house for safekeeping for a day and putting it back in the PC. Now it's recognized by the BIOS and Windows, but any attempt to access it results in a repetitive access noise and Windows freezes for a long time with no data ever being delivered. About 1TB is completely lost from it. Just like that.

Luckily, it's one of my backup drives so it doesn't matter and I've just replaced it, otherwise I'd be tearing my hair out and looking at super expensive data recovery services.

@WhiteLotus So tell us, what did you do in the end?

 

[xvi]

+1 to the general consensus of replace ASAP. It might last a few more weeks, but there's a good chance it might not too. Just peeking at your System Specs, it looks like you have a couple other drives. Perhaps you might be able to move thing around enough to consolidate everything on to the remaining drives for the time being?

I'll try my best not to thread hijack, but that product lineup on WD's website is rather confusing. Sounds like there will eventually be both 7.2k and 5.4k RPM drives under the "WD Blue" label?

 

[Bones]

Make sure you write zero to your RMA drive before sending it in, provide if you have sensitive information on the hard drive. I had a Seagate drive sent back to me with stuff I can still access using file recovery tool, some spreadsheets of a small company. Neither WD nor seagate has the time to complete wipe your HDD before sending it out as a replacement for someone else, so better safe than sorry.

Grab a copy of DBAN if you don't have it already and let it do it's thing to the drive for wiping it clean.

 

[SnakeDoctor]

Make sure you write zero to your RMA drive before sending it in, provide if you have sensitive information on the hard drive. I had a Seagate drive sent back to me with stuff I can still access using file recovery tool, some spreadsheets of a small company. Neither WD nor seagate has the time to complete wipe your HDD before sending it out as a replacement for someone else, so better safe than sorry.

Warranty expired years ago so that's out the question

 

[WhiteLotus]

Happy New Year, @WhiteLotus

I'd second the suggestion to backup your data ASAP and replace that WD Green drive! If you decide to go with the same model as a replacement, you should keep in mind that there's no WD Green brand anymore. We have recently consolidated our mainstream PC product storage lines to only the WD Blue family. Meaning that all current WD Green capacity, cache and form-factor configurations will remain available through their lifecycle, but under the WD Blue brand. The previously known as WD Green drive is now a part of the 5,400 RPM-class drives.

Unfortunately, as sad as it might sound, your WD Green HDD might fail very soon and there's no way to predict exactly when that will happen. However, I'd not trust any data with the hard drive because according to the SMART attributes in your screenshot, it seems like you have quite the number of unstable sectors (waiting to be marked as remapped a.k.a. bad sectors).
You can still try running the QUICK and EXTENDED tests from the WD's Data LifeGuard Diagnostics for Windows overnight and check the results in the morning. Either way, always make sure you have a copy of your data stored somewhere else. Having multiple backups is the best way to prevent any potential data-loss headaches in the future.

Best of luck! Hope I was helpful.
SuperSoph_WD

Thank you for taking the time to reply, a replacement drive is now in and I managed to get most of the files off before it refused to copy any more. I'm happy I caught it when I did!

 

[xvi]

I managed to get most of the files off before it refused to copy any more.

Yikes! That went downhill rather quickly, but it's good to hear you were able to get a significant chunk of files off of it. If you wait a bit, you might be able to get a few files off in a second attempt. Depending on how much hassle you want to deal with, some people have had luck with the fridge/freezer method (chill the drive a bit, fire it up, see if you can pull more files off).

That power cycle count is pretty high, so I don't think it's particularly unreasonable to say it's an old drive that just gave up the ghost.

 

[taz420nj]

That should scare you into using some sort of automatic cloud backup! One of my customers just came to me with a nearly full 500GB MyBook that she was using to store all her photos and home videos... When she plugged it in it was giving a "USB Device has malfunctioned" error.. I was optimistic in thinking that it was just the USB/SATA bridge that failed, but when I pulled the drive out and put it into a dock, it made the click of death.. There are no backups anywhere so now she is paying Drivesavers $1500 to get her data back.

 

[Ithanul]

Thank you for taking the time to reply, a replacement drive is now in and I managed to get most of the files off before it refused to copy any more. I'm happy I caught it when I did!

Yeah, you got lucky for sure. Best practice for anyone is to have a backup and backup to the backup if they can. Reason I have two external TB drives that almost mirror each other. Then the big 3TB in the main rig that mirrors them.

Kind of the reason I'm saving up to build a NAS with RAID 5 or higher. Since RAW images, digital drawings, high DPI scans, etc. eat a buttload of space.

 

[Cybrnook2002]

I'm with xvi, freezer trick and zip lock bag time to get the rest of the data off.

 

[OneMoar]

double bag it in zip lock squeeze as much air out as you can
and place in the bottom of the freezer overnight
make sure you have the machine apart and ready to accept the drive
and work quickly

 

[taz420nj]

double bag it in zip lock squeeze as much air out as you can
and place in the bottom of the freezer overnight
make sure you have the machine apart and ready to accept the drive
and work quickly

Better yet connect it to a USB bridge before you put it in the bag.. run the cables out of the freezer... After it's had time to chill plug it into a laptop while its still in there..

 

[eidairaman1]

Green drives werent meant for heavy use.

 

[OneMoar]

Green drives werent meant for heavy use.

some of the WDGreens have a issue related the head parking causing early failure