Crystaldiskinfo returns health state: Caution. What's this?

B0bbyEwing

I was looking at buying a used hard drive to store various media & wondered about how to test how good/bad they are. 
One of the results of the Googling on this returned CrystalDiskInfo - which I have installed so figured I've not run it in a while I'll see what my drives are like. 

2 drives showing up as good but 1 flagged yellow which I've not had before. Funnily (or not!) this is actually the newest drive out of the lot at maybe 2yrs old. An 8TB Seagate Barracuda.



So what are those yellows when they're at home & how bad are those results?

Neil_Jones

Drive is dying.  Replace it.

Bad sectors multiply like rabbits and its only a matter of time before the drive dies altogether.

HillStreetBlues

Check if it's still under warranty.

B0bbyEwing

Neil_Jones said:

Drive is dying.  Replace it.

Bad sectors multiply like rabbits and its only a matter of time before the drive dies altogether.

I'm going to guess that this is going to be an unanswerable question but why has the drive likely started to go bad after only a couple years? I had a look at my Amazon order history & I bought this July 2022. 
I guess 2 years is a long time I suppose but it doesn't seem like a 'long time' to me. I'd expect a drive to last longer than that but maybe I'm just being unrealistic or maybe that's how it is with the Barracuda line maybe? I don't know.

Most of the stuff on there was backed up so right now I'm just going over double checking what is and isn't backed up & then making copies of the last remaining folders & files. 

Glad I checked now as I didn't expect that one. I'll make checking a routine habit from now on.

HillStreetBlues said:

Check if it's still under warranty.

If you Amazon search the drive it says "limited" 5 year warranty. Not sure what's limited about it.
Also not sure I'd want to send my drive off for inspection & have them go through all my files. 

HillStreetBlues

B0bbyEwing said:

HillStreetBlues said:

Check if it's still under warranty.

If you Amazon search the drive it says "limited" 5 year warranty. Not sure what's limited about it.
Also not sure I'd want to send my drive off for inspection & have them go through all my files. 

Normally you can check on Seagate's website.
While it's still working erase it securely, which means overwriting the data on the disk, you can choose how many overwrites you want.

B0bbyEwing

HillStreetBlues said:

B0bbyEwing said:

HillStreetBlues said:

Check if it's still under warranty.

If you Amazon search the drive it says "limited" 5 year warranty. Not sure what's limited about it.
Also not sure I'd want to send my drive off for inspection & have them go through all my files. 

Normally you can check on Seagate's website.
While it's still working erase it securely, which means overwriting the data on the disk, you can choose how many overwrites you want.

How many is acceptable to consider it done well enough?

Bonus question of how long would you expect an 8TB drive to take?

Neil_Jones

B0bbyEwing said:

Neil_Jones said:

Drive is dying.  Replace it.

Bad sectors multiply like rabbits and its only a matter of time before the drive dies altogether.

I'm going to guess that this is going to be an unanswerable question but why has the drive likely started to go bad after only a couple years? I had a look at my Amazon order history & I bought this July 2022. 
I guess 2 years is a long time I suppose but it doesn't seem like a 'long time' to me. I'd expect a drive to last longer than that but maybe I'm just being unrealistic or maybe that's how it is with the Barracuda line maybe? I don't know.

Most of the stuff on there was backed up so right now I'm just going over double checking what is and isn't backed up & then making copies of the last remaining folders & files. 

Glad I checked now as I didn't expect that one. I'll make checking a routine habit from now on.

HillStreetBlues said:

Check if it's still under warranty.

If you Amazon search the drive it says "limited" 5 year warranty. Not sure what's limited about it.
Also not sure I'd want to send my drive off for inspection & have them go through all my files. 

Limited warranty basically means there are get out clauses for Seagate not to honour the warranty in the first place.

Seagate is here: https://www.seagate.com/gb/en/support/warranty-and-replacements/limited-consumer-warranty/ - "limited warranty does not cover ... commercial use, accident, abuse, or neglect;  use contrary to the instructions, ... improper installation, operation, maintenance or modification; ...  lost passwords [Bitlocker etc]; or malfunctions caused by other equipment. This limited warranty is void if a Product is returned with removed, damaged or tampered labels or any alterations (including the unauthorised removal of any component or external cover). This limited warranty does not cover data loss"

That being said it looks like the standard warranty is 2 years now, it used to be 3 or up to 5.  You may have a drive that's covered under a 5 if its old enough, not sure when Seagate changed that.

As to why its failed now... depends how often you've used it.  if its used once in a blue then the fact its dead now is  shocking.  If it's all day every day for whatever reason its going to fail sooner so its less surprising.  Your mileage may vary.  They are mechanical units, and all mechanical units eventually wear out.

Failure rates can occur in batches.  Years ago bought a batch of five hard drives for work... and they all failed in less than 10 days.  Bought another batch of five a couple of weeks later, installed them sent them off... never saw them again in the warranty window, they did eventually fail but that was like years down the line.

Note that if you send failed drives back to Seagate you may end up with a "Recertified Drive" in return.  The life span of these can vary wildly, but that's what you agree to for the warranty.

km1500

it most definitely should last longer than two years 

one overwrite is enough but it will take some time with an 8TB disc 

another way to overwrite it is to erase everything and then just keep copying a large file to it over and over again until it fills up eg a film

B0bbyEwing

Neil_Jones said:

B0bbyEwing said:

Neil_Jones said:

Drive is dying.  Replace it.

Bad sectors multiply like rabbits and its only a matter of time before the drive dies altogether.

I'm going to guess that this is going to be an unanswerable question but why has the drive likely started to go bad after only a couple years? I had a look at my Amazon order history & I bought this July 2022. 
I guess 2 years is a long time I suppose but it doesn't seem like a 'long time' to me. I'd expect a drive to last longer than that but maybe I'm just being unrealistic or maybe that's how it is with the Barracuda line maybe? I don't know.

Most of the stuff on there was backed up so right now I'm just going over double checking what is and isn't backed up & then making copies of the last remaining folders & files. 

Glad I checked now as I didn't expect that one. I'll make checking a routine habit from now on.

HillStreetBlues said:

Check if it's still under warranty.

If you Amazon search the drive it says "limited" 5 year warranty. Not sure what's limited about it.
Also not sure I'd want to send my drive off for inspection & have them go through all my files. 

Limited warranty basically means there are get out clauses for Seagate not to honour the warranty in the first place.

Seagate is here: https://www.seagate.com/gb/en/support/warranty-and-replacements/limited-consumer-warranty/ - "limited warranty does not cover ... commercial use, accident, abuse, or neglect;  use contrary to the instructions, ... improper installation, operation, maintenance or modification; ...  lost passwords [Bitlocker etc]; or malfunctions caused by other equipment. This limited warranty is void if a Product is returned with removed, damaged or tampered labels or any alterations (including the unauthorised removal of any component or external cover). This limited warranty does not cover data loss"

That being said it looks like the standard warranty is 2 years now, it used to be 3 or up to 5.  You may have a drive that's covered under a 5 if its old enough, not sure when Seagate changed that.

As to why its failed now... depends how often you've used it.  if its used once in a blue then the fact its dead now is  shocking.  If it's all day every day for whatever reason its going to fail sooner so its less surprising.  Your mileage may vary.  They are mechanical units, and all mechanical units eventually wear out.

Failure rates can occur in batches.  Years ago bought a batch of five hard drives for work... and they all failed in less than 10 days.  Bought another batch of five a couple of weeks later, installed them sent them off... never saw them again in the warranty window, they did eventually fail but that was like years down the line.

Note that if you send failed drives back to Seagate you may end up with a "Recertified Drive" in return.  The life span of these can vary wildly, but that's what you agree to for the warranty.

Thanks for the info.

On further reading, the numbers I posted apparently mean nothing & when I check vs the C drive, the numbers are EXACTLY the same yet the C drive (which is a SSD vs this being a HDD) shows as green and fine.

When I look at the raw values that's when there's a difference. For the top number the end digit in the raw value is 8 and for the bottom 2 yellow flags the end 2 digits show as 10 with all the digits to the left of those numbers being 0. 

As for how long the drive has been used, generally speaking Monday-Friday the PC will be turned on say 7pm-9pm. Weekends, especially Sunday's will be more than that but take today for example - it's 11:45 and I've just turned the PC on. In about 30mins I'll be making dinner so I'll probably put the PC in to 'sleep' mode until I come back to use it again. If I leave the PC again for more than say 30mins or whatever I'll put it back to 'sleep' mode & then eventually turn it off before I go to bed.

Everything has now been backed up.