Tom's Hardware > Forum > Storage > Hard Drives > [Solved] Hard drive failed, re-formatted, is it ok?

[Solved] Hard drive failed, re-formatted, is it ok?

Forum Storage : Hard Drives [Solved] Hard drive failed, re-formatted, is it ok?

Hello,
I have a WD 3TB hard drive that failed. (Lost a ton of stuff...) It has been re-formatted, and now boots up. Had a lot of bad sectors found. Is it 'bad' or now that it shows up is it use-able again?

Reply to dxtrmorgan

I'd RMA it ASAP and not trust it with anything.

Reply to cliffro

Did you do a low-level format? I would recommend that vs. a plain formatting. Low-level formatting usually restores the HDD to factory-like settings, as it zeroes the whole HDD. Plain formatting just marks written blocks as available; some old data still remains on the HDD until it is overwritten.
A good read:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disk_formatting
There are various tools to perform a disk wipe, I usually use Killdisk.

Reply to house70

i have also noted that the larger the HDD capacity, the less reliable they are in single-disk data back-up solutions. I limit myself to 1.5 GB, and even then I prefer to use a RAID 1 configuration. For larger capacity HDDs I would ONLY use a RAID 1 solution. I have "burned" myself before, so I speak from my own experience.

Reply to house70

Thanks to all. I don't know about the format, I had a more 'computer saavy' friend do it...

house70: are you recommending not using a 3TB?

Thank you.

Message quoted 1 times

Reply to dxtrmorgan

Best answer

dxtrmorgan wrote :

Thanks to all. I don't know about the format, I had a more 'computer saavy' friend do it...

house70: are you recommending not using a 3TB?

Thank you.

Not without a RAID 1 setup. That would require a second HDD of equal (or larger) capacity and an enclosure that supports RAID1.
They don't have to be fancy or anything. I use Synology for mine. I know you can build a network-attached-storage (NAS) system from scratch, but usually ends up more expensive than a plain 2-disk enclosure.
As I mentioned, in my experience, the larger the HDD, the less reliable on a long run they are. Everyone's mileage may vary....

Reply to house70

Best answer selected by dxtrmorgan.

Reply to dxtrmorgan

This topic has been closed by Mousemonkey

------------------------------

http://img545.imageshack.us/img545/3995/bl11.gif

Reply to Mousemonkey

Related content

See all topics related to "Hard drive failed, re-formatted, is it ok?"

Tom's Hardware > Forum > Storage > Hard Drives > [Solved] Hard drive failed, re-formatted, is it ok?

Go to:

There are 863 identified and unidentified users. To see the list of identified users, Click here.

Page generated in 0.833 seconds

Latest best answer

Audio through DVI

By amite, 61 days ago:

Recently, I replaced my older Asus GT9600 card with the newer Asus GTX560. Now, at first...

They won a badge

Join us in greeting them

17:08 aoaom won the Freshman badge
16:27 wuyu2241 won the Freshman badge
15:01 Cooky1992 won the Uniformed badge
15:01 medu5a won the Uniformed badge
15:01 mefa_star won the Uniformed badge
15:01 C4ptainpanda won the Uniformed badge
11:45 googlman won the Freshman badge
04:50 underwater mike won the Uniformed badge
04:40 tomstoms won the Freshman badge
04:24 dibetter won the Freshman badge

How do I win badges?

Top experts

sub mesa - bronze Expert

Specialties : Audio Tech, Storage

2927 messages since 1970/01/01

Become an expert The rank

Partners

[Solved] Hard drive failed, re-formatted, is it ok?

Forum Storage : Hard Drives [Solved] Hard drive failed, re-formatted, is it ok?

General Discussion

Hard Drives

CD/DVD Drives

CD/DVD Writers

Optical Media

Flash Media

NAS/RAID

SSD

Buffalo Tech

QNAP

RunCore