Ok so a few days ago Hard Drive disk Inspector Pro started telling me my 1 TB Caviar Black was failing. I panicked, left the drive powered off as much as possible, and got me a 1 TB Caviar Green to mirror the drive to. Im cloning the drive as we speak. Anyways I went to WDs site and noticed they want me to run there app to verify the condition. I havent run diagnostics yet, but based on the Smart info alone, WDs Lifeguard app says the drive is fine. So the question is, should I be alarmed or tel HDD Inspector to shut up?
SMART is the industry standard. Hard Drive Inspector Pro is not. If there's nothing in SMART data, I don't really see how HDIP can actually give any additional data to prove the drive is faulty. What reason does HDD inspector give?
http://img693.imageshack.us/img693/3703/70609395.jpg HDD Inspector is reporting smart errors. The WD Lifeguard app is a POS from the looks of it and gives me errors preventing me from running the actual diagnostics test,.
SMART the drive with Speedfan and everest and look at the 'reallocated sector count' there. If it passes, there's nothing to worry about. A drive that had all its sectors reallocated, by all accounts, should probably already be dead. It sounds like a bug with HDD inspector.
Speedfan and Everest report it as being just fine, so i suppose it is indeed a problem with HDD Inspector. I guess I should have thought of checking other apps before thinking there was a problem.
I wouldn't see it cause for alarm. Reallocated sector count is a value all apps should pick up the same. If it's 2v1 for programs I use and trust to one I don't and haven't even heard of, I'd say the drive is fine. If you're worried, try filling it to the brim with stuff. If it really has that many reallocated sectors, it will cause you grief once you do that.
Most BIOS's have a section dedicated to SMART status; I use this when I can because I know that it is un-messed-with.
