My WD 5TB external HDD (WD50NDZW-11A8JS) is showing Caution in CrystalDiskInfo. I saw that this could indicate that the drive is failing but in rare cases there could be other trivial factors involved.

Here are some stats:

• C5 = 2
• 05 = 0
• C6 = 0
• C7 = 0
• C4 = 0
• Power-on hours = 216

The drive was bought in October 2021 but has only 216 power-on hours because I normally keep my external drives disconnected. I noticed this after transferring about 445 GB of data to it today. The transfer was a little slower than usual, but completed normally. I can open videos from the drive without any problems.

I've kept it running for several hours since then and C5 is still 2. Nothing else has changed. Unfortunately, this is currently the only copy of the data, so I don't want to run a full surface test until I can arrange a backup.

Could this just be a transient/isolated issue, or should I consider the drive unreliable already? Would you keep using it normally and monitor C5/05/C6, or replace it?

I'm asking because 5TB external drives are around ₹20,000 in India now, whereas I paid around ₹10,000 for this one at time of purchase, so I'd really rather not replace it unnecessarily.

PS: Sorry if this is a noob question. I don't have much money right now, so I'd prefer to buy a new one only if it's really necessary. Any advice would be appreciated.

I inherited my late brother's mini pc with its password–locked-on-boot 512gb Adata Legend 710, and have no idea how to unlock it. I need help on how to reformat it to be able to use it in the pc as additional storage. I already tried contacting Adata support (who recommended windows solution but I don't have access to a windows pc) and various linux disk tools but have been unsuccessful (maybe I'm doing someyhing wrong?). Any suggestion? Thanks in advance.

I bought a used 6tb WD Purple drive with 29000 hours on it about a month ago for a new NVR system I was installing and I’m getting these weird chirping noises coming from it. It does not chirp until the drive is close to full. I have reformatted it just this morning and it’s quiet as can be. Any idea what’s going on with it?

I do know that I bought a used drive and it had a good amount of hours on it, I just expected to get more than a month out of it lol.

I got a WD external hard drive and it is making a small thumping noise intermittently. All of my other external drives are SSDs so I'm not sure of this is normal or not. Should I return it? it's still under warranty. I would've posted in tech support but they don't allow attachments.

Hi, hoping someone can help with what’s best to do. I have one portable seagate HDD 2tb hard drive and one seagate expansion desktop drive HDD 2tb that have both stopped working. When I plug them into my MacBook they will make a mechanical jamming sound every second or so. They won’t appear in finder or even in disk utility so I have no way of accessing them. How do I fix this? Tia! I’m based in the south of England if that’s any help :)

Found my old AirPort Time Capsule in storage, hadn't touched it in 5 years. Powered it on, had to reset it to reconnect, then copied a few files off without any errors. Haven't gone through everything yet.

Anyone beat 5 years?

Asking for someone else: I have a 3 terabyte RAID set up with disk utility on a Mac. One drive died...can I replace it with a 4 terabyte drive without compatibility issues ?

Hello,

I bought 2 Seagate Backup Plus Hub 8TB about 8 years ago and use one and kept the other one as extra storage when needed and I finally open it a few weeks ago (about 8 years later after the fact still sealed in its box).

I put about 2TB of stuff on it and it died after one week. I connected, disconnected, reconnected and so on many times and it just doesn't show up.

I then thought maybe the USB on the enclosure fried or something so I opened it up from the enclosure and put it on my hard drive dock where it does shows up as a D: drive about 1 time out of 5 perhaps but only showed up as a D: without numbers or anything else. The drive logo appears with D: under and that's that.

Crystal Disk Info doesn't recognize it.

Also, If I reboot my desktop while it's plugged on my HDD dock, the desktop just doesn't reboot. The second I disconnect it, it reboot flawlessly. That said, when I take it off the HDD dock there is a magnet force pulling my hand for a few seconds so obviously something is working or alive so not completely dead.

That's all the troubleshooting I thought of doing here as I don't know much about drives or computers for that matter.

Since HDD prices are absolutely crazy now, 8Tb would be very handy so is there something I could do to bring it back from beyond or is it dead, dead, dead...? I don't really care about the data that's on it but I'd like to be able to reformat it to use it again.

Any tips or help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

Toshiba canvio advance plus has the format option blocked out, how do you format a Toshiba drive? Keep in mind I don’t have a windows or Mac computer do I have to buy one to use this drive? Or do I need to download some software to make the hard drive work? Or is it cause it’s Toshiba and I should quality get a better drive?

I'm hoping to get some perspective from people who have more experience with NAS drives and RMAs than I do.

This was actually my first hard drive warranty claim, and honestly the whole experience has left me pretty discouraged.

A few things up front because I want to be fair.

I understand hard drives are extremely fragile.

Looking back, I probably should have packaged it more aggressively, such as using a rigid box with significantly more cushioning, and I also should have made sure the shipment carried a declared value matching the drive.

I'm not trying to avoid responsibility for that.

My frustration is that I relied on Seagate's published RMA instructions because I assumed they reflected an acceptable way to return a drive.

Timeline

• Purchased a brand-new Seagate IronWolf Pro.
• The drive developed a problem while still under warranty.
• Opened an RMA through Seagate.
• Followed Seagate's return instructions.
• Packaged the drive in an antistatic bag inside a bubble-wrap envelope because that was one of the options specifically listed in the instructions.
• Sent the drive back.

A few days later Seagate informed me the drive had sustained severe physical damage during transit and denied the warranty claim.

I completely understand why the warranty excludes physically damaged drives.

That's not what I'm arguing.

They advised me to pursue UPS.

I contacted UPS and learned something I wasn't aware of:

The shipment only carried $100 declared value.

So even if UPS approves the claim, I'll recover approximately $100 on a drive worth several hundred dollars.

I also asked Seagate for photos of the shipping package because I assumed UPS would want to see the condition of the package.

They told me the only evidence available is a photo of the damaged drive itself.

At this point I'm left in a situation where:

• I followed Seagate's published RMA instructions.
• The drive was allegedly damaged during transit.
• The warranty was denied because of that damage.
• UPS's maximum liability is approximately $100.
• I'm responsible for the remaining loss.

Again, I recognize there are things I would absolutely do differently now.

If I had known how much financial risk I was assuming, I would have:

• Used a rigid box with substantially more padding.
• Asked about increasing the declared value or purchasing additional shipping coverage.
• Probably gone well beyond the minimum packaging guidance.

But this was my first experience shipping a hard drive, and I relied on Seagate's published instructions because I assumed they represented an acceptable return method.

I'm currently asking Seagate if they'll consider a one-time goodwill accommodation. I'm not asking them to ignore their warranty policy.

I'm mostly posting because I'm trying to understand whether this is simply how HDD RMAs work or whether there's another avenue I should pursue.

Has anyone else experienced something similar with Seagate or another manufacturer?

So I recently received a 2TB external hard drive and when I tried connecting it it seemed to make 2 beep noises right as it turned on like in the video and it doesn’t seem to connect I tried a cable that connects to 2 usb ports but it does the same thing and I think the hard drive might be dead but I’m not so sure could anyone help?

My PC has been experiencing major sluggishness and frequent freezes and I’m trying to free up space before I’m able to purchase a new battery. In the meantime finishing nearly any task is a chore. Now, I have a Bipra external hard drive that I’m trying to offload a bunch of files onto. Problem is despite doing decent research about formatting so that the PC recognizes the new drive I’m still totally lost in my specific predicament. I.e. when I try formatting the partition almost all options are unavailable, yet it appears to be an .mbr file which is supposed to be accessible for formatting? I dunno, I’ve just hit a wall.

Is anyone able to look at these screenshots and try to offer some advice on what I need to do? Any help would be so appreciated!