Western Digital Raptor forgot to park the heads

[John Doe]

My Raptor just died with something like "read head error 0007". Tried
it with the Western Digital diagnostics boot CD. Tried it on my spare
computer. Same result.

Last night, the Internet was turned off through ZoneAlarm and my PC
had been idle for about five minutes, the monitor off. Thinking it
was off, I mistakenly flipped a switch that removed power from the PC
power supply, improperly shutting down the PC. I thought hard drives
these days parked their heads when power is removed, apparently my
Raptor forgot to park the heads this time.

If the return process takes too long or goes bad, I will buy a larger
7200 RPM drive instead of a Raptor. I have an SDD drive for my
primary drive. A slower secondary drive probably will make little
difference.

 

[Flasherly]

My Raptor just died with something like "read head error 0007". Tried
it with the Western Digital diagnostics boot CD. Tried it on my spare
computer. Same result.

Last night, the Internet was turned off through ZoneAlarm and my PC
had been idle for about five minutes, the monitor off. Thinking it
was off, I mistakenly flipped a switch that removed power from the PC
power supply, improperly shutting down the PC. I thought hard drives
these days parked their heads when power is removed, apparently my
Raptor forgot to park the heads this time.

If the return process takes too long or goes bad, I will buy a larger
7200 RPM drive instead of a Raptor. I have an SDD drive for my
primary drive. A slower secondary drive probably will make little
difference.

Shouldn't fail per se as a result of power interruption -- parking the
heads could be outside a subset of WD's list of "smart" error
routines. One person here appears to have gotten the 0007 if not as
well a 0225, and managed to squeak by with an unusual zeroing format
technique....

0001 - 0008, 0015 SMART Error Self Monitoring, Analysis, and
Reporting Technology (SMART) Error returned during SMART Status/Self
Test Command. The drive is defective. Replace Drive

0007 - smart quick self test

i had a system with both drives reporting read element failure. put in
a new drive , loaded the os . then got the same error. tried all 3
drives in a different computer and same error. full scan would not fix
the problem either, however i did a full write zeros to disk and the
problem was solved.

DLGDIAG 5.04f Error/ Status codes 0007 on quick and 0225 on full media
scan.

 

[larry moe 'n curly]

My Raptor just died with something like "read head error 0007". Tried
it with the Western Digital diagnostics boot CD. Tried it on my spare
computer. Same result.

I mistakenly flipped a switch that removed power from the PC
power supply, improperly shutting down the PC. I thought hard drives
these days parked their heads when power is removed, apparently my
Raptor forgot to park the heads this time.

"These days" goes back to the 1980s for some HDs and at least 15 days
for all others.

When the power is turned off, whether by telling Windows to shut down
or by yanking the AC cord, the hard drive parks the heads
automatically. The power for this comes from the platters coasting
because the electronics convert the spindle motor into a generator.
I've actually seen this in an ancient Seagate (probably 20-40
megabytes) with the cover removed.

 

[Flasherly]

These are nice and fast:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136533

Western Digital Caviar Black WD1002FAEX 1TB 7200 RPM 64MB Cache SATA
6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive

s

Friend wanted a monitor to replace his ancient 17" CRT, so I picked up
a Samsung 22" listed for a monitor (only HDTV included "among
monitors" of that quality listed for $200).

Anyhow...needed another multimedia HD and said screw it and got a 1-
point-5 terabyte from NewEgg a few days ago -- so now I've both
Samsung's 1T and now its 1.5T.

Anyway...right after I bought it, within a couple days, and I do this
on a regular bases -- NewEgg, for $20 more than what I paid, drops
Samsung's 2-point terabyte down to $120. It's up for grabs now
(listed 4/26 - so for the next few days) -- down from maybe around
$150.

Me - no major deal, the 1.5T hopefully will be fine, and I do like
reviews to be a little more established (Samsung is presently leading
over most brands with fewer "NewEgg" failures). Also - these ECOGreen
5400rpm variants, the 1.5T is reviewed well within - I should be able
to live with. For the most it's going to be a bigbutted multimedia
thingy.

(Oh - there's another, though likely just missed -- it's the Samsung
1T EcoGreen -- saw it on FatWallet last weekend for $69-ish from a
less-known vendor;- Again, I'd take NewEgg's way of dealing upfront
with "fine print" that isn't so small.)

 

[John Doe]

The RMA process and replacement went smoothly.