WD My Passport errors msgs gone after writing zeros to the drive...WHY?

[rsg1010]

Need some technical help for my WD 2 TB My Passport hard drive:

I tested this hard drive with WD Lifeguard software with a "Quick Test" and it failed with the following message:

06-Quick Test on drive 2 did not complete! Status code = 07 (Failed read test element), Failure Checkpoint = 97 (Unknown Test)


I used the WD utility to write zeros to the drive. I then ran the test again and it passed the SMART and Quick Test.

My question is did writing zeros to the drive "fix" it or is this drive soon to fail?

Is there any other program someone can recommend that can recommend to truly see the health status of this drive?

Thanks in advance for everyone's help. BTW, I am also out of warranty

 

[drambuie]

If you used the WD write zeros utility on the entire drive, you also basically did a whole disk surface write/read test that also locked out bad sectors so that they will not be used. That's why it now shows as healthy in the SMART test.

In normal use the drive's controller will remap bad sectors invisibly to the user. If you run occasional SMART tests you can watch for growth in the number of bad sectors. Unfortunately, the OS X sysinfo utility does not show SMART status for USB drives.

 

[Alrescha]

Unfortunately, the OS X sysinfo utility does not show SMART status for USB drives.

Is there any utility that shows SMART status over USB for the various drives on the market?

A.

 

[drambuie]

Is there any utility that shows SMART status over USB for the various drives on the market?

A.

I don't know if it works for all drives, but the WD Lifeguard utility does work on Crucial M500 SSDs. I had a 240GB M500 with Win 7 on it, and I successfully used the WD utility to write zeros to the first and last million bytes on it, so that my MBP would see it as a blank drive for cloning my 10.9.4 installation to.

The SSD was connected to a PC via a Kingston USB to SATA adapter, and I was able to check the SMART status after the zeros write process. The ability to read SMART status might be a function of the Kingston adapter's controller as it obviously has full SATA access to attached drives.

 

[Alrescha]

The SSD was connected to a PC via a Kingston USB to SATA adapter, and I was able to check the SMART status after the zeros write process. The ability to read SMART status might be a function of the Kingston adapter's controller as it obviously has full SATA access to attached drives.

Thanks. I know about some proprietary solutions, and that sounds like it could be another one. It is good to be able to get at the status through some mechanism, regardless.

A.