HD Tune shows calibration error-- should I replace the drive?

Question

I just bought a brand new Seagate 1TB "Backup Plus" external USB 3.0 drive, and in running some diagnostics, HD Tune is showing a "calibration retry count" warning as shown in this screen grab.

Every other test I've run on the drive seems to indicate that it's fine; a full error scan shows no damaged blocks, etc. I'm frankly a bit out of my depth here; is the HD Tune error something to be concerned about? Is it worth replacing the drive? I'm on a ThinkPad W520 Windows 7 64-bit.

Thanks for any feedback here.

Solution

If you have the possibility to simply return the drive/exchange it for a new one you should change it. Just in case.

The Error itself points to a mechanical problem of the drive. This could be a one time issue, but could get worse over time.

If the store you bought it from does not have a fair return policy, you could try to stress it a little bit to see if things get worse and than exchange it via warranty.

A nice program to test and stress the drive is http://hddscan.com/. With the reading mode you can check for bad sectors (bad sector are only detectable when reading a sector from the drive). With butterfly reads you can stress the drive mechanics. Butterfly reading is like: 1st sector, last sector, 2nd sector, last-1, 3rd, last-2, ... So the head has to move a lot.

Comments

[Ramhound]

I wouldn't take it back. I would do a warranty claim. I would run the Seagate Tool, if it detects an error, just make a wrranty claim. If we are talking about yesterday, yeah, go ahead and just return it.

[nickpish]

Dave-- thanks for the recommendation; I ran Acronis Drive Monitor and it found nothing wrong with the drive and reports no SMART issues. Ramhound-- I'll try the Seagate Tool as well; perhaps what I'm seeing in HD Tune is just a false positive of some kind? I'm also frankly uncertain how serious a "calibration retry count" warning might be for the health of the drive (?)