There are ways to make the smart counter go bad (and make seatools fail) withhout doing any damage to the disk. Then you could get your warranty service.

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On a clear disk you can seek forever.

Well, after arguing witn an employee and escalating the case to higher level, finally Seagate has approved the RMA procedure. I had to send a screenshot of the current SMART values (reported by HD Sentinel) and this was the definitive proof, so they have approved the RMA with reason "Poor performance" (no malfunctioning though). I will receive a re-certified drive (oh, well) within 1 week.

And yes, I know those ways. In fact, I'm doing continuous deep regeneration tests with HD Sentinel (regeneration level set to 5 for each pass) to reveal new bad sectors (now I have 144) and more high fly writes (currently 24).

Thank you Keetah for your feedback, much appreciated. I will keep you posted with the results.

Regards

At last! The story ends HERE!

Things were wrong since the beginning. The drive I purchased was actually a RE-CERTIFIED drive! This was confirmed by the Seagate Support Lead in EMEA. He told me I should replace the drive with a new one if I bought a "really" new drive. That was the reason for which the Seagate Firmware Updater REFUSED the update to firmware CC49 (from CC46). Hence, I forced the update by hand. However, the technician told me the drive is in "good" status and I should not worry about the delays in writes, only if SeaTools fails and gives a test code (but he agreed my drive must be replaced immediately because it's out of warranty).

I have complained to the retailer, and he saw the drive had a circular logo with text "FACTORY REPAIRED". He agreed to exchange the drive with a new one right now.
Well, now I have a new ST500DM002 drive. Is this drive a re-branded Samsung F3?

The drive passes short and long tests. I'm happy now.

Thank you, particularly Keatah and fzabkar.

Good.

Remember always backup your data. This way you become the data recovery technician.

And treat modern disks as black boxes. When they fail, don't hesitate to use RMA procedures. Troubleshooting these things is nothing but a big black hole for your time and often a pain the ass.

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On a clear disk you can seek forever.