hddguy & marlboroman there are difference between defect tables and modules respectivly holding the translator.
Also is not good idea to regen translator when some of those translator modules are bad.
Imho the regen of translator "is sometimes the ONLY" and the last thing you must try if all other fails.
Btw i think this is a useless wrangle as far for the flowing case we can only suggest the probem. And those drives suffer many things not only related to f/w malfunctions.
Edit:
coffeebean btw you can do the same and without write anything and do the compare, it's not less valuable exercise

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DataRecovery.bg

Module 33 within a Maxtor contains backups of the defect tables, and when translator regeneration is run the defects on the disk are restored to the values within module 33.

To me this means the defect tables are changed, therefore re-written