WD7500BPVT Repair attempt

[MichR]

Hello! A friend gave me a WDC WD7500BPVT-80HXZT1 hard drive, which has got some problems. The aim is not to save the data but to use it as a hard drive without buying a new one. I do not own any of those expensive hardware/firmware tools or professional softwares. I was looking for a DIY solution using, if possible, free software only.
First of all, this is my S.M.A.R.T. table:

Code:

   
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  ID      Name                   Value  Worst  Tresh       Raw    Health
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  1 Raw read error rate           199    199     51         6425   •••••
  3 Spin-up time                  202    154     21          883   •••••
  4 Number of spin-up times        91     91      0         9481   •••• 
  5 Reallocated sector count      133    133    140          561   •••••
  7 Seek error rate               200    200      0            0   •••••
  9 Power-on time                  96     96      0         3487   •••• 
10 Spin-up retries               100    100      0            0   •••••
11 Recalibration retries         100    100      0            0   •••••
12 Start/stop count               99     99      0         1254   •••• 
191 G-SENSOR shock counter          1      1      0        12913   •     
192 Power-off retract count       200    200      0           97   •••••
193 Load/unload cycle count       130    130      0       211402   •••••
194 HDA Temperature               123     96      0    24°C/75°F   •••• 
196 Reallocated event count       200    200      0            0   •••••
197 Current pending sectors         1      1      0        65308   •     
198 Offline scan UNC sectors      100    253      0            0   •••••
199 Ultra DMA CRC errors          200    200      0            1   •••••
200 Multi zone error rate         100    253      0            0   •••••


After a complete MHDD scan I found out that an area of the hard drive looks terribly damaged (physical damage?): blocks have high latencies when read and some give errors. You can see by yourself the MHDD scan result by opening this file:

WD7500BPVT.zip

MHDD scan report

(227.36 KiB) Downloaded 453 times

which has been generated from the ADVLOG.BIN file using a program I wrote. It contains HDD's info, scan summary, speed map, warnings and errors (along with block number).

I tried several times to low-level format the drive and see if the bad blocks decreased but when the damaged area is going to be formatted, the HDD gives ABRT errors and it is not detected anymore from the PC until I manually remove and re-insert the power connector again. Same thing happens when using REMAP or ERASE functions in MHDD.
As a "solution", I thought I could repartition the drive by excluding the damaged areas and then using the good partitions for personal use.
I am quite "new" to the hard disk world, so it would be great if you can help me step-by-step.

Thank you in advance,
- Mich. R.

[MichR]

I hoped I could use it since it is a 750GB drive and the damage is quite restricted. However, I think you are right. Maybe it is time to get a new hard drive.

[day1data]

Reallocated sector count is generally the one to watch out for in the S.M.A.R.T data, and yours is 561.
Once the Raw value is anything other than 0 i would backup the files on the drive and throw it away.

After that point its usually just degradation of heads / media damage which can't be repaired.

[MichR]

Anyway, as a matter of curiosity, can someone explain why the hard drive gave ABRT errors when I was trying to erase bad blocks?

[MichR]

Hello and thank you for your prompt response. I am aware on how - mainly - a hard drive is structured and why bad blocks cannot be written. I was just wondering why when trying to write a bad block the hard drive gives ABRT error (for that block and all the following ones) and it is not anymore detected from the O.S. until I power cycle it.