I have this USB 3.0 3TB external HDD, P/N HDTB330EK3CA. It is a native USB drive in there, not a SATA drive in an enclosure with a translator chip.
According to CrystalDiskInfo, it works in SATA/300 transfer mode and ATA8-ACS standard, supporting SMART, APM and NCQ.

It seems to have relocated 144 sectors. Is there any way to refresh/re-evaluate them?
Furthermore, is a "low-level" format possible or a way to issue ATA secure erase to it?

The relocation count didn't seem to grow after a full 3-pass shred.

First you have to confirm if all 144 relocated sector recovered successfully if not it will lead further damage to hard drive or may cause for complete corruption.

You can use windows version of Victoria for scan and repair.

To clear Smart report you need professional Tool which support this HDD.

I'm a little confused by the first part about confirming that the relocated sectors have been recovered.
I'm seeing those sectors as relocated in the SMART report.
Are you saying Victoria will rescan those?

You said you tried 3-pass shred with Victoria you can confirm if these bad sectors are no more.

_________________
Hard Disk Drive Market to Achieve USD 93.88 Billion by 2026

No, I didn't say "with Victoria". I didn't use that program until you mentioned it.

See? No Victoria mentioned anywhere.

I used something else for that 3-pass shred, can't remember what now. Some Linux program from a rescue disk.

Anyway, again, the relocated sectors is what SMART reports. I guess there's no way to try to recover those then?
I already did a full pass with Victoria too and it didn't do anything with that.

I would use a serial port to diagnose such a drive. Are you aware of serial port commands and how to use them?

No, sire. Please, do tell.

Accept the facts and keep using the drive. For me it's an (almost) perfect drive.

Well, yes, I do plan to keep using it. I don't have any cash to get a new one anyway, which is the more reason why I want to see if there's any way to recheck those.

I agree with BGman, even if I'm curious of those commands to handle Toshiba...

Just be sure this bad sector count do not grow, done one or two full read pass and check also for very bad timings.
Stay in front of your scan to stop it for in case of big UNC problems, to keep your spare for the final part you will use.
If your drive got a background scan, it is not necessary to stay in front and try keeping those spare because the drive will anyway come and try read them.

Try to found from what LBAs are those last bad sectors found, you can eventually get some info with smartctl. (smartctl will also tell you if you get the background offline scan)

Finally, partition it depending of the result, by excluding the bad part(s) with some 1GB safe margin for eventual future bad sectors in those defects parts.

After partitioning, you have also to spot if others critical attributes are not growing, by reading only the partition(s).

@BGman Well... what about that serial port stuff?
Anywhere I can learn about it?

Oh... No, but this is a native USB disk. It's not a SATA drive in an enclosure with a translator chip. The very controller PCB screwed to the HDD assembly only has a USB3 port. But I've seen pictures online, as I don't even know how to open the thing without breaking the plastic case. Seems to be ultrasonically fused.
I thought it was some virtual thing you could open with some software, not a physical connection.

well, technically I think they are still SATA. The USB board likely has the sata-usb conversion on it.
What DR peeps do, I believe, is transfer a compatible sata board along with ROMS and whatever else is needed. or connect sata port to the USB board. I don't do HDD DR, so this is just from observation, but you should be able to find details of a similar procedure on this forum (as a starting point).

or something like this https://forum.hddguru.com/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=40639&p=286007&hilit=convert+to+sata#p286007

https://forum.hddguru.com/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=38074&p=269009&hilit=compatible+sata+board#p269009

I haven't read your post in detail, as this isn't my bag, so this info may or may not be useful (to you at least)

Plus not sure if this is valid for Toshiba drives.