Question : WD My Book Drive Failing or Not, Given Windows 7 Event Log Errors?

My question: Given the conflicting information described below should I ignore it and assume the drive is fine or be concerned and get a replacement for it?

A Western Digital My Book Home USB 1 Terabyte Drive is connected to a Dell workstation running Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit. The drive is a model WD10000H1CS-00. I use it for local file backup and to hold Acronis partition images.

The drive appears to be working properly. I can write files to it and read files from it. All appears normal in that respect.

In the Windows 7 system event log there are frequent error messages relating to this drive. The errors are "The driver detected a controller error on \Device\Harddisk6\DR6." See below for the detailed text of a sample error message. The errors appear in the event log every hour or two throughout the day. Sometimes a pair or burst of up to about 8 errors will appear at the same time.

I ran the Western Digital diagnostics on this drive. Both the quick test and the extended test complete and pass normally.

WD Tech support said to go ask Microsoft since the WD diagnostics passed.

Here is the text of a sample error message from the Windows 7 log file:

Error      5/15/2010 7:17:55 AM      Disk      11      None

Log Name:      System
Source:        Disk
Date:          5/15/2010 7:17:55 AM
Event ID:      11
Task Category: None
Level:         Error
Keywords:      Classic
User:          N/A
Computer:      T7500
Description:
The driver detected a controller error on \Device\Harddisk6\DR6.
Event Xml:
<Event xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/win/2004/08/events/event">
  <System>
    <Provider Name="Disk" />
    <EventID Qualifiers="49156">11</EventID>
    <Level>2</Level>
    <Task>0</Task>
    <Keywords>0x80000000000000</Keywords>
    <TimeCreated SystemTime="2010-05-15T11:17:55.038705900Z" />
    <EventRecordID>115947</EventRecordID>
    <Channel>System</Channel>
    <Computer>T7500</Computer>
    <Security />
  </System>
  <EventData>
    <Data>\Device\Harddisk6\DR6</Data>
    <Binary>0E01800001000000000000000B0004C003010000000000000000000000082D000000000000000000EF52490000000000FFFFFFFF06000000580000000000000000000612080000100000000041000000000000000000000040668C0780FAFFFF0000000000000000E061460980FAFFFF0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000</Binary>
  </EventData>
</Event>

So, should I be worried and replacing the drive? Or ignoring the Windows 7 event log?

Thanks.
Pete

Answer : WD My Book Drive Failing or Not, Given Windows 7 Event Log Errors?

Ignore it. This is bug in Windows imho. You did your best to find out the cause of the problem and checked all drives, cables etc. If all is working properly except Windows generating this event record then problem is in Windows.