WD10EARS-00Y5B1 LCC Increasing rapidly (Windows XP)

[romitL]

I bought a WD10EARS drive on 28 August 2010.I've one WD10EADS as my OS drive and I'm running Windows XP SP3 32-bit OS on it and using the EARS drive as a secondary HDD.The EARS drive was aligned using WD-Acronis align utility following the installation.

Smart Info from the new WD10EARS drive using DiskSmartView v1.02 today revealed the following:

==================================================
Description       : Power Cycle Count
Raw Value         : 13
Normalized Value  : 100
Worst Value       : 100
Threshold Value   : 0
Status            : Ok
==================================================
Description       : Power-off Retract Count
Raw Value         : 9
Normalized Value  : 200
Worst Value       : 200
Threshold Value   : 0
Status            : Ok
==================================================
Description       : Power-On Hours (POH)
Raw Value         : 86
Normalized Value  : 100
Worst Value       : 100
Threshold Value   : 0
Status            : Ok
==================================================
Description       : Load Cycle Count
Raw Value         : 662
Normalized Value  : 200
Worst Value       : 200
Threshold Value   : 0
Status            : Ok
==================================================

Within 4 days of use, I'm getting high LCC value of 662. Every time I open any SMART utility, this value increases by 1. The LCC/POH=662/86=7.7~8.

Since the LCCs per hour is nearly 8, it is quite possible that my new HDD will lose integrity in 4 yrs according to WD GP HDD Spec sheet.

I still haven't faced this issue with my EADS drive. It has been running for about 1yr & has LCC value of 310. Is this because the drive is not that frequently idle like my new secondary drive?

I'm really worried. Is this normal for WD10EARS?

Can anything be done to fix this, like using wdidle utility?

A reply would be much appreciated.

[romitL]

-BUMP-

[skozzy]

Which Smart Utility ?.

Also did you setup the drive in XP mode. If it's an advanced format drive it will have instructions for XP setup on it.

[romitL]

Which Smart Utility ?.

DiskSmartView

http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/disk_smart_view.html

Used other SMART tools too like Everest.

Also did you setup the drive in XP mode. If it's an advanced format drive it will have instructions for XP setup on it.

I was talking about LCC count, not the setup process. Yes, the drive was installed on an XP system as a secondary HDD, partitioned using XP-CD, then WD Align tool was used to make use of the Advanced Format.

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Update: Today I used the wdidle3.exe /D with success and the idle3 parameter was set to 62.2 minutes. The LCC has gone down significantly ever since and it is not going up by 1 everytime I run any SMART utility. What a relief !