Re: read errors

On Fri, 30 May 2008 20:39:14 -0400, DonLogan <navajo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
put finger to keyboard and composed:

Franc Zabkar <fzabkar@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

On 30 May 2008 10:51:13 GMT, Arno Wagner <me@xxxxxxxxxxx> put finger
to keyboard and composed:

Previously DonLogan <navajo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
My config is
c = 80 gig
d = 200 gig problem
both running ntfs

looked at smart from, everes,t first thing and saw no problems
recognizable by me.

The Seagate Drive has a serious problem:

[ ST3200822A (3LJ16KS3) ]

01 Raw Read Error Rate 6 55 46 160374848
OK: Value is normal
05 Reallocated Sector Count 36 98 98 84
OK: Value is normal
07 Seek Error Rate 30 87 60 561379378
OK: Always passing
C3 Hardware ECC Recovered 0 55 46 160374848
OK: Always passing
C5 Current Pending Sector Count 0 100 100 667
OK: Always passing
C6 Off-Line Uncorrectable Sector Count 0 100 100 667
--------------------------

Attribute 01 is very low. In addition you already have 84 reallocated
sectors and 667 sectors the dive cannot read that will likely
be reallocated on the bnext write. Also a lot of sectors are marginal
(attribute C3) and can only be read using ECC.

That's normal even for a new Seagate drive.

This may be an
external problem as the seek error rate (07) ia also pretty baed.

No, the high "seek error rate" number is normal even for a new Seagate
drive. In fact the attribute is a seek *count*, not an error, and not
a rate.

See the results of my own testing:
http://groups.google.com/group/comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage/msg/823c05e94e229045?dmode=source

A bad PSU or strong vibration can do this occasionally. It may also
be a sign of the read-amplifier dying, as it is needed for positioning.
Damaged drive heads are also possible.

Anyways: Make a backup NOW. This drive is very likely dying. You will
loose more data and it can die catastrophically at any moment.

I've got a probable reproduceable app error on a specific file. This
should identify file name and can maybe map soft/bad spot(s)?

Modern drives do not have soft/bad spots anymore. This type
of indicates bad heads or electronics, i.e. impeding complete
drive failure.

So, good looking smart & who knows what? I don't think it's any
inboard strange interface issue. Gotta surface spot on the platter
going bad, i think. Works good on 1,000s of i/os otherwise.

It is not an interface issue, the ATA error counts are normal
and very low or zero.

Too bad Check-Disk didn't spit out info.

Checkdisk works on filesystem level. It cannot deal with this.

I would have thought that at least some of the 667 pending sectors
would have been associated with filesystem errors.

Just replace/warranty drive, but always like to use cadavers for
forensics. But smart looks ok?

No, it looks pretty bad. Dont take any stock in the thresholds.
HDD manufacturers set these often far too high.

Arno

My testing suggests that Seagate drives can accumulate around 2600
reallocated sectors before the SMART status is reported as bad.

http://groups.google.com/group/comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage/msg/7633015da64dab6a?dmode=source

- Franc Zabkar

Franc
So should I return to seagate or what?
tia

I would try to obtain a warranty replacement. I recently took a
Seagate drive out of service after living with bad sectors for several
years. Towards the end it started to grow new defects on a weekly
basis. It still had only 130 bad sectors, which is well short of
Seagate's SMART threshold. Some people will retire a drive with a
single bad sector because they worry that a new defect may appear in a
critical area. It's your choice, but I definitely wouldn't continue to
use your drive.

Here are a few SMART reports for various drives:
http://www.users.on.net/~fzabkar/SmartUDM

This 120MB Seagate drive is perfectly good even though several
attributes look very bad:
http://www.users.on.net/~fzabkar/SmartUDM/120GB.RPT

This is the drive I retired:
http://www.users.on.net/~fzabkar/SmartUDM/13GB.RPT

This is what Seagate's FAQ has to say about SMART:
http://preview.tinyurl.com/3k34qc

===================================================================

How do I interpret SMART diagnostic utilities results?
------------------------------------------------------
As a matter of policy, Seagate does not publish attributes and
thresholds.

The SMART values that might be read out by third-party SMART software
are not based on how the values may be used within the Seagate hard
drives. Seagate does not provide support for software programs that
claim to read individual SMART attributes and thresholds. There may
be some historical correctness on older drives, but new drives, no
doubt, will have incorporated newer solutions, attributes and
thresholds.

Seagate uses the general SMART Status, pass or fail. The individual
attributes and threshold values are proprietary and we do not offer a
utility that will read out the values. If the values that you are
seeing with a third party SMART utility are not displaying properly or
seem to be false, please contact your software vendor for further
explanation of the values.
===================================================================

- Franc Zabkar
--
Please remove one 'i' from my address when replying by email.
.

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