Hard Disk - S.M.A.R.T Analysis problems

  • Thread starter Thread starter *** JD
  • Start date Start date
J

*** JD

Hi,
I have an 80Gb Maxtor 6Y080P0 Hard Disk, I have been unable to get this
drive working as the "Master" HDD to boot windows xp, however it works fine
when I set this to "slave" and boot from another HDD.

I presumed the disk may have a few problems so I decided to use Drive Health
& DIY DataRecovery HD Workbench to test the drive.

Drive Health states everything is fine except the attribute named "Ultra ATA
CRC Error Count" it states the T.E.C (Threshold Exceeded Condition) as
9/17/2004 (although this figure seems to change quite considerably).

I'm suprised if the HDD is failing already as it isn't all that old - an
80Gb bought brand new around a 1yr - 1 1/2yrs ago from Komplett for approx
£90 - I've checked the warranty, unfortunately this ran out March 2004
therefore I cannot even return this drive if it does fail.

I've read the helpfile and it states this in regards to the "Ultra ATA CRC
Error Count"

UDMA controller performs an error checking on data it receives from
HDD, ensuring that data was not damaged while transmitted over the cable.
Each time the error is detected, controller requests a retransmission, thus
slowing down the overall transfer speed. Lower values of "Ultra ATA CRC
Error Rate" correspond to higher number of errors, usually indicating a
cabling problem.

While this suggests a cable problem, I have purchased two brand new
'rounded' IDE cables, so i'd be suprised if the cables itself are damaged
in anyway.

Does anyone use Drive Health or DIY DataRecovery HD Workbench - if so what
experiences have you had with these programs and how accurately would you
say each program is in regards to the T.E.C date (date of expected failure)

Any help with this would be greatly appreciated.
 
I used the SMART tool on my drives for a while.

The threshold limits seemed to yo yo around for days and days. Ok one day
then not ok the next.

I turned it off.

ND
 
*** JD said:
Hi,
I have an 80Gb Maxtor 6Y080P0 Hard Disk, I have been unable to get this
drive working as the "Master" HDD to boot windows xp, however it works
fine
when I set this to "slave" and boot from another HDD.

I presumed the disk may have a few problems so I decided to use Drive
Health
& DIY DataRecovery HD Workbench to test the drive.
Click to expand...
<snip>

If you're using an 80 cable (ATA66 +) IDE Ribbon cable (which you should
be), then have you got this drive you intend to use to boot from at the end?
If its jumpered as cable select and you put it in the middle, it will be
treated as a slave. Recheck the jumpers/cable positioning. If that fails,
its best to use Maxtor's own freely available (from their website as a
download) Powermax to diagnose your drive. It even has an option to write
all zeros to it - completely obliterating the contents and starting again
like a fresh from the factory state.

Paul
 
*** JD said:
Hi,
I have an 80Gb Maxtor 6Y080P0 Hard Disk, I have been unable to get this
drive working as the "Master" HDD to boot windows xp, however it works fine
when I set this to "slave" and boot from another HDD.

I presumed the disk may have a few problems so I decided to use Drive Health
& DIY DataRecovery HD Workbench to test the drive.

Drive Health states everything is fine except the attribute named "Ultra ATA
CRC Error Count" it states the T.E.C (Threshold Exceeded Condition) as
9/17/2004 (although this figure seems to change quite considerably).

I'm suprised if the HDD is failing already as it isn't all that old - an
80Gb bought brand new around a 1yr - 1 1/2yrs ago from Komplett for approx
£90 - I've checked the warranty, unfortunately this ran out March 2004
therefore I cannot even return this drive if it does fail.

I've read the helpfile and it states this in regards to the "Ultra ATA CRC
Error Count"

UDMA controller performs an error checking on data it receives from
HDD, ensuring that data was not damaged while transmitted over the cable.
Each time the error is detected, controller requests a retransmission, thus
slowing down the overall transfer speed. Lower values of "Ultra ATA CRC
Error Rate" correspond to higher number of errors, usually indicating a
cabling problem.

While this suggests a cable problem, I have purchased two brand new
'rounded' IDE cables, so i'd be suprised if the cables itself are damaged
in anyway.

Does anyone use Drive Health or DIY DataRecovery HD Workbench - if so what
experiences have you had with these programs and how accurately would you
say each program is in regards to the T.E.C date (date of expected failure)

Any help with this would be greatly appreciated.
Click to expand...

My personal opinion is that if S.M.A.R.T. says that a drive has
problems then it is time to run, not walk, to the nearest computer
shop and get a replacement drive.

For a second opinion get the Maxtor diagnostic tool from their web
site and run it. If that produces a fault code then it is definitely
drive replacement time.

Good luck.


Ron Martell Duncan B.C. Canada
--
Microsoft MVP
On-Line Help Computer Service
http://onlinehelp.bc.ca

"The reason computer chips are so small is computers don't eat much."
 
FYI, I have the same HDD I bought 1 1/2 yr ago and had the same problem as
you did. Tried the Powermax diagnostic tool from Maxtor, got the diagnostic
code and called them. Of course the warranty is over since Feb 04 and they
confirmed I should buy a new HDD asap, which I did. Unfortunately since
then, I haven't been able to boot again from my Maxtor HDD or have not
either been able to access it to recover files... I wish you better luck!

LB
 
Thanks for the info... looks like i gotta fork out for another HDD once i
get paid then :(

Cheers for the advice tho
 
I have a maxtor 6y080l0 80gb, and I am having problems as well. I also have
a maxtor 546??? 40 some gb hard drive. I have brand new IDE cables, and
whenever the damned thing decides to, and I mean that literally, I will not
have a master drive, and will still have the smaller drive, but like
recently, I had to change the connector it was connected to on the IDE cable
to get it found again, and then what do you know it cant find the smaller
drive.

I get no errors with maxtor utility, but I tell you this I will never buy
another maxtor drive again!
 
I have a maxtor 6y080l0 80gb, and I am having problems as well. I also have
a maxtor 546??? 40 some gb hard drive. I have brand new IDE cables, and
whenever the damned thing decides to, and I mean that literally, I will not
have a master drive, and will still have the smaller drive, but like
recently, I had to change the connector it was connected to on the IDE cable
to get it found again, and then what do you know it cant find the smaller
drive.

I get no errors with maxtor utility, but I tell you this I will never buy
another maxtor drive again!
Click to expand...

I feel your pain. I had a Maxtor 5T060H6 60GB ATA drive conk out this
week. The web site says it is no longer covered by warrantee. Rats! I've
only had it roughly 2 years. SCSI disks are often warranteed for 5 years!
The odd thing was that some of the disk was readable, but seemed that
sector 0 was blown. Uh-oh! That means fdisk (or anything like) cannot work.

Also, I found it odd that there were no, 0, zero, nada, nichevo, rien du
tout in the way of error messages from SMART. Nothing at all?!? What the
hell is that SMART stuff good for then?!? I thought it was supposed to log
significant "events" to help predict impending failure?!? Instead, we seem
to get raspberries, and "too bad, so sad" (no warrantee! hee hee)

I'm going to take inventory of my disks here, and maybe redeploy other
drives, or it's off to the market for another little piggie (NOT Maxtor!).
BTW, wasn't Maxtor bought out by somebody else? Maybe no one cares?!?

Yes, the PowerMax diagnostic does give an error code, but no explanations.
I did expect to see something from the SMART monitoring, but nothing?!?
 
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