HD advice plz

  • Thread starter Thread starter RJK
  • Start date Start date
R

RJK

....sorry for double posting, meant to post here first.

This afternoon, I tried to do my backups, and Ghost 14.0 gave me an error !
(just before starting backup images, I deleted about 300gb's of *.vob files
on E:\ - recycle bin always off on that drive)...

Hardware:-
internal hd's
C:\ Disk 1 320gb Seagate (XP Home ed. boot drive)
D:\ Disk 2 160gb Seagate (Bought progs. drivers etc.)
E:\ Disk 3 500gb ST35004118AS

C:\ and D:\ imaged out to external Disk 0 500gb ST35004118AS ...drive F:\
okay, (Sumvision hd enclosure + eSATA Jmicron PCIe x1 card / eSATA lead),
but when Disk 3 started being Ghosted out to ext. hd F:\, up popped Ghost
with :-

Error E7C3000F:
Device\\?\SymantecSnapshot3 cannot read 20480 sectors starting @ LBA
20295304

Error: EBAB03F1:
The request could not be performed because of an I/O device error

So I booted into Safe mode with command prompt and did a CHKDSK E: /f/r
....tried to Ghost 14.0 image E:\ out to F:\ again and got the same error
messages from Ghost, so CHKDSK didn't fix it.

....SO, I booted with Spinrite 6 CD and ran a surface scan on E:\ which
progressed normally for approx. 5 - 10 minutes, then SPinrite 6 started
fussing for ages over an area near the beginning of the disk, (I'm guessing
LBA 20295304 onwards) !! ...I went for Lunch, and when I came back Spinrite
6 was still fussing over that area, so I went away for a couple of hours,
and when I came back, the whole surface scan had finished, and I couldn't
find any details in Spinrite as to if any blocks had been swapped out from
the hd's reserve pool etc.

E:\ is where all my photos (only about 27gb's), and music videos (only about
28gb's ), are kept, and I only keep one backup image of drives D:\ and E:\
.....on F:\
I do keep 3 copies of my boot drive C:\ on F:\

....anyhow E:\ is only about two years old at the most and Speedfan's web
SMART report says:-

Your hard disk is a ST3500418AS with firmware CC49.
The average temperature for this hard disk model is 34°C (min=25°C max=43°C)
and yours is 36°C.

Attribute Current Raw
Raw Read Error Rate 102 00000039299D
Spin Up Time 97 000000000000
Start/Stop Count 97 000000000FB5
Reallocated Sector Count 100 000000000000
Seek Error Rate 69 00000077C063
Power On Hours Count 98 0000000007BD
Spin Retry Count 100 000000000000
Power Cycle Count 99 00000000077C
SATA Downshift Error Count 100 000000000000
End To End Error Count 100 000000000000
Reported Uncorrectable Errors 1 0000000007FB
Command Time Out 100 00000000000E
High Fly Writes 100 000000000000
Hardware ECC Recovered 38 00000039299D
Current Pending Sector 100 000000000000
Offline Uncorrectable Sector Count 100 000000000000
Ultra DMA CRC Error Rate 200 000000000000
Write head 100 0EBC000019F2
Total LBAs Written 100 0000BABFC96C
Total LBAs Read 100 000052C5139B

All of the attributes of your hard disk have normal values. This is good.
The overall fitness for this drive is 100%.
The overall performance for this drive is 100%.

.....FWIW I've never had problems with Ghost 14.0 imaging the above
mentioned 3 hd's across the past, getting on for two years,
.....any idea what went bang on drive E:\ that chkdsk could not fix, yet
Spinrite 6 was able to fix ?

.....and should I be swapping out E:\ for a new disk, and putting
aforementnioned E:\ under small sledge hammer ?

regards, Richard
 
RJK said:
Reallocated Sector Count 100 000000000000
Click to expand...
All of the attributes of your hard disk have normal values. This is good.
The overall fitness for this drive is 100%.
The overall performance for this drive is 100%.

....FWIW I've never had problems with Ghost 14.0 imaging the above
mentioned 3 hd's across the past, getting on for two years,
....any idea what went bang on drive E:\ that chkdsk could not fix, yet
Spinrite 6 was able to fix ?

....and should I be swapping out E:\ for a new disk, and putting
aforementnioned E:\ under small sledge hammer ?

regards, Richard
Click to expand...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S.M.A.R.T

"Known ATA S.M.A.R.T. attributes"

"For example, the "Reallocated Sectors Count" attributes normalized
value decreases as the count of reallocated sectors increases. In this
case, the attributes raw value will often indicate the
actual count of sectors that were reallocated, although vendors are
in no way required to adhere to this convention."

And, of course that indicator is "not linear".

Disks have errors, when they leave the factory. The manufacturer has
an "acceptance criteria" for the disk (kinda like "dead pixels" on an
LCD screen). If it had, say, more than 500,000 spared out sectors, perhaps
they wouldn't ship it. And then, they have to set up Reallocated Sector Count,
so it doesn't show "trouble", when there are errors as the thing leaves
the factory. Imagine the look of shock and horror, on a customer's face,
when they check the SMART stats on the new drive, and there are reallocations
already showing. That would be a tech support nightmare.

That indicator can't be linear. There must be a more complicated behavior.

I suspect 100 percent health is shown, up to a fairly large number of
reallocations, then a smaller scale is used for successive errors. This
can result in the health appearing to deteriorate rapidly.

I base this, purely on observation. A brand new drive, with a bad area
in it, and horrible performance. And the Reallocated Sectors Count being
"perfectly healthy". Then, one day, it starts to go downhill, as far as
SMART is concerned. So the Reallocated Sectors Count cannot be completely
honest.

So it's my personal opinion, that the scheme is not an honest one.
Yes, it still has value as a health indicator. But no, don't
assume the SMART statistics for bad sectors, are necessarily linear
in nature. If the indicators were linear, most new disks would
end up showing reallocations (which in fact, is perfectly understandable).
They can't keep throwing away platters that have one tiny blemish, so
blemished products are going to leave the factory. I know, as I have
several of them here, right now :-( They can't sell them for $80 a drive,
if they throw away a large percentage of platters while "looking for a good one".

This is what the attributes looked like on my recently replaced hard drive.
This sequence happened over a couple of days, after the drive had been
running "100% healthy" for a year. The other mysterious part of this
drive, was the "Current Pending" SMART field, never showed one problem!
Normally, problem sectors "queue up" in Current Pending, to be processed.

Current Worst Threshold Data Status
Reallocated Sector Count 100 100 36 0 OK <--- for at least a year
Reallocated Sector Count 100 100 36 57 OK
Reallocated Sector Count 98 98 36 104 OK <--- replaced it.

That drive still works, but is pretty slow on write, down near the
end of the disk. I couldn't stand the putrid performance any more,
and I replaced it so I'd get some speed back. And really, looking
back on it, the drive showed signs from day one, of being "afflicted".
I could see the difference, when doing HDTune benchmark graphs.

Paul
 
RJK said:
snip

Reported Uncorrectable Errors 1 0000000007FB
snip
Click to expand...

Uncorrectable Errors are errors that could not be recovered using
hardware ECC. It's tripping on the uncorrectable error. The last time
I ran across this on a data drive (it had 3 uncorrectable errors), I
copied everything off it, did a long format of the drive, then copied
the data back onto it.
 
glee said:
Uncorrectable Errors are errors that could not be recovered using hardware
ECC. It's tripping on the uncorrectable error. The last time I ran
across this on a data drive (it had 3 uncorrectable errors), I copied
everything off it, did a long format of the drive, then copied the data
back onto it.
Click to expand...

Many thanks David, Paul, and Glee ....

Reported Uncorrectable Errors 1 0000000007FB

....that was right under my nose and I didn't spot it !!! ...thanks for
that.

9:09pm tonight SpinRite 6 finished thorough testing of all four hd's
(internal 320gb,160gb,500gb and external 500gb)
....Started that off on the 13th at 6:03 pm, I cheated on the last third of
ext.hd, change Spinrite to op. level 1 / read only, or I would have had to
wait until tommorow morning.

....all now seems fine :-)

regards, Richard
 
RJK said:
Many thanks David, Paul, and Glee ....

Reported Uncorrectable Errors 1 0000000007FB

...that was right under my nose and I didn't spot it !!! ...thanks for
that.

9:09pm tonight SpinRite 6 finished thorough testing of all four hd's
(internal 320gb,160gb,500gb and external 500gb)
...Started that off on the 13th at 6:03 pm, I cheated on the last third of
ext.hd, change Spinrite to op. level 1 / read only, or I would have had to
wait until tommorow morning.

...all now seems fine :-)

regards, Richard
Click to expand...



....moan...moan...moan
I thought I'd Spend some more time fussing over my hard disks !

The 500gb Seagate in ext. case (lurking behind main PC), has 67 reallocated
sectors ! ...so I don't like it anymore !
I downloaded Seatools for DOS *.iso | burnt it to CD, booted from it, and it
can see the 3 hard disks inside the system box but, it can't see the hd in
the ext. case - across an eSATA or USB lead, so it would have to be removed
and connected to a SATA port on the motherboard, :-)

SeaTools for Windows can only see the 320gb boot-drive ! ...and 3 or 4 empty
camera card slots + USB 2.0 port, in the 3 1/2" card reader bay !
....it can't even see the two other Seagate hd's that are connected to SATA
ports 2 and 3 ...or was that 4? ....on the motherboard !

I do have the IDE controller switched off in bios, and hd's are set up in
AHCI mode, (can't remember why), ...but, I do remember reading something in
the distant past shere, IDE has to be switched on in bios, (even if no hd's
are connected to IDE ports), for SMART data to be accessible, indeed,
Spinrite 6 can't get at the SMART data with IDE switched off in bios !
....but SpeedFan can ! :-)

I think I'll scan that Seagate 500gb in external enclosure with Spinrite 6
again, and if reallocated sectors, (currently 67), increases, I'll replace
it with a 1tb WD BLACK with a 5 year warranty :-)

regards, Richard
 
RJK said:
...moan...moan...moan
I thought I'd Spend some more time fussing over my hard disks !

The 500gb Seagate in ext. case (lurking behind main PC), has 67
reallocated sectors ! ...so I don't like it anymore !
I downloaded Seatools for DOS *.iso | burnt it to CD, booted from it,
and it can see the 3 hard disks inside the system box but, it can't
see the hd in the ext. case - across an eSATA or USB lead, so it would
have to be removed and connected to a SATA port on the motherboard,
:-)

SeaTools for Windows can only see the 320gb boot-drive ! ...and 3 or 4
empty camera card slots + USB 2.0 port, in the 3 1/2" card reader bay
!
...it can't even see the two other Seagate hd's that are connected to
SATA ports 2 and 3 ...or was that 4? ....on the motherboard !

I do have the IDE controller switched off in bios, and hd's are set up
in AHCI mode, (can't remember why), ...but, I do remember reading
something in the distant past shere, IDE has to be switched on in
bios, (even if no hd's are connected to IDE ports), for SMART data to
be accessible, indeed, Spinrite 6 can't get at the SMART data with IDE
switched off in bios !
...but SpeedFan can ! :-)

I think I'll scan that Seagate 500gb in external enclosure with
Spinrite 6 again, and if reallocated sectors, (currently 67),
increases, I'll replace it with a 1tb WD BLACK with a 5 year warranty
:-)
Click to expand...

No, the diagnostics don't work with USB drives, as David mentioned.
Also, SeaTools for Windows is flaky and I don't recommend using it. Use
SeaTools for DOS bootable ISO, or use the bootable Hitachi Drive Fitness
Tool (DFT) if it will recognize your drives.

If I had a drive with 67 reallocated sectors, it would have been
relegated to paperweight a long time ago.
 
If I had a drive with 67 reallocated sectors, it would have been relegated
to paperweight a long time ago.
Click to expand...

Many thanks,

I didn't realise that it had that many, I'm sure it didn't when I fitted it
approx. 1yr.+ ago,
have now swapped it out for a new drive, so now I'm happier :-)

I'll have to check on the health of my drives more often.

thanks,

regards, Richard
 
RJK said:
...sorry for double posting, meant to post here first.


...anyhow E:\ is only about two years old at the most and Speedfan's web
SMART report says:-
Click to expand...
Correction !!!

....anyhow F:\ (that's F:\ ...NOT E:\), is only about two years old at the
most and Speedfan's web
SMART report says:-
Your hard disk is a ST3500418AS with firmware CC49.
The average temperature for this hard disk model is 34°C (min=25°C
max=43°C)
and yours is 36°C.

Attribute Current Raw
Raw Read Error Rate 102 00000039299D
Spin Up Time 97 000000000000
Start/Stop Count 97 000000000FB5
Reallocated Sector Count 100 000000000000
Seek Error Rate 69 00000077C063
Power On Hours Count 98 0000000007BD
Spin Retry Count 100 000000000000
Power Cycle Count 99 00000000077C
SATA Downshift Error Count 100 000000000000
End To End Error Count 100 000000000000
Reported Uncorrectable Errors 1 0000000007FB
Command Time Out 100 00000000000E
High Fly Writes 100 000000000000
Hardware ECC Recovered 38 00000039299D
Current Pending Sector 100 000000000000
Offline Uncorrectable Sector Count 100 000000000000
Ultra DMA CRC Error Rate 200 000000000000
Write head 100 0EBC000019F2
Total LBAs Written 100 0000BABFC96C
Total LBAs Read 100 000052C5139B

All of the attributes of your hard disk (e:\) have normal values. This is
good.
The overall fitness for this drive is 100%.
The overall performance for this drive is 100%.

....FWIW I've never had problems with Ghost 14.0 imaging the above
mentioned 3 hd's across the past, getting on for two years,
....any idea what went bang on drive (NOT E:\), ...F:\ that chkdsk could
not fix, yet
Spinrite 6 was able to fix ?

....and should I be swapping out (NOT E:\ but, F:\ for a new disk, and
putting
aforementnioned (NOT E:\ ...but, .... F:\ under small sledge hammer ?
Click to expand...

....Phew, F:\ is the hd in external hd enclosure, sat behind PC that has
drives c:\, d:\ and e:\ in it , (320gb,160gb & 500gb drive e:\) :-)
 
J. P. Gilliver (John) said:
In message <[email protected]>, RJK

I wondered if you knew you had that many blank lines on the end of
your post; I wouldn't normally mention it, but I thought something had
gone wrong at my end (I use space to move down a post and to move on
to the next post, and I thought the next post was showing blank).
Click to expand...

I see the same thing, J.P.. It must be RJK's reply setup.
 
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