Hard Drives and SMART

[Thomas K]

Ok, so I decided to start cycling through a series of hard drives that I had stacked in a drawer that I had gathered over time due to replacing.

Im wondering this.  When doing the Long SMART test, does it actually while doing the sectors, mark them invalid, or bad, so the operating system will leave them alone later?

If not, does PC-Doctor^(R) allow this with any utility in its functionality?  Has anyone been able to setup a external tool for this to run from PC-Doctor^(R) ?

Please be merciful, even tho I've worked broadly with computers over the years, something I never had much use for, or interest in was dealing with SMART data.. or the tools therein (I guess it happens when you get reliable drives over a long period)

[James_PCD]

Hello Thomas,

In short, the DOS stand alone product contains a SMART log viewer.  This utility allows you to view all of the data that SMART has logged for that particular drive.

1.  Boot into DOS
2.  Select your save file location
3.  Press R to run stand alone mode
4.  Select the SMART log viewer from the utility menu option.

I am uncertain if SMART actually marks the sectors and ignores them at a later date, as there are manufacturers that rely on these "flags" to be set so that they can create a SMART threshold for predicting failures.

[Thomas K]

I remember reading somewhere, Seagate's help pages?  That (SeaTools?) some tools for S.M.A.R.T. can, or are able to do what scandisk used to.  Basically lock down the bad sectors, essentially clearing the hard drive for general use again, at least until more bad sectors crop up, or you fill the drive.  I realize this is ussually a bad practice as a drive that is suddenly croping up with bad sectors SHOULD be replaced ASAP, however it would, at least in my mind, accessing recoverable data that much easier. 

I know in my experience, some hard drives, (recent ones) start to crash, or bog down a computer ONLY when its accessing certain sectors.  You could copy/rescue 500GB of data, but the moment you access 500.01GB of data, it bogs you down, until you get through it.  Or, you have to randomly try different folders etc to move data, hoping you dont come across one of those 'bad' sectors.

For example, I have, 2 seagate drives (SV35.5 series) that seem to be problematic on their best days.  Thankfully they are under warranty until 2016, but before they go back, there is at least 600GB of data that needs to be pulled from them.  Trial and error, with a production system, or even a test computer, can be trying and frustrating. 

On so many levels I wish there was a way to tell a OS to ignore the bad sectors when accessing the data, even if it means a file ends up corrupt, perhaps it could note what file, (I seem to remember the old scandisk did this) for further attempts, on a smaller scale later. (scandisk itself hasnt existed in Microsofts consumer products since Windows XP when it was removed).

I realize this isnt in the perview of PC-Doctors toolset at the moment, but I am sure many might find it useful.

Just some thoughts maybe the development team might want to perhaps consider?

Just an example of some of the data I've gotten on a recent drive, a WDC Drive..

PC-DOCTOR SMART ATTRIBUTES UTILITY LOG - 4.0.1868.12

  Model Number:    WDC WD3200BEVT-22ZCT0
  Revision Number: 11.01A11
  Serial Number:   WD-WXT0A49Y0171

  ID Attribute Name                  AT  TH  WV   Flags     Raw Data
  -- ------------------------------  --- --- ---  ------  ------------
  01 Read Error Rate                 200  51 200  FO----  0000000001C9
  03 Spinup Time                     186  21 186  FO----  00000000067A
  04 Start/Stop Count                 98   0  98  -O----  000000000BAF
  05 Reallocated Sector Count        125 140 125  FO----  000000000254
  07 Seek Error Rate                 197   0 194  -O----  000000000047
  09 Power-On Hours                   93   0  93  -O----  00000000166D
  0A Spinup Retry Count              100  51 100  FO----  000000000000
  0B Recalibration Retries           100   0 100  -O----  000000000000
  0C Power Cycle Count                98   0  98  -O----  000000000A41
  C0 Power Off Retract Count         200   0 200  -O----  000000000051
  C1 Load/Unload Cycle Count         141   0 141  -O----  00000002B69B
  C2 HDA Temperature                 115   0  95  -O----  000000000020
  C4 Reallocation Event Count        186   0 186  -O----  00000000000E
  C5 Current Pending Sector Count    200   0 200  -O----  000000000012
  C6 Uncorrectable Sector Count      100   0 253  ------  000000000000
  C7 UDMA CRC Error Count            200   0 200  -O----  000000000000
  C8 Write/Multi-Zone Error Rate     100  51 253  F-----  000000000000

  Heading                             Flag Bits
  --------------------------          --------------------------------
  ID - Attribute ID                   F - Pre-Failure Advisory Bit
  AT - Attribute Value                O - Online Data Collection Bit
  TH - Threshold Value                M - Performance Attribute Bit
  WV - Worst Attribute Value          E - Error Rate Attribute Bit
                                      C - Event Count Attribute Bit
                                      S - Self-Preserving Attribute Bit

 
SERVICE CENTER 7.9 4.0.1868.12 SYSTEM TEST LOG
================================================
System Board Name:  To Be Filled By O.E.M.
 
HDD-0:  WDC WD3200BEVT-22ZCT0 / 11.01A11
ODD-0:  HL-DT-STDVD-RAM GH22NP20 / 1.03

Testing Started    07/06/2012 11:58:59

HDD-0 Controller........................PASSED 

Testing Completed  07/06/2012 11:59:04

Testing Started    07/06/2012 11:59:14

HDD-0 Funnel Seek.......................PASSED 

Testing Completed  07/06/2012 12:04:23

Testing Started    07/06/2012 12:05:59

HDD-0 Random Seek.......................PASSED 

Testing Completed  07/06/2012 12:06:12

Testing Started    07/06/2012 12:06:28

HDD-0 Random Seek.......................PASSED 
HDD-0 Linear Verify.....................
  Read verify error occurred at sector 496793344.
  (Reason: Status: 51 / Error: 40)
  Read verify error occurred at sector 497234560.
  (Reason: Status: 51 / Error: 40)
  Read verify error occurred at sector 497235456.
  (Reason: Status: 51 / Error: 40)
  Read verify error occurred at sector 497237632.
  (Reason: Status: 51 / Error: 40)
  Model: WDC WD3200BEVT-22ZCT0 / SN: WD-WXT0A49Y0171 / Rev: 11.01A11
HDD-0 Linear Verify.....................FAILED  07/06/2012 14:34
HDD-0 Random Verify.....................PASSED 
HDD-0 SMART Status Check................
  Threshold(s) exceeded.
  Model: WDC WD3200BEVT-22ZCT0 / SN: WD-WXT0A49Y0171 / Rev: 11.01A11
HDD-0 SMART Status Check................FAILED  07/06/2012 14:34
HDD-0 SMART Self-Test Short.............
  Previous self-test failed - cause unknown.
  Model: WDC WD3200BEVT-22ZCT0 / SN: WD-WXT0A49Y0171 / Rev: 11.01A11
HDD-0 SMART Self-Test Short.............FAILED  07/06/2012 14:36
HDD-0 SMART Attribute Check.............
  The following Attributes(s) are approaching their Threshold value!
  Reallocated Sector Count (05)
  Threshold Index used: 1
  Model: WDC WD3200BEVT-22ZCT0 / SN: WD-WXT0A49Y0171 / Rev: 11.01A11
HDD-0 SMART Attribute Check.............FAILED  07/06/2012 14:36
HDD-0 SMART Conveyance Test.............
  Previous self-test failed - cause unknown.
  Model: WDC WD3200BEVT-22ZCT0 / SN: WD-WXT0A49Y0171 / Rev: 11.01A11
HDD-0 SMART Conveyance Test.............FAILED  07/06/2012 14:41
HDD-0 Inner/Outer Read Surface Scan.....
  DMA read error occurred at sector 606419909.
  (Reason: Status: 51 / Error: 40)
  DMA read error occurred at sector 606422204.
  (Reason: Status: 51 / Error: 40)
  DMA read error occurred at sector 606424618.
  (Reason: Status: 51 / Error: 40)
  DMA read error occurred at sector 606425383.
  (Reason: Status: 51 / Error: 40)
  Model: WDC WD3200BEVT-22ZCT0 / SN: WD-WXT0A49Y0171 / Rev: 11.01A11
HDD-0 Inner/Outer Read Surface Scan.....FAILED  07/06/2012 16:15
HDD-0 Read Surface Scan.................
  DMA read error occurred at sector 496793346.
  (Reason: Device Timeout)
  DMA read error occurred at sector 497234589.
  (Reason: Status: 51 / Error: 40)
  DMA read error occurred at sector 497235556.
  (Reason: Status: 51 / Error: 40)
  DMA read error occurred at sector 497237641.
  (Reason: Status: 51 / Error: 40)
  Model: WDC WD3200BEVT-22ZCT0 / SN: WD-WXT0A49Y0171 / Rev: 11.01A11
HDD-0 Read Surface Scan.................FAILED  07/06/2012 21:52
HDD-0 Spin Down/Spin Up Test............PASSED 

Testing Completed  07/06/2012 21:53:37


SERVICE CENTER 7.9 Copyr 2011 PC-Doctor, Inc. 21:57 7/6/2012