Diagnosing possible early stage drive failure

[Valantar]

My HTPC/NAS has been acting up a bit lately. The main issue is "simple": from time to time, Windows Explorer fails to show the drives installed, just keeps showing an empty "This PC" page with the green progress bar sloooooowly creeping forward yet never actually finishing. When this happens, nothing but a reboot helps, but a reboot always fixes it. Sometimes the error returns on the same day, sometimes it stays away for a week. I can't think of anything causing this except a drive acting in a way it shouldn't, but feel free to let me know if you have any ideas.

The PC has four drives: a 120GB Samsung 850 Evo boot drive (barely used, still at 99% health according to Magician), a 4TB WD Red for video storage (heavily used, lots of concurrent downloads, but also a large semi-static library) and two more 4TB Reds in a mirrored Storage Space for backups of photos, music, documents, and whatever else is important. These are rarely used, but mainly see large transfers when backing up data, or some light reads when looking up a photo or something similar. Most of the time they're idle. The media drive is a bit over three years old, while the two backup drives are two years old. SMART data for all three:


From what I can tell, all three look perfectly fine. I've run HDTune and WD's diagnosis tool (the quick test, not the multi-hour one, as that's not really feasible on a PC that's in use as much as this). One of the drives seems to make a minor noise (I won't call it a rattle, but a rhythmic, low-pitched and barely audible "tsh-tsh-tsh" (imperfectly balanced platters, maybe?)), but I've yet to narrow down which drive that is. They should all be well within their rated life spans, have plenty of ventilation (as seen in the screenshots above), and two out of three are lightly used.

So: does anyone have any idea what might be causing this? Any tips for better diagnostic tools, or other tests I should run? It's worth noting that this PC has always been a bit ... well, weird - it's never been able to finish a PCMark run without crashing the program (no idea why!), and running MemTest86+ always freezes within the first 10 minutes, but with no errors reported. It also never manages to restore the HDMI signal after going to sleep. I don't think this motherboard is ASRock's best effort, frankly. But the PC is 100% stable for its use, I haven't seen a program crash or BSOD ... ever, really, IIRC. So I'm reluctant to blame the PC.

Thanks in advance.

 

[Gorstak]

which psu is installed on that machine?

 

[Solaris17]

Its not impossible for a drive to suffer controller malfunctions and still show good SMART data. However with the rest of your machines oddities its honestly a bit of an overwhelming task to troubleshoot, you just have too much wrong.

Seeing as drive prices for high density drives arent exactly on the cheap side, it might be cheaper to play cat and mouse replacing ram or a mobo to try and stabilize the system itself first.

 

[Valantar]

Its not impossible for a drive to suffer controller malfunctions and still show good SMART data. However with the rest of your machines oddities its honestly a bit of an overwhelming task to troubleshoot, you just have too much wrong.

Seeing as drive prices for high density drives arent exactly on the cheap side, it might be cheaper to play cat and mouse replacing ram or a mobo to try and stabilize the system itself first.

I have a spare RAM kit lying around, so I suppose I could try that out. It's worth mentioning that the Memtest crashes (and all the other weirdness, save this latest development) have persisted across a RAM replacement, so I doubt it's related to the RAM itself. Replacing the motherboard or CPU isn't an option, as ITX FM2+ boards aren't exactly easy to come by these days. I have a plan to upgrade/split the HTPC part into a new build later this year, but don't have the money for that at the moment. As for replacement drives, I already ordered and received (and shucked) a 6TB Seagate Desktop Hub (got a retail-grade Barracuda out of it, not even a white label OEM drive in there, so pretty happy about that) - the media drive has been close to running out of space for a while, so it was worth it, and I only paid around $140 for it including 25% VAT (buying a 3.5" drive outright would have cost more than $200 for the same capacity, so shucking external drives is brilliant). For now, I'm looking to triple-check that I'm right in replacing the media drive and that one of the backup drives won't suddenly fail on me. Of course, everything important is also backed up online in addition to mirrored drives, but I'd still like to be on the safe side.

which psu is installed on that machine?

It's a Silverstone SX500-LG.

 

[taz420nj]

Which version of Memtest are you using? There are two. v5.01 from memtest.org is over 5 years old and does have an unaddressed known bug that causes it to freeze on multicore systems. v8.0 from memtest86.org is the one still being actively developed by Passmark. That's the one you should be using. When you say Memtest crashes, does it lock up or does it hard crash and reboot? Have you happened to notice if it crashes in the same percentage/test/pattern/range? I'm honestly not seeing anything in your symptoms that screams 'memory problem'. If you had something up with the RAM or the chipset you'd be getting BSODs. The not recovering from sleep could be a faulty video driver. Check for an updated driver, uninstall the current one and install the new one.

For the My Computer issue, give this a shot..

Various discussions I found on the web suggest that the problem is caused by some link library that might not be registered. The following method should fix this:
1. Reboot into Safe Mode
2. Log on as Administrator.
3. Click Start.
4. Type the three letters cmd into the Search box.
5. Press Ctrl+Shift+Enter
6. Start the process as Administrator.
6. Very carefully type this command:
for %a in (c:\Windows\System32\*.dll) do regsvr32.exe /s "%a"
7. Press the Enter key

 

[Athlonite]

sometimes the empty my pc is caused by a drive failing to wake try turning off the turn off HDD's after x time in your windows power scheme

 

[eidairaman1]

My HTPC/NAS has been acting up a bit lately. The main issue is "simple": from time to time, Windows Explorer fails to show the drives installed, just keeps showing an empty "This PC" page with the green progress bar sloooooowly creeping forward yet never actually finishing. When this happens, nothing but a reboot helps, but a reboot always fixes it. Sometimes the error returns on the same day, sometimes it stays away for a week. I can't think of anything causing this except a drive acting in a way it shouldn't, but feel free to let me know if you have any ideas.

The PC has four drives: a 120GB Samsung 850 Evo boot drive (barely used, still at 99% health according to Magician), a 4TB WD Red for video storage (heavily used, lots of concurrent downloads, but also a large semi-static library) and two more 4TB Reds in a mirrored Storage Space for backups of photos, music, documents, and whatever else is important. These are rarely used, but mainly see large transfers when backing up data, or some light reads when looking up a photo or something similar. Most of the time they're idle. The media drive is a bit over three years old, while the two backup drives are two years old. SMART data for all three:

View attachment 112601View attachment 112602View attachment 112603
From what I can tell, all three look perfectly fine. I've run HDTune and WD's diagnosis tool (the quick test, not the multi-hour one, as that's not really feasible on a PC that's in use as much as this). One of the drives seems to make a minor noise (I won't call it a rattle, but a rhythmic, low-pitched and barely audible "tsh-tsh-tsh" (imperfectly balanced platters, maybe?)), but I've yet to narrow down which drive that is. They should all be well within their rated life spans, have plenty of ventilation (as seen in the screenshots above), and two out of three are lightly used.

So: does anyone have any idea what might be causing this? Any tips for better diagnostic tools, or other tests I should run? It's worth noting that this PC has always been a bit ... well, weird - it's never been able to finish a PCMark run without crashing the program (no idea why!), and running MemTest86+ always freezes within the first 10 minutes, but with no errors reported. It also never manages to restore the HDMI signal after going to sleep. I don't think this motherboard is ASRock's best effort, frankly. But the PC is 100% stable for its use, I haven't seen a program crash or BSOD ... ever, really, IIRC. So I'm reluctant to blame the PC.

Thanks in advance.

Is the Bios on the 850EVO updated?

 

[steen]

Which chipset? Are you running Intel RST drivers? Check with Crystaldiskinfo if APM is enabled. If it is, either disable or set to C0h. WD Red shouldn't be affected, but worth checking anyway.

 

[micropage7]

How it sounds? Clicking or something not normal? Too hot or too cold
Some are sign that drive gonna wear out

 

[Valantar]

Whoa, that's what I get for not checking the forums over Christmas, I guess. Let's see.

First off, I replaced the media drive (better safe than sorry, and I had already bought and shucked the replacement drive, so I figured why not - worst case scenario I'll add the 4TB it replaced to my backup Storage Space. It passed the extended test in WD's utility, so I'm leaning towards it being okay). This seemed to fix things, but unfortunately the error occurred once since. Seems to be an on-and-off type of thing. Not that rebooting is that annoying, but it would obviously be best for this not to happen.

Which version of Memtest are you using? There are two. v5.01 from memtest.org is over 5 years old and does have an unaddressed known bug that causes it to freeze on multicore systems. v8.0 from memtest86.org is the one still being actively developed by Passmark. That's the one you should be using. When you say Memtest crashes, does it lock up or does it hard crash and reboot? Have you happened to notice if it crashes in the same percentage/test/pattern/range? I'm honestly not seeing anything in your symptoms that screams 'memory problem'. If you had something up with the RAM or the chipset you'd be getting BSODs. The not recovering from sleep could be a faulty video driver. Check for an updated driver, uninstall the current one and install the new one.

For the My Computer issue, give this a shot..

That is the Memtest version I'm using, mostly because it's compatible with YUMI and thus fits on my "One USB Drive to Rule Them All" troubleshooting drive. I'll see if I can find a spare thumb drive to put a more up-to-date version on. It doesn't "crash" per se, it just stops working, with the CPU work indicators stopping and no test patterns running but other stuff still seeming to indicate that the program is "running". I have to hard reboot out of it, though, as it's entirely unresponsive at that point.

The HDMI not recovering from sleep is (IIRC) some sort of motherboard bug with a chip in the iGPU-HDMI port link having faulty firmware, and (again, IIRC) not initializing properly when the motherboard wakes up. From reading online a while ago it seems this occurred across a few ASRock motherboards at the time. Not a big deal, really, as the PC otherwise is entirely fine running 24/7, and barely consumes power at idle. It needs to stay awake to be usable as a NAS anyhow, so this really isn't a problem I'm really involved in solving.

As for the Regsvr32 fix, can I just ask why/how this might work? Not that I don't believe you, I'm just interested in what the error might be.

How it sounds? Clicking or something not normal? Too hot or too cold
Some are sign that drive gonna wear out

I mentioned a noise in the initial post, but I've narrowed that down to the PSU fan - it's likely ever so slightly unbalanced. None of the drives are more noisy than expected, and all run in perfectly normal temperature ranges.

Which chipset? Are you running Intel RST drivers? Check with Crystaldiskinfo if APM is enabled. If it is, either disable or set to C0h. WD Red shouldn't be affected, but worth checking anyway.

It's an AMD A88-based board, so no RST obviously. Drivers are up to date.

Is the Bios on the 850EVO updated?

Yep. Magician keeps it current.

sometimes the empty my pc is caused by a drive failing to wake try turning off the turn off HDD's after x time in your windows power scheme

Until I started looking into this issue, this was already disabled, so that's not the case. I enabled it (frankly don't know why it was disabled) as it doesn't exactly sound sensible to keep my backup drives running 24/7.

 

[taz420nj]

As for the Regsvr32 fix, can I just ask why/how this might work? Not that I don't believe you, I'm just interested in what the error might be.

It's not my fix, I've never had that happen other than once in a dark blue harvest supermoon eclipse lol. It was just something I found while googling around for a solution for you. The first lines of the quote were also copied from the page I got it from, apparently it has to do with a couple dll's coming unregistered. I had come across a few recommendations linking to that solution so I figured it was worth sharing.

 

[Wavetrex]

I don't think there's any problem with the drives.
SMART doesn't lie, as it's handled directly on the drive itself (internally by the harddisk controller firmware), and that data is stored on a tiny flash memory area in the controller itself. It cannot be "cheated".

Most likely something fishy with the computer itself, or ... it could be just a cable or cables.
I had a somewhat similar issue with a home-made NAS/Server where two of the drives would just "vanish" with no reason. Turns out I used some old crappy SATA cables which had to be thrown away to the garbage a long time ago. After replacing them... I added another 20000 hours on those drives, and still running today with over 35000 hours of operation.

It might help to disconnect everything, clean the computer thoroughly and reconnect the stuff. Visually check all power and SATA cables for physical damage.

 

[Voluman]

You can check it with hdsentinel too, that can tell the story a bit more understandable, than those pure smart values. Check it regularly if any changes present.
But at first it looks okay by those pics.