Dying harddrives (can anyone read SMART values?)

[Reeves81x]

the real question is why are you having so many HDD issues with 5000 hours or less... that being said this drive has been giving me warnings since 30,000 hours or so, still works just fine now at 64,000

heres a seagate with 30,000

 

[lexluthermiester]

How do I gauge drive health? HDD scan's SMART info, or one of their tests (short vs extended)?

A combination of them. Watching drive sector performance is an important factor in this. See below;

The graph shows a sector by sector scan and reports the performance of each. The drive in this test and an old 320GB drive in a USB3 enclosure. Accounting for a slight latency from the USB bus, the drive is in good health. As you can see some of the sectors are dipping into the < 50ms range. If your drive starts to show a lot of < 500ms or > 500 ms sectors, it's time to replace the drive. However, if you have a few cautions in the SMART info list but the drive is performing as expected, the drive is fine and is just aging a bit. This is to be expected. This scan will still work on drives that don't have the SMART functionality.
Scan all three of your drives and you'll have a good idea what the actual health of your drives are.

I also downloaded HD Sentinel. It says my Seagate 500GB (with 56 uncorrectable sectors) is at 26% and has a bit over 100 days left...

I wouldn't take that seriously at all. 26% is not severe for older drives. There is no "magic" to technology and there is no way for a software utility to pinpoint a failure date so accurately.

 

[Jetster]

How do I gauge drive health? HDD scan's SMART info, or one of their tests (short vs extended)?

I also downloaded HD Sentinel. It says my Seagate 500GB (with 56 uncorrectable sectors) is at 26% and has a bit over 100 days left...

If it gets a fail on the manufactures test, short test (seatools) then its bad the drive is done

the real question is why are you having so many HDD issues with 5000 hours or less... that being said this drive has been giving me warnings since 30,000 hours or so, still works just fine now at 64,000


View attachment 104030
heres a seagate with 30,000

View attachment 104031

Its still working cus there is nothing wrong with it. Crystal Disk will give faults positives for yellow. Use Seatools on Seagate and WD software on WD drives. 64,000 hrs is allot for a consumer drive

 

[Ahhzz]

How do I gauge drive health? HDD scan's SMART info, or one of their tests (short vs extended)?

I also downloaded HD Sentinel. It says my Seagate 500GB (with 56 uncorrectable sectors) is at 26% and has a bit over 100 days left...

Yeah, those reallocated sectors are a bad thing. Even a few of those indicate that there's a problem with the drive. I've had drives run for a good while with bad sectors, but it's kind of like a noise in the engine compartment. It could be a loose fan cowling, and run for years, no fuss. Could be a loose fan belt, cause an issue within several months. Could be valve rattle, and the whole thing is shot, start shopping. Whatever the case, means you've a problem.
I've not held HD Sentinel to the fire, to see if one dies on the estimated date, but I'd take it serious and replace that drive. Get your data off ASAP, and use the next month or two to find the best deal you can afford.

 

[seagate_surfer]

Bluescreendeath, Seatools sometimes runs into the drive failing on short tests, and other times it passes. This makes sense if there's sectors the drive can't correct, because short test chooses some sectors at random, so it's probably picking up the bad sectors sometimes but not others. Finish the long test. If there's bad sectors on the drive, then long generic will pick it up for sure because it tests every sector on the drive. Based on that result would be indicative of whether you need to think about replacing the drive / RMA if it is in warranty.

 

[kimitza]

There is a small tool, HDD Regenerator, I use all the time. About 4 years ago a coleague came with a laptop.I scanned the HDD and it had over 500 bad sectors on it. I regenerated it, and he still uses the same HDD on that laptop. It took about 48hrs to regenerate all sectors, but it was worthed for him, as he had all the family pictures stored on that drive. Of course he made a backup on an external driver, but still. Since then, i always use this tool.

 

[Bluescreendeath]

the real question is why are you having so many HDD issues with 5000 hours or less... that being said this drive has been giving me warnings since 30,000 hours or so, still works just fine now at 64,000
View attachment 104030
heres a seagate with 30,000
View attachment 104031

Not sure. 1 is a Seagate SSHD, 1 is a thin Seagate, and 1 is Hitachi. They were all in laptops. So either they got hot or just bad luck.

Was the #2 pic meant to be the other yellow caution HDD?

Bluescreendeath, Seatools sometimes runs into the drive failing on short tests, and other times it passes. This makes sense if there's sectors the drive can't correct, because short test chooses some sectors at random, so it's probably picking up the bad sectors sometimes but not others. Finish the long test. If there's bad sectors on the drive, then long generic will pick it up for sure because it tests every sector on the drive. Based on that result would be indicative of whether you need to think about replacing the drive / RMA if it is in warranty.

I ran the SeaTools long test (took about 2 hrs) and it said the test failed. It didn't give me much details on why it failed or what can be done (logfile just says failed).

There is a small tool, HDD Regenerator, I use all the time. About 4 years ago a coleague came with a laptop.I scanned the HDD and it had over 500 bad sectors on it. I regenerated it, and he still uses the same HDD on that laptop. It took about 48hrs to regenerate all sectors, but it was worthed for him, as he had all the family pictures stored on that drive. Of course he made a backup on an external driver, but still. Since then, i always use this tool.

Is that significantly different from what SeaTools or what Windows Checkdisk does? Seatools tests and Checkdisk all says they try to correct errors.

 

[kimitza]

Try it once. Just once. Then you'll thank me . There is no danger to lose data or damage the hard drive. Also, remember the duration may vary due to drive size and system specs.

 

[Bluescreendeath]

Try it once. Just once. Then you'll thank me . There is no danger to lose data or damage the hard drive. Also, remember the duration may vary due to drive size and system specs.

The drives heat up to 50'C in my USB3 enclosure when running these disk scans/tests.

If it's going to take 48 hours to run this program you suggested, then 48 hours at 50'C might do more damage than it may fix if the program is not much better than SeaTools Longtest's repair test or Windows Checkdisk repair.

 

[seagate_surfer]

If the long test failed, then the drive needs replacing. You may check the warranty here. You may also run CHKDSK and see what happens.

 

[Bluescreendeath]

If the long test failed, then the drive needs replacing. You may check the warranty here. You may also run CHKDSK and see what happens.

These drives were in fairly recent business computers. The Seagate Warranty just says I need to contact the original retail seller of these OEM computers as they don't deal with OEMs harddrives I guess... The original seller is in a different state. I guess I am out of luck?

 

[seagate_surfer]

The drives heat up to 50'C in my USB3 enclosure when running these disk scans/tests.

If it's going to take 48 hours to run this program you suggested, then 48 hours at 50'C might do more damage than it may fix if the program is not much better than SeaTools Longtest's repair test or Windows Checkdisk repair.

Drives can reach those temps and should be fine. As this is a newer drive it can reach higher temps. See this link.

These drives were in fairly recent business computers. The Seagate Warranty just says I need to contact the original retail seller of these OEM computers as they don't deal with OEMs harddrives I guess... The original seller is in a different state. I guess I am out of luck?

OEM equipment is sold to different manufactures and the warranty is usually handled by the company that sold the computer and bought these products in bulk.

 

[kimitza]

The drives heat up to 50'C in my USB3 enclosure when running these disk scans/tests.

If it's going to take 48 hours to run this program you suggested, then 48 hours at 50'C might do more damage than it may fix if the program is not much better than SeaTools Longtest's repair test or Windows Checkdisk repair.

It took 48 hrs to do a full regeneration, including the healthy sectors. You have the option to do a pre/scan with/without repair. The usual method is to do a scan of bad sectors and repair them. But still will take some time, again, depending on drive size/data on it and the system specs.

 

[Bluescreendeath]

Thanks. Not sure if it's worth my time to keep an eye on something for 48 hours to save a 500GB disk, but I'll see...

Do I need to/is it better to wipe the drive first and start with a clean drive?

 

[kimitza]

Yeah, if you don't need the data on that drive, a scan on an empty one will go much faster. Will take about 1hr.

 

[Ahhzz]

There is a small tool, HDD Regenerator, I use all the time. About 4 years ago a coleague came with a laptop.I scanned the HDD and it had over 500 bad sectors on it. I regenerated it, and he still uses the same HDD on that laptop. It took about 48hrs to regenerate all sectors, but it was worthed for him, as he had all the family pictures stored on that drive. Of course he made a backup on an external driver, but still. Since then, i always use this tool.

Haven't used this in a while, since I bought a version waaaaaay back, but an excellent tool it was. Good catch

 

[Bluescreendeath]

Yeah, if you don't need the data on that drive, a scan on an empty one will go much faster. Will take about 1hr.

Looks like version 2011 costs $100, and the free version only regenerates 1 sector.

 

[eidairaman1]

Looks like version 2011 costs $100, and the free version only regenerates 1 sector.

Use dft and seatools.