SMART tripped.... HD failing...

Judas

So i've been having a strange intermitent issues with this customers computer... never had the problem before.. but i've tried so many solutions only to find out a week down the road the problem would presist to show up again..

Nothing pointed to the HD, i even ran thorough disk tools for hours on end to see if i could get anything to pop up.


The occurance was a discussion i started (thread) not to long ago about vista+x64+avg = slow as freaking molasses.

Well apparently AVG did cause it to slow down considerably, but it occasionally still slowed down or oventually never loaded vista (green bars continueously loading)....

Anyways, what happened yesterday as i was building the user a new computer to replace it completely, they phoned to inform me that the old machine now gives them a "Backup emediately, iminent hardrive failure"... course i wasn't really sure over the phone if this was malware or what. Either way i hadn't heard of it ever before.


Heres the kicker, usually every single motherboard i get, and even prebuilds NEVER have SMART enabled... I however always turn this feature on and vista apparently makes FULL use of this feature, when he brought the computer in today for me to do a quick swap, i fired up the old machine and was greeted with the bios screen stating that smart has been tripped, replace hardrive, and with the option to resume to windows, when in windows vista, vista emediately brings up a backup and warning message bout SMART being tripped and information pertaining to it. As well as being advised to backup crucial information (which is offers to walk you through a very simple backup proceedure) and then to call your computer manufacturer.

all i can say is NICE..... as i've never seen this in occur in xp... ever....

anyways, proceeding to the seatools, short test emediately fails all the time, running a long to test.... may try a low level format to see if i can bring the drive back to life.. but i'm thinking the drive may as well go RMAing..

Poor drive, Seagate 7200.10 320gb......

1 out of 15 hardrives to fail isn't to bad....

[hobo]eclipse

cool to know, i've been turning on the SMART function the last year or so and periodically check it through 3rd part program,(was it everest?) good to know vista will automatically check it for you and let you know if there is trouble. See, Vista's overhead goes to good use!

Judas

yup... very interesting...

this is with a motherboard that doesn't use a true SATA mode..

at least not really..

ICH9 (not r)... with IDE Enchanced SATA mode...

[hobo]eclipse

so is this something that is always available (on) as soon as a sata drive is connected to the system?

PangingJr

unless you don’t have spare drives?
i would not waste time with that drive, send it back to Seagate's and let they fix it or something.

Judas

Yeah, i'm trying my options here..... i'm seeing what i can do myself just for kicker... that way they can't say "wtf... did you try this?"

anywho... it found 1 single bad sector on the long test.. and repaired it says... BUT smart is still tripped and it emediate fails on the short tests every time....

either way... yes i'm RMAING it....

PangingJr

that way they can't say "wtf... did you try this?"

well you can tell them back. i don't have to try that. i know the drive was bad.

Judas

what better way to complete the work day today then to waist a few minutes "trying"

PangingJr

just played with you. but fact is that this is a hard drive, Judas. when you are not sure replace it.

BlueMak

This is so cool. I always thought that SMART was a myth.

PangingJr

and before you see this real example you think it's a myth.
have you ever received a SMART warning? probably not.
as long as i can remember, that's never actually happened to me either, but the BIOS feature is usually off by default.
i never thought that SMART technology is a myth, but i also never thought it would be good enough to rely on SMART warning alone,
if you don't already have a backup created or no spare drives, and when a drive can no longer fix itself, it’s almost or already too late.
whether ever possible that i get a false detection, i try another drive, but try to fix the bad one so it can be trust again, no, so long as i have spare drives, and the drive's still warranty, it simply has to go back.

SMART tripped.... HD failing... = HD failing... SMART tripped.

Judas

Well aftering running through a considerably large number of different tools just to see what i could find..

it consistantly passes the long test, still failed emediately on the short test....

Even did a low lvl format which took ages.... lol.



Either way, i can't reset smart, the maximum temperature hit by the hardrive was 46.. which is well within it's operating temperatures...

A full detailed discription of the problem (which isn't much)... states the drive's Smart information says something is definitely not right with the drive lol... (wow)

Anyways, i'm packing it up and getting it boxed up for a lengthy trip through RMA world.

H3X4D3C1M4L

Myth confirmed in this case

Usually I find that the majority of failures SMART didn't trip (and I usually turn it on), because it was just single bad sectors or small amounts of them (alot has to go wrong for SMART to trip and I don't ever wait for tons of stuff to go wrong )

Judas

Well in this case...... there was 1 bad sector on the drive...


that was it.... and it tripped..

i think SMART's implementation on the drive itself may be a major factor