WD50EFRX SMART Fix

[vomig]

Hello!
I've successfully recoveded a WD50EFRX that was reporting as zero-bytes to the OS and Bios.
I've tried several tools, among them the WDR Demo.
Now I can read the data, but I have erased by mistake all SMART data (all fields to zero)
I would want to insert some meaningful data there, since I have a screenshot of the SMART data of that same drive made a couple of months before it failed.
Is this possibile?
Thanks everyone!

[vomig]

Ehm.. someone please give me an hand?
Thanks!

[vomig]

Did I do something wrong?

[labtech]

I believe the community does not know of an easy way to accomplish that, therefore the lack of responses.
In theory, perhaps adding info into the SMART mod(s) could be done manually, but it would be more difficult.
The question is why would you want to do this?

[digisupport]

+1 The question is why would you want to do this?

[vomig]

Because I use SnapRAID on several arrays, and it has a disk failure prediction algorithm that actually saved me several times.
The failure prediction makes calculations based on SMART data, hence a disk with 0 errors, 0 uptime and so on will have 0% failure probability.

[labtech]

Great. Did the drive have any SMART attributes concerns with Pending or Reallocated Sectors?
>If not, then throw back in production and keep an eye on it. I believe the SMART attributes with continue to update on their own.
>It yes, then time to replace.

[Arch Stanton]

So IOW you're gonna use this drive as array member again?

[vomig]

Well, since it was just a Software error caused by an experiment I made, and the disk had no SMART errors, I trust it can work just fine..

[HaQue]

Well, since it was just a Software error caused by an experiment I made, and the disk had no SMART errors, I trust it can work just fine..

It is the first time you have said the disk had no smart errors beforehand. If you had mentioned that before I think this thread would have been shorter.

also, and I am no hard disk expert, but you say:

Because I use SnapRAID on several arrays, and it has a disk failure prediction algorithm that actually saved me several times.
The failure prediction makes calculations based on SMART data, hence a disk with 0 errors, 0 uptime and so on will have 0% failure probability.

This does not mean if you falsely set SMART data to 0 errors then it will have 0% failure probibility. it may SAY that, but it won't be true.

also, you say:

I have a screenshot of the SMART data of that same drive made a couple of months before it failed.

but then

Well, since it was just a Software error caused by an experiment I made, and the disk had no SMART errors, I trust it can work just fine.

so why do you trust it? why did it fail?

Seems to me you are putting the trust in the RAIDs ability to recover from a failed drive than this drive itself.

[vomig]

It is the first time you have said the disk had no smart errors beforehand. If you had mentioned that before I think this thread would have been shorter.

Sorry for not being clear enough, but my question was about how to restore SMART data.

This does not mean if you falsely set SMART data to 0 errors then it will have 0% failure probibility. it may SAY that, but it won't be true.

I understand that, and that's exactly the reason why I want the SMART failure algorithm to have proper data so that the calculations it makes are based on real data, and not on the re-set data the drive currently has.

so why do you trust it? why did it fail?

I think I answered this question several times, but again:
I was 'playing' with drive tools, and I made (a very noobish indeed) mistake of 'fixing' the wrong disk since I had it connected (both the good and the bad drives) to the same computer. After that, I painfully recovered the data on the 'good' disk, an now I'd want to re-use it fully in my array.
I trust it because it had no SMART errors (at least, It did not have any when last I checked the SMART data) and because as far as I can understand, my erasing of smart data in no way could harm the drive integrity.

Seems to me you are putting the trust in the RAIDs ability to recover from a failed drive than this drive itself.

I have not asked on suggestions on how to protect my data, not here anyway.
While I do appreciate your kind suggestion, but what I'm really looking for is for help in restoring SMART data into my drive.
Thanks for all the kind support

[labtech]

There are advanced tools allowing to could run a new SMART test and build the attributes with current test findings (e.g. PC3000).
HDDScan tool can run SMART tests - free.
WD Lifeguard seems to have SMART testing ability as well - seems free.

[vomig]

Hi
While PC3000 can find and mark bad sectors and discover reallocated sectord, I doubt it can set values such as Power On Hours, seek errors, maximum recorded temperature and so on..

[labtech]

Hi
While PC3000 can find and mark bad sectors and discover reallocated sectord, I doubt it can set values such as Power On Hours, seek errors, maximum recorded temperature and so on..

For your intended goal, those attributes would not be relevant, right? So, no need to worry about them.

[vomig]

On the countrary, these are the values the failure prediction is based on (along with seek errors, reallocated errors etc.)

[Arch Stanton]

But you had a list of RAW values right? Can you paste those?

[labtech]

On the countrary, these are the values the failure prediction is based on (along with seek errors, reallocated errors etc.)

The most important and fairly useful are the reallocated and current pending sector count.
But I am curious according to who or what study you created your perception that seek errors and number of hours are the attributes to rely on failure prediction.

[vomig]

@labtech: I don't understand why you keep attacking me instead of providing useful informations on this thread.
But I'll partecipate in this sad game, if that keeps you happy:
I'm not the person behind the study of course: you can ask the developer of SnapRaid and SmartCTL.
I'm an humble user, but you can check the source code of failure prediction algorithms in their softwares here:
https://github.com/amadvance/snapraid
https://github.com/mirror/smartmontools

Now that you curiosity is satisfied,
Is someone willing to please try to stay on topic and try to (kindly, please) answer the original question, ie: "Is there a way to restore SMART data on a Seagate drive"?

Thanks everyone

[Arch Stanton]

It appears you feel easily 'attacked'.

People asking questions as to the whys isn't that weird I think because what you intend to do is questionable in more than one way IMHO. One question would be about your intentions and the other how useful is what you want to accomplish anyway.

What the author of smartmon thinks are important attributes for failure prediction, is just one opinion. I don't have time to go through the source code but I wonder if smartmon even tries to come up with it's own guess rather than just go with the manufacturer set thresholds and critical attributes to trigger an alarm. That's what most smart monitors do and that's what makes their use only mildly interesting. You can write a smart monitor without knowing much about hard disks and simply cry wolf as soon as a critical attribute threshold is exceeded.

What labtech probably means is some accessible data (not source code) like the Blackblaze data and Google data offering some larger scale statistics to support the idea that seek error rates are important in predicting failures. I don't seen how this is an attack.

If what you want were easy and common you would probably have had an answer by now. And BTW, I haven't got the foggiest idea on how one would edit/add those values.

EDIT: Search http://www.hddoracle.com, probably the best chance of finding an answer.

[Arch Stanton]

If I search hddoracle I find stuff like:

"The SMART modules contain numerous sub-modules, each with its own additional checksum. I didn't know this when I wrote my patch tool. I suspect that in some cases the drive recalculates the additional checksum without complaining, so that't probably why my tool works for others but not for you." - fzabkar