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 Post subject: Toshiba MK6459GSX & MK7559GSXP - What´s Up?
PostPosted: October 17th, 2012, 7:22 
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Joined: October 17th, 2012, 6:19
Posts: 5
Location: Brasil
G´day, fellas.

I have a Toshiba MK6459GSX (640Gb) and a MK7559GSXP (750Gb), and the two ones have strange symptoms.
They have random bad sectors, and in SMART, the reallocated sectors are the same number: 16376. Strange, does it?

When I try to erase with secure erase, to delete odd information on the G-List, The program always give me the information that the drive is freeze-locked.
Anything I do, it freeze-locks again. Volatile Settings?
I tried to restore DCO on HDAT, it says that it´s OK. Restored. Sometimes it says that "HDD Reject Command"
The Write Cache always go OFF, even if I change the command via HDAT.
Using Victoria, I tried to Erase delays via "Erase 256 Sect". It says that every sector is erased, but, when I try to erase again, The program shows that it have not erased.

Any Suggestions? I think it´s a firmware fault. I googled for a new FW, I found a pack from lenovo called "toshiba_hdd_firmware_update_v100", but no success at all. :cry:

Here´s a video I made: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zI5FKJFs ... playnext=4

Thnkx


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 Post subject: Re: Toshiba MK6459GSX & MK7559GSXP - What´s Up?
PostPosted: October 17th, 2012, 11:18 
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Joined: October 17th, 2012, 6:19
Posts: 5
Location: Brasil
UP! UP!


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 Post subject: Re: Toshiba MK6459GSX & MK7559GSXP - What´s Up?
PostPosted: October 17th, 2012, 11:40 
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Joined: May 6th, 2008, 22:53
Posts: 2138
Location: England
IMHO more info needed from you, in order for readers to better understand your story. Also, I assume that you do not need the data from these disks, since you tried to do a secure erase. (FYI I cannot view your video at the moment, as for a few days I'm using a 3G modem, with limited bandwidth, at a remote location - so I am using just the information you have written.)

What is common between these 2 drives, in the way you have been using them? Same PC? Same mains power supply? Same building? etc. etc.

vj_junk wrote:
They have random bad sectors

What do you mean exactly by "random"? Do you mean that sector X is sometimes bad (unreadable), and sometimes sector X is readable (without doing any writes between tests)? Or do you mean that unreadable sectors are distributed (seemingly) randomly across the whole disk? Or something else? Where is your actual evidence?

vj_junk wrote:
in SMART, the reallocated sectors are the same number: 16376.

Please supply full SMART data, including raw values, from both drives. Do you have any older SMART data from these drives? If so, then supply that also.

vj_junk wrote:
When I try to erase with secure erase, to delete odd information on the G-List

This statement is ambiguous, but you might misunderstand what a secure erase does. More (unambiguous) explanation is needed from you, about what you think a secure erase should do.

vj_junk wrote:
The program always give me the information that the drive is freeze-locked.

This is not necessarily a fault - this is done by a BIOS deliberately to stop malicious secure erase being done by malware! You need to research the ways to bypass this, if you really want to do a secure erase - several bypass techniques exist (e.g. see the readme for HDDerase for some examples). However IMHO secure erase is unlikely to solve your real (currently undiagnosed) problem.

Personally, I think you are trying too many unrelated commands, for no clear reason (that I can understand) and the results are confusing you - so that you guess there is a firmware fault. Based on your description and limited info, I see no evidence of a firmware fault, and in any case, you will not fix most firmware problems yourself. So please stop guessing at the cause, and do more diagnosis :) (if you accept the risks that you may cause more problems).

Please read this, to explain more about repairing firmware-related problems:
diy-what-the-big-deal-t12671.html


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 Post subject: Re: Toshiba MK6459GSX & MK7559GSXP - What´s Up?
PostPosted: October 17th, 2012, 12:07 
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Joined: October 17th, 2012, 6:19
Posts: 5
Location: Brasil
Vulcan wrote:
IMHO more info needed from you, in order for readers to better understand your story. Also, I assume that you do not need the data from these disks, since you tried to do a secure erase. (FYI I cannot view your video at the moment, as for a few days I'm using a 3G modem, with limited bandwidth, at a remote location - so I am using just the information you have written.)


What Kinda info u want? SMART? I´ll post it. In the video u can see what´s happening.

Vulcan wrote:
What is common between these 2 drives, in the way you have been using them? Same PC? Same mains power supply? Same building? etc. etc.


No. It´s not from a PC. It´s from Laptops. One is from a Dell Latitude D-520 (shown on video, 640Gb), and another from a Lenovo Y-430.

vj_junk wrote:
They have random bad sectors

Vulcan wrote:
What do you mean exactly by "random"? Do you mean that sector X is sometimes bad (unreadable), and sometimes sector X is readable (without doing any writes between tests)? Or do you mean that unreadable sectors are distributed (seemingly) randomly across the whole disk? Or something else? Where is your actual evidence?


Let´s see... The bads (nor the delays), appears in different areas of the Hd. Since I´ve LLF the drive, i noticed that some erased, and some appeared in other sectors, this is strange at all.

vj_junk wrote:
in SMART, the reallocated sectors are the same number: 16376.

Vulcan wrote:
Please supply full SMART data, including raw values, from both drives. Do you have any older SMART data from these drives? If so, then supply that also.


Ok.

Smart Data from MK755GSXP below (RAW, RAW OFFSET, VALUE, THRESHOLD, STATUS)

Read Error Rate,0,0,100,0,OK
Throughput Performance,0,0,100,0,OK
Spin-Up Time,2907,0,100,32,OK
Start/Stop Count,498,0,100,87,OK
Reallocated Sectors Count,16376,0,1,49,Fail
Seek Error Rate,0,0,100,77,OK
Seek Time Performance,0,0,100,32,OK
Power-On Hours (POH),812,0,98,32,OK
Spin Retry Count,0,0,109,47,OK
Power Cycle Count,489,0,100,0,OK
G-sense error rate,1526,0,100,15,OK
Power-off Retract Count,55,0,100,0,OK
Load/Unload Cycle Count,8020,0,100,0,OK
Temperature,219044380708,0,36,0,OK
Reallocation Event Count,1158,0,100,116,Degradation
Current Pending Sector Count,0,0,100,0,OK
Uncorrectable Sector Count,0,0,100,0,OK
UltraDMA CRC Error Count,0,0,200,0,OK
Disk Shift,8262,0,100,3,OK
Loaded Hours,563,0,99,0,OK
Load/Unload Retry Count,0,0,100,0,OK
Load Friction,0,0,100,0,OK
Load 'In'-time,349,0,100,0,OK
Head Flying Hours,0,0,100,0,OK

vj_junk wrote:
When I try to erase with secure erase, to delete odd information on the G-List

Vulcan wrote:
This statement is ambiguous, but you might misunderstand what a secure erase does. More (unambiguous) explanation is needed from you, about what you think a secure erase should do.


These SATA drives have a feature called Secure Erase, that erase all data in HDD. And these two have the Enhanced Secure Erase, that erase G-List (that contais the Sectors Previously Rellocated)

vj_junk wrote:
The program always give me the information that the drive is freeze-locked.

Vulcan wrote:
This is not necessarily a fault - this is done by a BIOS deliberately to stop malicious secure erase being done by malware! You need to research the ways to bypass this, if you really want to do a secure erase - several bypass techniques exist (e.g. see the readme for HDDerase for some examples). However IMHO secure erase is unlikely to solve your real (currently undiagnosed) problem.


No, The main problem is: The HDD prevents itself to make changes in it, any changes you want to do. Look, I´ve tried to enable Write Cache Off, HDAT or other does, but, when you INIT the drive, the settings go wrong. Hence the "Complete" or "HDD Reject command", used in DCO restore option.

Vulcan wrote:
Personally, I think you are trying too many unrelated commands, for no clear reason (that I can understand) and the results are confusing you - so that you guess there is a firmware fault. Based on your description and limited info, I see no evidence of a firmware fault, and in any case, you will not fix most firmware problems yourself. So please stop guessing at the cause, and do more diagnosis :) (if you accept the risks that you may cause more problems).


No, I´m trying commands related to the problem. Not confused. That´s a pertinent problem to 2 different drives, do you unnerstand? Like I said before, it´s like the HDD have activated the read-only feature to the firmware. But I can partition it and copy and erase files to it. That´s it.

Vulcan wrote:
Please read this, to explain more about repairing firmware-related problems:
diy-what-the-big-deal-t12671.html


Ok. I´ll read. Thanks.


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 Post subject: Re: Toshiba MK6459GSX & MK7559GSXP - What´s Up?
PostPosted: October 17th, 2012, 12:32 
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Joined: October 17th, 2012, 6:19
Posts: 5
Location: Brasil
Any Ideas to do a full reset in these drives? I know they go fine. But reaallly want to start. Any ideas?


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 Post subject: Re: Toshiba MK6459GSX & MK7559GSXP - What´s Up?
PostPosted: October 17th, 2012, 12:51 
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Joined: May 6th, 2008, 22:53
Posts: 2138
Location: England
Unfortunately I didn't understand some of your answers. If I have time later, I might try to ask them differently, to see if I can get the answers that I need. So just a brief reply for now, based on some parts of your recent reply that I mostly understand (I think):

vj_junk wrote:
Vulcan wrote:
What is common between these 2 drives, in the way you have been using them? Same PC? Same mains power supply? Same building? etc. etc.

No. It´s not from a PC. It´s from Laptops. One is from a Dell Latitude D-520 (shown on video, 640Gb), and another from a Lenovo Y-430.

So I ask again: What is common between them? Because I said "etc etc" at the end of my question, that means "please consider any other possibilites". Remember: I do not know you, your skills, your background, how you use these laptops or anything else. Please try to consider the intent of the question, and apply that to your situation, as there are many aspects to your situation that I cannot know from here :)

You have 2 drives, from 2 different laptops, behaving in a similar way. Therefore a common cause is possible (though not guaranteed). That is why I asked you to think about what is common between the use of these 2 drives (and therefore, in your case, these 2 laptops).

vj_junk wrote:
vj_junk wrote:
When I try to erase with secure erase, to delete odd information on the G-List

Vulcan wrote:
This statement is ambiguous, but you might misunderstand what a secure erase does. More (unambiguous) explanation is needed from you, about what you think a secure erase should do.

These SATA drives have a feature called Secure Erase, that erase all data in HDD. And these two have the Enhanced Secure Erase, that erase G-List (that contais the Sectors Previously Rellocated)

Yes, I know about Secure Erase :) However that does not erase the G-list itself (which is what you seemed to be saying earlier). Reallocated sectors (usually) stay as reallocated sectors afterwards. Your comment about using Secure Erase to "delete odd information on the G-List" is ambiguous - "odd information on the G-List" could mean different things to you and me.

vj_junk wrote:
That´s a pertinent problem to 2 different drives, do you unnerstand?

No. I find several of your comments confusing and without enough clear & unambiguous detail for me to be confident that I have understood them. However with your latest info, I understand the likely situation, but not the real cause.

vj_junk wrote:
Like I said before, it´s like the HDD have activated the read-only feature to the firmware.

Yes, that is normal and expected behaviour (not a firmware bug) with some drives e.g. when the G-list is full. Same thing (deliberately) happens with some SSDs, when they have no more spare blocks - they enter a read-only mode.

Since you mention that both drives have the same reallocated sector count, my guess is that this situation has occurred on both drives. However without more explanation from you about the history, I have no idea about why so many sectors have been reallocated and (likely) filled the G-list on both drives.

In case I don't have enough time to re-write my other questions, that may be all the help I can give. I expect the answer about the cause, is in the history...


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 Post subject: Re: Toshiba MK6459GSX & MK7559GSXP - What´s Up?
PostPosted: October 17th, 2012, 14:02 
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Joined: October 17th, 2012, 6:19
Posts: 5
Location: Brasil
I am really sorry if u don´t understand what is posted here. You said I´m confused. That´s strange, but i´ve posted exactly u asked by quotes.

Anyway,

1. What kind of info about the drives do you want? Specs? Technical? List of problems (I think I´ve posted this before)
2. About the Secure Erase. Couple of days ago, I´ve tested with a "baddy" HITACHI HDP725050GLA360 (3,5" - 500Gb). I´ve used HDAT, restored all Bad Sectors, then SecureErased, LLF, and worked fine. In Smart, it Appears 100% (look the "reallocated sectors" now, the situation before this I think there was 120 reallocations more or less)

HITACHI HDP725050GLA360 SMART Data below (RAW, RAW OFFSET, VALUE, THRESHOLD, STATUS):

Read Error Rate,0,0,100,16,OK
Throughput Performance,138,0,133,54,OK
Spin-Up Time,25790710055,0,125,24,OK
Start/Stop Count,2692,0,100,0,OK
Reallocated Sectors Count,0,0,100,5,OK
Seek Error Rate,0,0,100,67,OK
Seek Time Performance,29,0,131,20,OK
Power-On Hours (POH),11954,0,99,0,OK
Spin Retry Count,0,0,100,60,OK
Power Cycle Count,2193,0,100,0,OK
Power-off Retract Count,2750,0,98,0,OK
Load/Unload Cycle Count,2750,0,98,0,OK
Temperature,249109545006,0,46,0,OK
Reallocation Event Count,0,0,100,0,OK
Current Pending Sector Count,0,0,100,0,OK
Uncorrectable Sector Count,0,0,100,0,OK
UltraDMA CRC Error Count,0,0,200,0,OK

3. Again, about the bad sectors reallocated. Since I´ve corrected the baddies (not the delays, that I cannot do), the reallocated count will decrease, doesn´t it?

Look at this statement:

Secure erase is a positive easy-to-use data destroy command, amounting to “electronic
data shredding.” Executing the command causes a drive to internally completely erase all
possible user data record areas by overwriting, including g-list records that could contain
readable data in reallocated disk sectors (sectors that the drive no longer uses because
they have hard errors).
- Gordon Hughes, UCSD CMRR (http://cmrr.ucsd.edu/people/Hughes/Data ... torial.pdf)

If you could help me, many thanks. But give a chance to look at the video I´ve posted. Thanks.


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 Post subject: Re: Toshiba MK6459GSX & MK7559GSXP - What´s Up?
PostPosted: October 17th, 2012, 20:08 
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Joined: May 6th, 2008, 22:53
Posts: 2138
Location: England
I don't have much time, so this is just a brief reply:

vj_junk wrote:
But give a chance to look at the video I´ve posted. Thanks.

As I explained before, I cannot do that (yet).

vj_junk wrote:
i´ve posted exactly u asked by quotes.

Yes, you quoted what I had asked, but you did not answer some of the important questions (especially the common factors question), and I did not understand many of your other replies clearly e.g. you used the term "freeze-locked", which sounds like a particular ATA word "frozen" and that has a specific meaning - but now it seems you actually meant "read-only" instead. That is just one example of why I still find this thread very confusing and difficult to understand what you really mean. :(

So I have tried to understand you in enough detail to be able to help, in the limited time that I have available, but I failed. :( No-one is perfect. Perhaps another member understands you better than I do and then you might get more replies. Good luck!


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 Post subject: Re: Toshiba MK6459GSX & MK7559GSXP - What´s Up?
PostPosted: October 17th, 2012, 22:55 
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Joined: March 6th, 2011, 23:32
Posts: 260
Location: TN
The drive is bad/failing the smart and other tests confirm so replace it and bin the bad drive. I don't understand why people attempt to "refurbish" these things its not worth the risk in my opinion others may not share the same but that's my response for what its worth to you.


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 Post subject: Re: Toshiba MK6459GSX & MK7559GSXP - What´s Up?
PostPosted: October 18th, 2012, 3:47 
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Joined: September 30th, 2005, 7:33
Posts: 849
Toshiba drives feature very small G-list and P-list as well.
Both your drives have their G-list full. That's why the number of reallocated sectors is the same . "Erase delays" cannot help because realocation of bad sectors is impossible.
Write cache is always disabled when SMART is bad.

You can do nothing to repair the drives without a special software .


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 Post subject: Re: Toshiba MK6459GSX & MK7559GSXP - What´s Up?
PostPosted: October 18th, 2012, 7:20 
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Joined: May 6th, 2008, 22:53
Posts: 2138
Location: England
BGman wrote:
Both your drives have their G-list full. That's why the number of reallocated sectors is the same

Thanks for confirming my hypothesis on that.

If they were my drives, I'd want to analyse the history further, to see if there was potentially a common cause for the drives in 2 different laptops to have ended up in this situation, in order to reduce the chances of this happening again - but I can't seem to communicate that with the OP (or he doesn't care about the cause, or knows it already?)).

Again, customers may not give you enough background info either, but have you noticed any "typical" reasons for Toshiba drives to end up like this? Thanks.


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