hi,

after a psu power failure my hd reports SMART attribute -> "Reallocated Sector Count" -> sky high.

my hd is WD800JB-00FMA0

i searched the forum and the web, red a gazillion pages, tried every software out there ( exept PC3000, HTR )

i tried latest WD DataLifeguard, HDD Regenerator, SalvageDATA Sector Repair, HDD Repairer, THDD, MHDD32, Victoria, Secure Erase, and a few more i found here and there, none can fix this.

what software can access the system area that is on the negative sector of the hd and wipe clean the DAMN GLIST ?

thank you.

BUY the complex hw and sw. P.s. One head is failing. Backup and replace.

P.p.s. After Hdd refrig...regenerator, it is a miracle the drive is still recognisable...

Why woupd you want to wipe the glist? This will simply fill your disk with unmapped defects?

BlackST is right, time to backup and replace....

well, from my experiance thus far ( and let me tall ya, i gained a lot )

every surface scan i do (with meny different softwares ) comes clean and the hd has no bad sectors what so ever.

so it seems there are two scenerios :

1. the softwares i tried have full access to the entire hd surface, there are really no bad sectors on the hd and the
SMART attribute is a bogus one because of the power failure

2. the softwares access the sectors that are registerd as GOOD ( remapped sectors in GLIST ) and by doing so,thay
not really access the bad sectors. that is why every surface scan come clean.

clearing the GLIST will prevent bogus notification in case 1 or will grant access to the bad sectors in case 2 which i can try to fix and if thay are really bad, fine, at list i tried.

You have to hire someone in the parallel universe (that is the other version of the serial universe ?) to explain how SMART and error list work.

And no, it's not BOGUS notification. It's REAL notification of imminent damage if a value goes high that way. The more you poke (stress) the drive, the faster it will... crash. Next step : drive recognised as factory alias and no longer utilizable.
It is possible to analyze and recertify your drive, of course, but you won't spend a dime on it obviously (80 GB used drive ? 10 $). Enough said.

This is incorrect. These softwares do not have full access to the drive surface. They see what the drive's controller wants them to see: a nice, continuous, defect-free surface. The drive does all the remapping of sectors behind the scenes. MHDD and Victoria are about as good as you're going to get for surface analysis, because they are reading every sector and timing how long it takes, which is a pretty good indication in many cases of an impending failure.



Correct.




Like BlackST said, it's not an erroneous notification. Your drive more than likely does have that many bad sectors.

Here's what will happen if you reset the glist contents:
- You will write data to your hard disk.
- Some will be written to questionable areas of the disk.
- Some of those sectors will immediately be remapped, so no harm will be done.
- Information written to areas that are questionable, but not so bad, will work at first, then more and more of them will start to fail or produce incorrect reads.
- Your data is corrupted.
- The bad sectors are once again added to the glist, but too late to save you from a major headache that could have been avoided if you took a failing drive and threw it in the garbage, rather than trying to "fix" it and put it back into service.

You can't fix bad sectors, you can only hide them. When a drive starts to get that many bad sectors, it's the symptom of a problem, as in your drive has a problem. It won't go away, and it can't be fixed with effort and/or money in a justifiable amount toward the continued use of your hard disk. Just throw it in the garbage, ok?

BlackST :

arent you the all mighty knowing all wizard ? im doing here ( in the parallel universe ) a press conference declering you as the king of all kings ! yes sir !! damn, i'll carve your face as the fifth on mount rushmore, no no, i'll carve your face on the moon so all on earth can see and praise your glory.

do you have anything REAL to add to my knoladge ? if so, please do, i'll thank you.
amuse me and assume that this problem appers in a brand new seagate 1.5TB

if not ... well ... Enough said.

Zorb : than you

Today is one of "pro bono days" so I will give you some knowledge (didn't you tell that you gained a lot of experience?) : when PSU failed , likely the drive entered an unstable state for some milliseconds time, and the drive either was writing something or tried to update something on the SA. Yes, the drive at every power cycle updates start/stop count and some other internal log. Maybe in THAT moment the drive decided to update the SMART (it happens periodically in transparent mode), and some information is garbled. Maybe the immediate or botchered shutdown (i.e. the PSU has first lowered the voltage then shut down, or different voltage came out between the 2 rails +12 and +5) had done a little damage to surface (too long to explain and... damn! I can't give away everything) so the SMART correctly reported the error. Once SMART has triggered an alarm, you cannot turn back except some cases and not on every drive.
You likely have ECC and relocated sector count parameters problem.
The unique way to reset EVERYTHING is either make the drive selfscan itself, and it will recalculate EVERY internal parameter, rescan servo and surface, relocate ALL errors, retune head(s), recalculate latching force and counterforce BIAS, clear surface, do BER test etc. and then... RESET smart. You require a HW+SW complex to do it not a simple software, and you have to manually setup some stuff before and after. Otherwise, you have to clear the surface, isolate the defects, add to G-LIST and then move G- into P-list. At this point you have to reset the SMART data, always with specialized complexes. Assuming you don't have bumps or scratches on the surface : everytime the heads reach a physically damaged area, and even in case of relocation it is IMPOSSIBLE to avoid it completely, a little damage occur. It's a time bomb.
So in any case specialized tools and kniowledge are required.

If you are satisfied, is still valid the carving on moon offer ? It could be a real ego boost (joking) . P.S. laugh WITH things , don't get angry AT things it's not my fault if there's a difference between dominating technology and having to assume it as a dogma...

BlackST :

learnd a bit more, thank you.

moon project, im right on it.

oh, and by the way, this drive is my own personal project for my own knowladge, not my working set.

the drive does not have ANY ECC errors, i looked at SMART data with different softwares.

the only thing that is really out of the blue is this "Reallocated Sector Count"

the drive tolerance is 320 sectors and it has 660, just like that.

now, im assuming that :
those "bad" sectors are in proximity becuase if thay were random spred on the surface, i should have seen the before.
there is no physical damage to the surface. ( just a hunch )

a few questions if i may ?

1. assuming the faulting sectors are real, clearing the GLIST and re examaning the surface will find those again ( since thay are real bad ) and write them again in the GLIST, no ?

2. you repeat saying HW + SW complex, why ? the HW is just an interface to the SW and the HDD and as such, any HW should do the trick, being it specialiezed non PC based or a controller on a pc board. ( being able to transfer ATA Commands ) no ? and by ATA Commands i dont mean general commands but vandor specific commands to access the SA.

there is a software company that claims to do just that with out specialized HW

there software is "A-FF Repair Station"

A:

0) you can't assume there is no damage to surface unless you observe it. Damage can also be overwriting of servo wedges without physical damage.

1) yes

2) if you know exactly what to send and what you get and in what format, yes you can do it... the complex is intended for "click and go" at the reasonable price of about 10'000 $ plus taxes and annual support fee.

P.S. A-FF repair station is pay per incident. It's not a standalone sw. if I recall right. When you use it, you connect remotely the drive to them thru a client software. And it won't be able to fix some certain situations.
Thread closed for me.

yes, A-FF is indeed a remote help, funny them.

oky doky, it seems that writing a new progy to access hdd's SA by reverse engineering is the only option left.

damn, off i go to learn some ATA Commands

thanks for your help.

if you dont see your face on the moon any time soon, it not because i dont do it, it is because the moon is quite big
and carving takes some time. you know, lower G, working in a space suite, etc, etc, but im on it.

Let's welcome another Competetor.....Damn, Hard Drive Tools market is going to be really cheap...
I am waiting for the solution..

_________________
I just hate spammers...It was a Spammer, who ruined my life!

im gona price tag my new progy ( as soon as i complete it, of course ) in the range of ...

i dont know .. a gazillion $ is too much to ask ?

yes yes, i already hired a team and we already have a running beta.

are you willing to wait ? inovation and Breakthrough product are just around the corner.

by the time we ( me, myself and i ) will finish ALL mechanical drive will be long forgoten history.

Don't reinvent the wheel... Had the solutions well before commercial tools came out. Hddbug knows...