HDD GURU FORUMS

In relation to data displayed in Seagate terminal mode

And how come you are able to change it ? And what does it do when you change it ?

I've had a good read in the forum post and the Seagate terminal command documents, but nothing seems to actually explain it

Level T - Certification Tests.
Download code
Start manufacturing test
Set drive ‘Age’
Commands to read cert logs, read error logs, write test data to flash, etc.



Thanks

(bump)

As an added incentive to answer (for any UK based experts) I'll refer any collegues with clicking drives etc to you.

(I can do logical recovery eg corrupted partition tables and boot sectors etc and unformatting and LDM dynamic disk recovery, and do for free many times a year for friends and collegues. But can't and don't plan to do physical recovery (other than pcb board swapping which doesnt help with modern drives). But I am very interested, just out of interest, in firmware and SA stuff)

Reading these forums for the past few weeks has been very interesting
(and more fun than working)

Just wish someof the experts on here were able to be a bit more open and sharing ..

What exactly Age mean ? Subtract to the actual calendar date the production date of the drive (see the label) and you have the AGE of the drive.
I think the same can be done with identity card : subtract from the current YEAR the birth year and you have the AGE.
Common sense suggests that the AGE from the label can not coincide with the AGE of the drive itself as it may have been on a drawer or on a shelf for a long time, so a more accurate way could be reading the SMART log and computing the power-on time (as many people seem younger or older than the AGE on their documents).
Etiquette suggests NOT to ask the AGE neither with ATA commands nor via terminal to female HDDs, on male HDDs it's no problem.

Upping the ante a bit ...

I challenge the experts on here to prove their expertise (and hopefully their sense of community)
by giving a broad answer to the question of what Age refers to

Doesn’t have to be a full and detailed answer (although that would be nice), but just enough to explain why statements like the following make sense

“Try to set AGE to 50 and see what you get in terminal now”
and
“If test end at 4F set age to 50”


My initial guesses related to Age would be something to do with the phases of initialisation the drive goes through
But then why would the numbers be up to 0x50 plus
and what would setting the Age do ? (except if it was re-init but stop at Age xx)

Thanks in advance

Who better than Seagate can prove their expertise ?

After some more research and looking at the Polish http://poszukaj.elektroda.pl site and guessing
it looks like the 'Age' relates to various Test levels

eg in the LEVEL T COMMANDS

Nxx Set Drive Age to xx

Why there are so many of them and why there are gaps in the numeric range, are factors we just have to take-as-is

And what advantages setting a particular Age has to accessing the SA etc (as opposed to just doing diags) is also yet-to-be-determined

Just reviving this thread
as its still a mystery to me
in the hope that someone will demonstrate their knowledge and sense of community and enlighten us!
(I'll grovel more if it helps !!)


My test drive shows Age=50
Havent risked trying to change it or do a Reset Certification Test yet ...


The seagate terminal command thread
seagate-terminal-commands-t6411.html
list some age related info

eg
; and . show the Age

level T commands

C Reset Certification Test. Resets health bits and sets age to 1

Nxx Set Drive Age to xx
-- but what does it achieve ?
-- what values can you set ?

"Wxx,yy,zz Save System RAM into System Sector. If age <> 60 then xx,yy,zz is not used. If age == 60 then xx - (not used) yy - (not used) zz - =22h => Reset Adaptives"
--> This indicates Age==60 is a special state ?

playing with fire...

The age of a seagate drive represent the step in which the drive is in the selfscan process. It begins at 2 and end at 4F or 50. 50 is the state where the drive responds to ata commands. The steps are encoded in the cert table and each step correspond to a test.
Setting a drive to age 2 destructs the SA, so don't forget to save app, cert, cert table and ovl