MHDD doesn't see my drive

[Max.Hyre]

I'm trying to run a scan on a WD Scorpio Blue drive, 2.5", 320 GB, booting from an MHDD CD ROM. (I got the ISO from this site, so I'm pretty sure it's good. :-)

The display I see is roughly:

PORT 170h (primary controller)
1. [<my CD drive info>]
PORT 100h (secondary controller)
3. [ ]
PORT 100h (PC-3000 board)
5. [ ]

where the space between the last two pairs of brackets is just empty.

The .CFG file contains only two comments and a bunch of blank lines. I exited MHDD, and ran it from the command line with the /ENABLEPRIMARY option. No change.

I've tried various commands, notably <F2>, ID, and RHPA. In all three cases the response was ``Drive not ready.'' I pulled the problematic drive and replaced it with a good 60 GB one, with the same result.

Gory details:

I'm running a Thinkpad T60 with a SATA interface.

I bought the drive as new, having been pulled from a new system to upgrade storage before putting it into service---there's nothing on it that I care about. Its trouble is that it fails to install either Windows XP or Debian GNU/Linux. I ran badblocks, and it started reporting problems at block 2 058 112, and continued to find enough that it hadn't finished its run overnight. (My calculation is that a good 320 GB drive should finish in ~2 hours.)

I ran, from GNU/Linux, dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sda, which wrote ~2.1 GB then failed with an I/O error. (Interestingly, after a few days of other futzing around, dd now gets to 15 GB before dying.) The bad drive is /dev/sda because I'm booting from a USB drive, which reports as /dev/sdb.

The seller suggested I try HDD Regenerator (hddregenerator.net), but that's $60 I'm unwilling to spend to fix a $35 item.

I've read the documentation that seems applicable, looked in recent forum threads, and searched the web, but find nothing that addresses my problem. Does anyone have any suggestions to get MHDD to recognize the drive? Is this a case where rewriting the sectors would fix it, or should I just return it to the seller?

Thanks in advance for any suggestions you may have.

[Vulcan]

I'm running a Thinkpad T60 with a SATA interface.

Therefore you need to (temporarily) set the SATA controller mode in the BIOS to "compatibility" and not "AHCI", before MHDD can recognise it.

Your drive seems faulty, based on your description, but the full raw SMART attribute values (e.g. using smartctl from smartmonttols) would help to give another view of what your disk thinks is the situation, so I'd suggest you gather & provide that data - use the "-a" option to smartctl during the data caoture.

[Max.Hyre]

[T]he full raw SMART attribute values [...] would help[...].

You asked for it, you got it :-)---See the end of this post.

I'm running a Thinkpad T60 with a SATA interface.

Therefore you need to (temporarily) set the SATA controller mode in the BIOS to "compatibility"[...].

OK, I'm off to the BIOS, then I'll retry MHDD. Thanks.

Code:

smartctl 5.41 2011-06-09 r3365 [i686-linux-2.6.39-1-686-pae] (local build)
Copyright (C) 2002-11 by Bruce Allen, http://smartmontools.sourceforge.net

=== START OF INFORMATION SECTION ===
Model Family:     Western Digital Scorpio Blue Serial ATA
Device Model:     WDC WD3200BEVT-22A23T0
Serial Number:    WD-WX51A30L9832
LU WWN Device Id: 5 0014ee 259af0526
Firmware Version: 01.01A01
User Capacity:    320,072,933,376 bytes [320 GB]
Sector Size:      512 bytes logical/physical
Device is:        In smartctl database [for details use: -P show]
ATA Version is:   8
ATA Standard is:  Exact ATA specification draft version not indicated
Local Time is:    Sat Jul  9 11:51:43 2011 EDT
SMART support is: Available - device has SMART capability.
SMART support is: Enabled

=== START OF READ SMART DATA SECTION ===
SMART overall-health self-assessment test result: PASSED

General SMART Values:
Offline data collection status:  (0x00)   Offline data collection activity
               was never started.
               Auto Offline Data Collection: Disabled.
Self-test execution status:      (   0)   The previous self-test routine completed
               without error or no self-test has ever
               been run.
Total time to complete Offline
data collection:       ( 7560) seconds.
Offline data collection
capabilities:           (0x7b) SMART execute Offline immediate.
               Auto Offline data collection on/off support.
               Suspend Offline collection upon new
               command.
               Offline surface scan supported.
               Self-test supported.
               Conveyance Self-test supported.
               Selective Self-test supported.
SMART capabilities:            (0x0003)   Saves SMART data before entering
               power-saving mode.
               Supports SMART auto save timer.
Error logging capability:        (0x01)   Error logging supported.
               General Purpose Logging supported.
Short self-test routine
recommended polling time:     (   2) minutes.
Extended self-test routine
recommended polling time:     (  91) minutes.
Conveyance self-test routine
recommended polling time:     (   5) minutes.
SCT capabilities:           (0x7037)   SCT Status supported.
               SCT Feature Control supported.
               SCT Data Table supported.

SMART Attributes Data Structure revision number: 16
Vendor Specific SMART Attributes with Thresholds:
ID# ATTRIBUTE_NAME          FLAG     VALUE WORST THRESH TYPE      UPDATED  WHEN_FAILED RAW_VALUE
  1 Raw_Read_Error_Rate     0x002f   200   200   051    Pre-fail  Always       -       50
  3 Spin_Up_Time            0x0027   135   130   021    Pre-fail  Always       -       2250
  4 Start_Stop_Count        0x0032   063   063   000    Old_age   Always       -       37723
  5 Reallocated_Sector_Ct   0x0033   158   158   140    Pre-fail  Always       -       333
  7 Seek_Error_Rate         0x002e   100   253   000    Old_age   Always       -       0
  9 Power_On_Hours          0x0032   096   096   000    Old_age   Always       -       3363
10 Spin_Retry_Count        0x0032   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       0
11 Calibration_Retry_Count 0x0032   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       0
12 Power_Cycle_Count       0x0032   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       699
191 G-Sense_Error_Rate      0x0032   001   001   000    Old_age   Always       -       9806
192 Power-Off_Retract_Count 0x0032   200   200   000    Old_age   Always       -       167
193 Load_Cycle_Count        0x0032   056   056   000    Old_age   Always       -       432594
194 Temperature_Celsius     0x0022   107   096   000    Old_age   Always       -       36
196 Reallocated_Event_Count 0x0032   192   192   000    Old_age   Always       -       8
197 Current_Pending_Sector  0x0032   200   200   000    Old_age   Always       -       22
198 Offline_Uncorrectable   0x0030   100   253   000    Old_age   Offline      -       0
199 UDMA_CRC_Error_Count    0x0032   200   200   000    Old_age   Always       -       12
200 Multi_Zone_Error_Rate   0x0008   100   253   000    Old_age   Offline      -       0

SMART Error Log Version: 1
Warning: ATA error count 4749 inconsistent with error log pointer 2

ATA Error Count: 4749 (device log contains only the most recent five errors)
   CR = Command Register [HEX]
   FR = Features Register [HEX]
   SC = Sector Count Register [HEX]
   SN = Sector Number Register [HEX]
   CL = Cylinder Low Register [HEX]
   CH = Cylinder High Register [HEX]
   DH = Device/Head Register [HEX]
   DC = Device Command Register [HEX]
   ER = Error register [HEX]
   ST = Status register [HEX]
Powered_Up_Time is measured from power on, and printed as
DDd+hh:mm:SS.sss where DD=days, hh=hours, mm=minutes,
SS=sec, and sss=millisec. It "wraps" after 49.710 days.

SMART Self-test log structure revision number 1
Num  Test_Description    Status                  Remaining  LifeTime(hours)  LBA_of_first_error
# 1  Extended offline    Completed: read failure       90%      3340         30149981

SMART Selective self-test log data structure revision number 1
SPAN  MIN_LBA  MAX_LBA  CURRENT_TEST_STATUS
    1        0        0  Not_testing
    2        0        0  Not_testing
    3        0        0  Not_testing
    4        0        0  Not_testing
    5        0        0  Not_testing
Selective self-test flags (0x0):
  After scanning selected spans, do NOT read-scan remainder of disk.
If Selective self-test is pending on power-up, resume after 0 minute delay.


[drc]

Lots of bad sectors, nearly to the SMART failure threshold. Send it back.

[Vulcan]

Many thanks for the data.

[T]he full raw SMART attribute values [...] would help[...].

You asked for it, you got it ---See the end of this post.

lol very funny Seriously though, that's exactly what we needed to see, which is why I asked for it

For a drive which seems relatively lightly used (power-on hours = 3363), the load cycle count is huge (432594) = an average of almost 129 loads per hour. This might have contributed to the demise of the drive... There's a known issue with Seagate Momentus drives, where a f/w update stops aggressive power-saving of frequently unloading the heads - I have little experience with the 2.5" WD drives like yours, but IMHO these statistics are abnormal.

As drc said, there are clear indications of the drive having an internal problem, with 333 sectors already reallocated, and another 22 pending reallocation. We can also see that a recent SMART test failed with a read error.

In short, as you've already been advised, it's a sick drive - backup what you need to (which may be limited due to the currently unreadable sectors), and replace it. If the drive is under warranty and you plan on using that warranty to get a replacement, then erase the drive before returning it (e.g. zero-fill or secure erase), if you are concerned about your data being revealed.

However, note that doing this will (temporarily?) make all blocks readable again i.e. you lose the evidence of there being any unreadable blocks. The SMART data you have gathered now then is your evidence of the state at this point - and the reallocated sector count will increase from 333 by up to another 22 (i.e. final value likely to be somewere between 333 & 355 after doing a secure erase or zero-fill).

Good luck!

[Max.Hyre]

Since my last post I've run MHDD. When I ran the SCAN command (with EraseWaits), it started out showing a scattering of delays, maybe 8--12 per screen. At ~30 188 000 it started showing solid Ws. When it had filled the screen with them, I aborted the run. It reported last scanned LBA was 30 352 394, and blocks erased with 1362 EraseWaits.

At this point I got the idea, went to print out a shipping label. :-) Then I saw drc's and Vulcan's posts

The drive was sold to me as unused, pulled from a brand new system. I'll tell the seller it ain't so, and he should get his money back. As for concern over my data, there isn't any. The only stuff on it is whatever shreds of an XP restore-to-factory-state can be read.

Thank you both for your prompt and educational help.



Best wishes,

Max

[Vulcan]

@Max.Hyre: Thanks for the update.

One brief comment:

The drive was sold to me as unused, pulled from a brand new system.

That description of the drive given to you, can't be true. At the time the SMART data was collected (Sat Jul 9 11:51:43 2011 EDT ?), it reported:

power-on hours = 3363 (which, although not "old" in terms of disk lifetime, is not "unused")
power cycles = 699

Therefore I see no way this drive could be described as "unused" - and that's in addition to the very large load cycle count discussed before. Your experience with MHDD confirms the drive is sick (as drc and I said). Glad we were able to help

[fzabkar]

It's a moot point now, but WD has a utility, WDIDLE3, to address the aggressive Load_Cycle_Count:
http://www.synology.com/support/faq_ima ... didle3.zip

Idle Mode Update Utility:
http://support.wdc.com/product/download ... 13&lang=en

"This firmware modifies the behavior of the drive to wait longer before positioning the heads in their park position and turning off unnecessary electronics."