1 TB Samsung HN100UI from Iomega EGO stop working

[magg123]

My 1 TB Samsung HN100UI from Iomega EGO stop working. It was a replacement of my 500 Gig Iomega drive I got under warranty. It was OK yesterday, today nothing, not a noise at all.
Call Iomega, they send me a replacement cable, didn't help. I took the drive apart, connected HD using IDE/SATA cable adapter without any luck. If anybody had the same problem, please let me know what to do? How come I didn't get any symptoms I like got before with 500 Gig drive (noise and scan errors)?
I will appreciate any replies

[pcimage]

My 1 TB Samsung HN100UI from Iomega EGO stop working. It was a replacement of my 500 Gig Iomega drive I got under warranty. It was OK yesterday, today nothing, not a noise at all.
Call Iomega, they send me a replacement cable, didn't help. I took the drive apart, connected HD using IDE/SATA cable adapter without any luck. If anybody had the same problem, please let me know what to do? How come I didn't get any symptoms I like got before with 500 Gig drive (noise and scan errors)?
I will appreciate any replies

It's completely dead with no sounds of spinning up?

If yes it will be bad PCB or corrupt ROM (common problem assuming you have HM100UI)

Neither are DIY but straightforward to any half decent pro with the right knowledge and equipment.

Can recommend Datacent in Canada or "lcoughey" on this forum, both should have no problem with this at a reasonable fee.

[Vulcan]

How come I didn't get any symptoms I like got before with 500 Gig drive (noise and scan errors)?

Drives can fail in many, many different ways (just like car engines or other complex machinery can do). You might detect some abnormal behaviour before failure with some types of failure. However with other types of failure, you get zero (or only minimal) advance warning - not enough time to do anything, before the drive becomes unusable. This is why performing backups is important. My experience is that careful monitoring of the detailed SMART data (not just waiting for a SMART "threshold exceeded" event i.e. imminent failure likely) can sometimes give a little extra warning, but again, only in a limited number of cases.

In summary: You were lucky to get advance warning of failure with the 500GB drive - you can't rely on getting that.

[SAjunky]

However with other types of failure, you get zero (or only minimal) advance warning - not enough time to do anything, before the drive becomes unusable.

This is purpose SMART had been developed, to give warning. In practice it is only a reason for firmware lockups, as surface where SMART updates its statistics deteriorates quicker than read-only areas. Disable SMART and your disks will work longer. Less sudden lockups!

[Vulcan]

This is purpose SMART had been developed, to give warning.

Yes, I know - I mentioned use of SMART above However even SMART was not expected to give early warning of all possible disk failure modes - that is my point to the OP.

In practice it is only a reason for firmware lockups, as surface where SMART updates its statistics deteriorates quicker than read-only areas.

I don't agree that SMART is "only a reason for firmware lockups". That suggests that SMART never serves a useful purpose. Also SMART attribute data is stored on the same disk surface as user LBAs, which may be written often (e.g. Oracle log files, CCTV recording etc.). How do you explain your claimed deterioration of that disk surface only in the area where SMART data is written, but not in user LBA areas on the same surface?

I suspect that you might be describing firmware bugs (like the famous Seagate ones) which can corrupt the SMART attribute data, but without more details I can't be sure what you mean. IMHO if one disk model has firmware problems related to SMART, that does not mean that users of all disks should disable SMART

Disable SMART and your disks will work longer.

In general, my experience (seeing the behaviour of thousands of disks inside arrays, over many years), is that having SMART predict the imminent failure of disks has been useful in many more cases, than any problems that it has caused. Of course YMMV, and some disk models have specific problems in this area, but since you didn't qualify your comment by quoting specific models then, as a generalisation, my experience stands as I have written.

[SAjunky]

In practice it is only a reason for firmware lockups, as surface where SMART updates its statistics deteriorates quicker than read-only areas.

I don't agree that SMART is "only a reason for firmware lockups". That suggests that SMART never serves a useful purpose. Also SMART attribute data is stored on the same disk surface as user LBAs, which may be written often (e.g. Oracle log files, CCTV recording etc.). How do you explain your claimed deterioration of that disk surface only in the area where SMART data is written, but not in user LBA areas on the same surface?

1. I meant "it is only a reason for firmware lockups", didn't mean exclusive reason. If I were, I would write "it is the only reason", but English is not my home language, I can be wrong, sorry.
2. Log files and CCTV cameras (any file) is written in consecutive sectors, during this operation SMART is updated to the same few sectors, so these sectors are being updated thousand times more frequent than files in user space. The same happens (to lessen degree) in file systems, system area is updated more frequent than user files. It is why there is so many bads in FAT area by example.
Deteriorating magnetic properties in result of writing is a fact. Also recorded surface will keep properties for many years, but if after many years you try to overwrite surface, magnetic particles are not willingly follow your wishes anymore.

[Vulcan]

Thanks for explaining what you meant. It was your use of the word "only" which caused the confusion. That suggests exclusivity.

Your other comments don't fit with my experiences, but thanks for sharing them anyway.

[SAjunky]

Maybe it shouldn't: From dictionary: "... used to say that sth will have a bad effect [it will only make matters worse]".
Re: other comments, I have seen many drives locked up due to firmware corruption, which turned up to be caused by SMART (not only 7200.7), but not many (in fact very little) number people warned by SMART. These days is even worse, drives typpically lock up without any warnings, so SMART gives no benefits, is only cause of trouble.
BTW, Do you still question my statement about deterioration magnetic media due to excessive writing?