View topic - Clicking due to failing heads or bad sectors?

Main » Forums home » Conventional hard drives

All times are UTC - 5 hours [ DST ]

Clicking due to failing heads or bad sectors?

Page 1 of 1

[ 8 posts ]

Previous topic | Next topic

Author

Message

watkipet

Post subject: Clicking due to failing heads or bad sectors?

Posted: December 9th, 2015, 18:37

Joined: December 9th, 2015, 18:21
Posts: 6
Location: United States

I'm trying to diagnose the cause of a clicking noise on a failing hard drive. As I recover data from the drive the symptoms are:
1) The head parks
2) The drive spins up
3) The drive pauses for 1 - 30 seconds

I assume the sound I'm hearing is the drive recalibrating intermittently. I had recovered about 1.5 TB of data from this drive before this started. When the drive does do some reading, it can read quite a bit of data (32000 sectors at time, sometimes). To give you an idea of what's going on, here's part of a ddrescue log file:

Code:

0x12486D40000  0x00010000  ?
0x12486D50000  0x00DF0000  +
0x12487B40000  0x00010000  *
0x12487B50000  0x00010000  ?
0x12487B60000  0x1B160000  +

So, 10 untried sectors, 3568 read sectors, 10 failed sectors, etc.

Can I assume that the recalibration is caused by bad sectors and not bad heads? Can I determine anything from the fact that the drive keeps recalibrating but can still intermittently read data?

This is one of two Seagate ST3000DM001 drives that started to fail recently.

Top

data-medics

Post subject: Re: Clicking due to failing heads or bad sectors?

Posted: December 9th, 2015, 19:27

Joined: April 3rd, 2011, 0:19
Posts: 2003
Location: Providence, RI

There's no way to know for sure without seeing an actual terminal readout from the drive. However given the model, I'd guess it's a pending re-allocation glitch which is causing the drive to get stuck busy (just fixed one of these today actually). The reallocation events can be turned off by modifying system file 93 of the drive's service area, but unless you have access to some pro data recovery tools like PC-3000, DFL, or MRT I don't know how you'd go about editing the system file and disabling the feature.

Though it could also be just bad sectors in a pattern like that. Sometimes if there's a fine scratch you'll get a repeating pattern of bad sectors. In either event, if you're hearing a loud clicking while reading you should really stop what you're doing and get it to someone with professional imaging tools. If those heads die completely, will be a very costly nightmare to recover. Right now, might only cost $300-500 for a pro to do it.

_________________
Data Medics - Hard Drive, SSD, and RAID Data Recovery Service Company

Top

watkipet

Post subject: Re: Clicking due to failing heads or bad sectors?

Posted: December 10th, 2015, 14:09

Joined: December 9th, 2015, 18:21
Posts: 6
Location: United States

Thanks, Spildit. This is my terminal output so far:

Code:

Boot 0x40M
 Spin Up
 Trans.

 Spin Up
SpinOK
(P) SATA Reset

The host PC doesn't recognize the drive. I've seen this before with this drive. I do have a backup copy of the data, BTW. Though that backup was on another ST3000DM001

and it just popped up with a few bad sectors--I was able to copy almost all the sectors off of that one, though.

Pressing Ctrl-Z gives me (it took awhile for the prompt to show up):

Code:

ASCII Diag mode

F3 T>

Issuing the commands gives me:

Code:

F3 T>F"RWRecoveryFlags",00,22

(D) SATA Reset

F3 T>F"BGMSFlags",00,22

(D) SATA Reset

F3 T>F"PerformanceFlags",043C,22

(D) SATA Reset

Do you happen to know what the letters (P,S,D,H) stand for in front of the SATA Reset? I've been searching through this forum and HDDOracle for that bit of info but I haven't found it yet.

Top

watkipet

Post subject: Re: Clicking due to failing heads or bad sectors?

Posted: December 10th, 2015, 15:44

Joined: December 9th, 2015, 18:21
Posts: 6
Location: United States

Well this is kinda fun learning about the terminal commands. A little more info that I've found:

Displaying the defects list prints out a tremendous number of defects with this summary at the end:

Code:

Head 0: entries    7FF        slips    3BE28
Head 1: entries   126E        slips    1F6F3
Head 2: entries    531        slips    59215
Head 3: entries   2546        slips    2EEEA
Head 4: entries    924        slips    2EC85
Head 5: entries    245        slips    10E8D
  Total Entries   504D  Total Slips   12312C

BTW, the part number on this drive is 1CH166-301. For some reason, I'm unable to use any of the online commands except for Ctrl-Z. I'd kinda like to get the firmware revision with Ctrl-A.

Top

data-medics

Post subject: Re: Clicking due to failing heads or bad sectors?

Posted: December 10th, 2015, 15:50

Joined: April 3rd, 2011, 0:19
Posts: 2003
Location: Providence, RI

Here's about the most extensive list of Seagate F3 terminal commands you'll find: https://www.data-medics.com/forum/seaga ... -t901.html

What message are you getting when you press a command like Ctl + A or Ctl + L ? Is it saying "Diagnostic Port Locked" ?

_________________
Data Medics - Hard Drive, SSD, and RAID Data Recovery Service Company

Top

watkipet

Post subject: Re: Clicking due to failing heads or bad sectors?

Posted: December 10th, 2015, 17:25

Joined: December 9th, 2015, 18:21
Posts: 6
Location: United States

data-medics wrote:

Here's about the most extensive list of Seagate F3 terminal commands you'll find: https://www.data-medics.com/forum/seaga ... -t901.html

Thanks! I've been using this list

data-medics wrote:

What message are you getting when you press a command like Ctl + A or Ctl + L ? Is it saying "Diagnostic Port Locked" ?

I actually don't get any response--no message, nothing. It seems like the firmware is hanging and only sometimes responds to online commands, Ctrl-Z usually dumps me into the ASCII Diagnostic mode after some variable amount of time, though.

I was able to get Ctrl-L (login message, which includes the Ctrl-A message) to work by going to ASCII Diagnostic mode first, though:

Code:

GrenadaBP LuxorPlus2 4K, GPF1 MC with new serpent DFW
Product FamilyId: 58, MemberId: 03
HDA SN: W1F22QMB, RPM: 7199, Wedges: 188, Heads: 6, OrigHeads: A, Lbas: 00002BB5420C, PreampType: CC 26
Bits/Symbol: C, Symbols/UserSector: BEB, Symbols/SystemSector: 1A5
PCBA SN: 0000M323DDP7, Controller: LUXORLPLUS_2_0( 203)(FF-FF-FF-F, Channel: STX_DUNRAVEN, PowerAsic: Unknown Rev 00, BufferBytes: 4000000
Package Version: GPG17D.CCD2.AX0851.CC24    , Package P/N: 100714019, Package Global ID: 00188399,
Package Build Date: 08/24/2012, Package Build Time: 12:53:59, Package CFW Version: GPG1.CCD2.00481239.00188399,
Package SFW1 Version: D7E5, Package SFW2 Version: ----, Package SFW3 Version: ----, Package SFW4 Version: ----
Controller FW Rev: 08241253, CustomerRel: CC24, Changelist: 00481239, ProdType: GPG1.CCD2, Date: 08/24/2012, Time: 125359, UserId: 00188399
Servo FW Rev: D7E5
TCG IV Version: n/a
Package BPN: 18
RAP FW Implementation Key: 16, Format Rev: 0004, Contents Rev: 71 01 07 00
QNR Container: 1
Features:
- Quadradic Equation AFH enabled
- VBAR with adjustable zone boundaries enabled
- Volume Based Sparing enabled
- IOEDC enabled
- IOECC enabled
- DERP Read Retries enabled v. 4.7.01.0000000000000007
- LTTC-UDR2 disabled
- SuperParity disabled
- Humidity Sensor disabled

A can also switch back to online mode with Ctrl-R. However, once I do this, the firmware seems to lock up again. I wonder if the firmware is running some long-running process that keeps it from responding in online mode.

Top

watkipet

Post subject: Re: Clicking due to failing heads or bad sectors?

Posted: December 10th, 2015, 17:44

Joined: December 9th, 2015, 18:21
Posts: 6
Location: United States

Spildit wrote:

F"RWRecoveryFlags",00,22
F"BGMSFlags",00,22
F"PerformanceFlags",043C,22

BTW, I interrogated the Congen parameters after I issued those commands by sending the "F" command without any arguments. Here's the result for the parameters above:

Code:

Byte:009A:       RWRecoveryFlags = 00
Byte:009A:           Bit:0, DISABLE_CORRECTION = 0
Byte:009A:           Bit:1, DISABLE_TRANSFER_ON_ERROR = 0
Byte:009A:           Bit:2, POST_ERROR = 0
Byte:009A:           Bit:3, ENABLE_EARLY_RECOVERY = 0
Byte:009A:           Bit:4, READ_CONTINUOUS = 0
Byte:009A:           Bit:5, TRANSFER_BLOCK = 0
Byte:009A:           Bit:6, READ_SPARING_ENABLED = 0
Byte:009A:           Bit:7, WRITE_SPARING_ENABLED = 0

Code:

Byte:0114:       BGMSFlags = 00
Byte:0114:           Bit:1, BGMS_DISABLE_DATA_REFRESH = 0
Byte:0114:           Bit:2, BGMS_DISABLE_TEMPERATURE_LIMITATION = 0

Code:

Byte:043B: SCTPerformanceFlags = 00

It doesn't look like SCTPerformanceFlags was set, but then a value of 043C is more than one byte. Isn't SCTPerformanceFlags only a single byte? 043C looks more like an offset (one byte past SCTPerformanceFlags itself).

Perhaps the parameters I really wanted to write was PerformanceFlags, not SCTPerformanceFlags. This is the interrogated value:

Code:

Byte:0464:       PerformanceFlags = 04 20
Byte:0464:           Bit:0, REDUCED_RAW_TRANSITION_FLUSH = 0
Byte:0464:           Bit:1, REDUCED_AV_RETRIES = 0
Byte:0464:           Bit:2, ID_READ_PARAMETERS_FROM_CAP = 1
Byte:0464:           Bit:4, VJIT_DISABLED = 0
Byte:0464:           Bit:5, ZERO_LATENCY_RD_ENABLED = 0
Byte:0465:           Bit:0, DAR_ENABLED = 0
Byte:0465:           Bit:1, OFFLINE_SPARING_ENABLED = 0
Byte:0465:           Bit:2, JIT3 = 0
Byte:0465:           Bit:3, JIT2 = 0
Byte:0465:           Bit:4, JIT1 = 0
Byte:0465:           Bit:5, JIT0 = 1
Byte:0465:           Bit:6, DISABLE_IDLE_ACTIVITY = 0
Byte:0465:           Bit:7, ENABLE_SELF_SEEK = 0

It looks like OFFLINE_SPARING_ENABLED wasn't enabled to begin with.

Top

watkipet

Post subject: Re: Clicking due to failing heads or bad sectors?

Posted: December 10th, 2015, 19:43

Joined: December 9th, 2015, 18:21
Posts: 6
Location: United States

Spildit wrote:

Maybe you will want to read this as well :

http://www.hddoracle.com/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=3#p1389

Thanks, Spildit. I did read that--in particular, the PDF you posted with all the commands and explanations.

I started this post with a single question--"is it failing heads or bad sectors?" I've kinda turned it into a, "please help me fix my drive" post, however. I think I'll hop over to your HDD Oracle forum to continue with my questions about terminal commands, etc.

So back to the original question of what's causing the clicking: The sound is not a loud click or clunk. It's the exact same sound as if you were to Spin Down and Reset the Drive ('e' command in level 1). In fact, if I just let the drive sit, it prints this over and over (with a period of about 2 minutes):

Code:

Boot 0x40M
 Spin Up
 Trans.

 Spin Up
SpinOK
(P) SATA Reset

It looks to me as if the drive just keeps going through POR. So, I'm going to guess it's neither bad heads or bad sectors. I think data-medics answered my question with:

data-medics wrote:

However given the model, I'd guess it's a pending re-allocation glitch which is causing the drive to get stuck busy

Top

Page 1 of 1

[ 8 posts ]

Main » Forums home » Conventional hard drives

All times are UTC - 5 hours [ DST ]

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: Bing [Bot] and 76 guests

You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot post attachments in this forum