Why Clear SMART Data?

[maximus]

As a software author, I am sometimes in contact with those attempting a recovery, and I have at least a couple that seemed to think they needed to clear the SMART data. What would be the purpose of this for data recovery?

[maximus]

Very good explanation, now I know valid reasons why someone would need to do this. But are WD drives prone to needing it cleared? And the person I am currently in contact with just now mentioned moving the G-list to the P-list, and talk before that was about reallocated sectors.
Maybe I am wrong and the intentions are good...

[data-medics]

Generally, I'd say that to add such a feature into any free / inexpensive software will cause more harm than it'll do good. Those of us in the data recovery profession generally should have the proper equipment & knowledge to understand when it's safe and/or recommended to clear the SMART, move G-List, etc. However I think giving that power to anyone who downloads a simple program will lead to more bricked drives and fraudulent drives on ebay than it will toward helping anyone.

It'd be like making morphine an over the counter drug anyone can buy. Might do some good in a few cases, but it'll probably do more harm than good.

[maximus]

Don't worry, I have no intention of writing any scripts to clear SMART or move the G-list to the P-list. I did however write a script that will write a WD module back to a drive after it was edited. The user must edit manually, and the script will calculate the correct checksum before writing. I had already decided it won't be available in the official release because it is too dangerous, but I did post it on another forum because it could possibly be helpful to someone. Most of the code already existed in the patch scripts for the slow fix anyway, but I put it together in a new way, not knowing the full intentions of the request. Now I am questioning myself...

[maximus]

Just ask the person if the drive can be detected at all and if S.M.A.R.T. can be properly read/retrieved ! If so there is no reason to clear it, at least any valid reason related to data recovery.

Smart data was able to be read, and they knew the reallocated sector count. The user was asking how to read and edit a module and rewrite it, so at first I thought they thought they needed to do some sort of repair. But I did sort of suspect something else, much more so now. I sent an email with my concerns, will see what the reply is.

[maximus]

Also like there are a huge amount of people that will blindly apply the 7200.11 bsy/LBA 0 fix to ANY Seagate drive there might be people who think that clearing S.M.A.R.T. will help with ANY data recovery case.

I was trying to help an ambitious but inexperienced person that was attempting a recovery using ddrescue. Besides some lack of understanding of partition vs full recovery, they had attended some event where an "expert" spoke and said something like "the first thing to do is clear the smart data". So yes, I have seen someone that thought that clearing smart was a good thing to do right away. My response was something along the lines of "make sure you understand exactly why you want to do something like clearing smart data before you do it". That response was before I even asked this question...

[maximus]

The official explanation:

I received a lot of STB with WD HDDs, and all have bad sectors but we want to reuse them internally for storage.

Whether or not this is believable, all I did was create a script that would write back a modified module. The user had not yet figured out how to clear the smart this way as of the last email, and I could not possibly help as I don't know how. The script could be useful for experimenting, and also bricking a drive, which is why it won't be available in any official release.