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1TB Seagate ST31000524AS being weird - can it be reset?

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radorn

Post subject: 1TB Seagate ST31000524AS being weird - can it be reset?

Posted: April 28th, 2022, 5:05

Joined: February 24th, 2016, 18:33
Posts: 36
Location: Spain

I have this disk that, one day, went crazy. Now, as soon as it spins up, it starts seeking like crazy, even if only the power cable is connected. It's as if you were running one of those seeking-time tests.

But it's not the click of death, and the disk surface seems to be OK after all. I say this because, if I start any read or write procedure with programs such as HDAT2, in a few seconds the seeking slows to a halt and the test proceeds normally until it completes successfuly with no errors.
But as soon as the procedure has finished, it's like it's free again to do it's thing and the crazy seeking starts again.

If I try to use it in an OS as normal, it technically works, but it's extremely slow to the point of being unusable: Creating a partition table, and a partition afterwards both take forever, and formatting is so much worse, obviously. Once the partition is online, even creating an empty file feels like watching paint dry...

To my non-expert ears, it sounds like there's a firmware/configuration problem, so I was hoping that, maybe there's some way to reset this back to normal.

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data-medics

Post subject: Re: 1TB Seagate ST31000524AS being weird - can it be reset?

Posted: April 28th, 2022, 15:54

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

The drive almost certainly has bad sectors and it's running background processes to try to correct them. It's knocking at death's door my friend.

If you don't need the data, toss it and buy a replacement.

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

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radorn

Post subject: Re: 1TB Seagate ST31000524AS being weird - can it be reset?

Posted: April 28th, 2022, 16:27

Joined: February 24th, 2016, 18:33
Posts: 36
Location: Spain

There's no data on it, thankfuly. It turned like this while I was wiping it.
My current economy won't allow me to buy a new one either.
I just want to see if there's any way to reanimate it, to play around with it.
In other words: I want to resucitate it, even if it's a disgusting undead.

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radorn

Post subject: Re: 1TB Seagate ST31000524AS being weird - can it be reset?

Posted: April 30th, 2022, 3:49

Joined: February 24th, 2016, 18:33
Posts: 36
Location: Spain

Sorry for doubleposting, but I want to clarify something.
I'm not interested in recovering data here. This disk was part of a windows stripped volume along with another disk of the same model that still works. I decided to repurpose things so I copied everything that was there to another disk and repartitioned those.
While I was at it, I decided, for the sake of it, to do some "refreshing" on the disks, with these inverse pattern rewrites (first 0101, then 1010, and so on). Probably unnecessary, but whatever.
It was while I was doing stuff like this that this one disk became like this.
There may have been a power problem during this. I don't remember, since it was a good while ago and it's been sitting in a drawer until now that I decided to see if I can rehabilitate it.

What I want to try to do is to get the disk back into use, even if it's garbage. I won't be using it in anything critical, of course.
It may be that the disk is indeed beyond repair, but I would like to try.
Wouldn't there be any tool that can reset it, perhaps re-upload firmware, or whatever, I don't know. It seems like it's trying to do something it shouldn't and I want to try to force it to re-evaluate everything from scratch.

Also, given that I do have another disk of the same model (bought at the same time), would it be advisable to try a board-swap or would that negatively affect that board when I put it back on the good disk?

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Platters_n_Heads

Post subject: Re: 1TB Seagate ST31000524AS being weird - can it be reset?

Posted: April 30th, 2022, 21:09

Joined: January 8th, 2022, 6:06
Posts: 8
Location: U.S.A.

I'm certainly not an expert in these matters, but if you could do a standard format, like Windows long format such that the drive can rewrite over the whole disk with 0s or even repeat your "refresh" with a single-pass might help and at least a obtain new data point.

I had a 15k rpm SAS disk that did that and when I invoked a format, the issue cleared up. I don't know - could have been a weak sector, who knows.

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radorn

Post subject: Re: 1TB Seagate ST31000524AS being weird - can it be reset?

Posted: May 1st, 2022, 16:28

Joined: February 24th, 2016, 18:33
Posts: 36
Location: Spain

Since my last post, I've run a new ATA Secure Erase on the disk via HDAT2.
Again, 1 minute for the seeking to slowdown to a halt and then smooth sailing until completion within the predicted time, and then back to seeking.
I tried other read and write procedures. Previously I recall them working pretty well, like the secure erase, with the seeking eventually stopping, but it was long ago and I'm not so sure anymore. The disk has been sitting still for a long time.
Today I find out that the procedures I tried didn't halt the seeking like the secure erase does, which makes me doubt my memory of that happening before.
Nevertheless, back in windows, I'm now running what's going to be a very long pass of Victoria's DDD write pattern, with no-timeout setting.
So far, it's a very colorful grid with lots of delays, while the disk keeps grinding with constant seeks, but they eventually go through. No unrecoverable errors so far, but there are blocks with up to 35-40 second delays, rounding off.

This reinforces my thinking that the disk surface isn't really wrong, but that the controller board is affected by some bug, misconfiguration, corruption, whatever, and is "obsessed" chasing something that maybe isn't there? I don't know.
Is there really nothing I can try in that line of action?

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radorn

Post subject: Re: 1TB Seagate ST31000524AS being weird - can it be reset?

Posted: May 2nd, 2022, 5:08

Joined: February 24th, 2016, 18:33
Posts: 36
Location: Spain

Yet another indication that this is just "psychosomatic" (so to speak) on the disk's part.

While still running the aforementioned ongoing pass of Victoria's DDD write procedure, I catched a long streak of smooth sailing with all light grey blocks. No problems.
I wanted to see for how long it had been running, and, since the program doesn't allow scrolling the grid print while it is running, I paused it so I could check above the current position.
As soon as I paused, the crazy seeking started again, and, when I unpaused, the problems resumed and it wasn't going smooth anymore like it was before pausing.
There are other patches of straight grey blocks indicating low latency operations, and also slower patches that are full of blocks marked as green, orange, and red.

My perception is that there's two tasks going on on the controller board: On one side is this, in my opinion, rogue process that's obsessed with doing something and causes the runaway seeking problem. O the other hand the task charged with servicing the requests from the host. Since the rogue process seems to be so busy, it affects the processing of commands from the host, but, sometimes, the host request manage to win over and take hold of the processor for a good run while the internal rogue checking process gets stalled.
As soon as the host stops sending commands, the rogue task takes over again and floods the processor into un-responsiveness, causing all these 1, 2, 3, 4, 5+ second, and up to 35-40 second latencies for some blocks.

Is there anything I can do to verify this and hopefuly fix it?

When this pass finishes I will take note of a few positions of both problematic areas and nice ones and re-check them to see if there's any change, and I expect good areas to go bad and perhaps even some bad areas to suddenly turn good.
I suspect there isn't any actual damage at all, or perhaps just a few sectors here and there and that's all.

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BGman

Post subject: Re: 1TB Seagate ST31000524AS being weird - can it be reset?

Posted: May 4th, 2022, 2:10

Joined: September 30th, 2005, 7:33
Posts: 849

It seems like you know nothing about "serial port terminal" and maybe even about SMART?

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radorn

Post subject: Re: 1TB Seagate ST31000524AS being weird - can it be reset?

Posted: May 4th, 2022, 6:10

Joined: February 24th, 2016, 18:33
Posts: 36
Location: Spain

@BGman
Well... I do know about the SMART monitoring system, but I admit I'm at loss as to what mysterious use of it might help me here that you aren't telling me about and asume, perhaps correctly, that I haven't tried or know about.
As for that "serial port terminal" thing, indeed I don't. Sounds like it may be some debugging feature to access internal functions of the disk, I imagine, but you aren't telling me much about it either, are you?

Now, whenever you are done laughing, perhaps you could consider developing on those a little further so to shed that much needed light on what seems to be the shameful pit of my ignorance.

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BGman

Post subject: Re: 1TB Seagate ST31000524AS being weird - can it be reset?

Posted: May 4th, 2022, 8:53

Joined: September 30th, 2005, 7:33
Posts: 849

It's not about laughing. One should see the SMART of your drive before making any suggestions. And "serial port terminal" is a common tool for fixing Seagate (not only) HDD's. I just check the level of your knowledge...My advice - bring the HDD to pro .

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radorn

Post subject: Re: 1TB Seagate ST31000524AS being weird - can it be reset?

Posted: May 4th, 2022, 10:42

Joined: February 24th, 2016, 18:33
Posts: 36
Location: Spain

Not worth it for me to pay a technician. I'm piss poor. I just want to try to rehabilitate this drive if at all possible. In my current situation it's not worth it to me to spend more than 10-20 bucks on it, if even that.
If I had the money to fix it, I would buy a new one instead. Or not... It's not like I need it. I just want to fix it as best as possible to do whatever with it. If not, then it goes into the trash.

As I said theres no data at all in it. It's just acting weird, as I tried to describe reporting the weird stuff that's going on.
Any suggestions on how to rely the necessary SMART report? Is any particular tool preferrable?
I normally use CrystalDiskInfo to check SMART from Windows.

Code:

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
           Model : ST31000524AS
        Firmware : JC45
   Serial Number : 5VP7S42J
       Disk Size : 1000.2 GB (8.4/137.4/1000.2/1000.2)
     Buffer Size : Unknown
     Queue Depth : 32
    # of Sectors : 1953525168
   Rotation Rate : 7200 RPM
       Interface : Serial ATA
   Major Version : ATA8-ACS
   Minor Version : ATA8-ACS version 4
   Transfer Mode : SATA/300 | SATA/600
  Power On Hours : 64309 hours
  Power On Count : 3156 count
     Temperature : 28 C (82 F)
   Health Status : Caution
        Features : S.M.A.R.T., AAM, NCQ
       APM Level : ----
       AAM Level : D000h [OFF]
    Drive Letter : 

-- S.M.A.R.T. --------------------------------------------------------------
ID Cur Wor Thr RawValues(6) Attribute Name
01 118 _93 __6 00000B61B9AD Read Error Rate
03 100 100 __0 000000000000 Spin-Up Time
04 _95 _95 _20 0000000015EF Start/Stop Count
05 _85 _85 _36 000000000283 Reallocated Sectors Count
07 _78 _60 _30 000209213222 Seek Error Rate
09 _27 _27 __0 00000000FB35 Power-On Hours
0A 100 100 _97 000000000000 Spin Retry Count
0C _97 _97 _20 000000000C54 Power Cycle Count
B7 _98 _98 __0 000000000002 Vendor Specific
B8 100 100 _99 000000000000 End-to-End Error
BB __1 __1 __0 000000000283 Reported Uncorrectable Errors
BC 100 _56 __0 005A066009F2 Command Timeout
BD 100 100 __0 000000000000 High Fly Writes
BE _72 _52 _45 00001C1A001C Airflow Temperature
C2 _28 _48 __0 00090000001C Temperature
C3 _35 _17 __0 00000B61B9AD Hardware ECC recovered
C5 100 __8 __0 000000000027 Current Pending Sector Count
C6 100 __8 __0 000000000027 Uncorrectable Sector Count
C7 200 200 __0 000000000000 UltraDMA CRC Error Count
F0 100 253 __0 4C2700011683 Head Flying Hours
F1 100 253 __0 00004274598A Total Host Writes
F2 100 253 __0 000089D814AD Total Host Reads

-- IDENTIFY_DEVICE ---------------------------------------------------------
        0    1    2    3    4    5    6    7    8    9
000: 0C5A 3FFF C837 0010 0000 0000 003F 0000 0000 0000  .Z?..7.......?......
010: 2020 2020 2020 2020 2020 2020 3556 5037 5334 324A              5VP7S42J
020: 0000 0000 0004 4A43 3435 2020 2020 5354 3331 3030  ......JC45    ST3100
030: 3035 3234 4153 2020 2020 2020 2020 2020 2020 2020  0524AS              
040: 2020 2020 2020 2020 2020 2020 2020 8010 0000 2F00                ..../.
050: 4000 0200 0200 0007 3FFF 0010 003F FC10 00FB 0010  @.......?....?......
060: FFFF 0FFF 0000 0407 0003 0078 0078 0078 0078 0000  ...........x.x.x.x..
070: 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 001F 050E 0004 0048 0040  .................H.@
080: 01F0 0029 346B 7F01 4163 3469 BC01 4163 007F 0055  ...)4k..Ac4i..Ac...U
090: 0055 0000 FFFE 0000 D000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000  .U..................
100: 6DB0 7470 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 5000 C500  m.tp............P...
110: 2F77 A650 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 401E  /w.P..............@.
120: 401C 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0029 6DB0  @................)m.
130: 7470 6DB0 7470 2020 0002 0140 0100 5000 3C06 3C0A  tpm.tp  ...@..P.<.<.
140: 0000 003C 0000 0008 0000 0000 004F 0280 0000 0000  ...<.........O......
150: 0008 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 3F00 9800  ................?...
160: 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000  ....................
170: 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000  ....................
180: 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000  ....................
190: 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000  ....................
200: 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 103F 0000 0000 0000  .............?......
210: 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 1C20 0000 0000  ............... ....
220: 0000 0000 1010 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000  ....................
230: 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000  ....................
240: 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000  ....................
250: 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 47A5                      ..........G.

-- SMART_READ_DATA ---------------------------------------------------------
     +0 +1 +2 +3 +4 +5 +6 +7 +8 +9 +A +B +C +D +E +F
000: 0A 00 01 0F 00 76 5D AD B9 61 0B 00 00 00 03 03  .....v]..a......
010: 00 64 64 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 04 32 00 5F 5F EF  .dd........2.__.
020: 15 00 00 00 00 00 05 33 00 55 55 83 02 00 00 00  .......3.UU.....
030: 00 00 07 0F 00 4E 3C 22 32 21 09 02 00 00 09 32  .....N<"2!.....2
040: 00 1B 1B 35 FB 00 00 00 00 00 0A 13 00 64 64 00  ...5.........dd.
050: 00 00 00 00 00 00 0C 32 00 61 61 54 0C 00 00 00  .......2.aaT....
060: 00 00 B7 32 00 62 62 02 00 00 00 00 00 00 B8 32  ...2.bb........2
070: 00 64 64 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 BB 32 00 01 01 83  .dd........2....
080: 02 00 00 00 00 00 BC 32 00 64 38 F2 09 60 06 5A  .......2.d8..`.Z
090: 00 00 BD 3A 00 64 64 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 BE 22  ...:.dd........"
0A0: 00 48 34 1C 00 1A 1C 00 00 00 C2 22 00 1C 30 1C  .H4........"..0.
0B0: 00 00 00 09 00 00 C3 1A 00 23 11 AD B9 61 0B 00  .........#...a..
0C0: 00 00 C5 12 00 64 08 27 00 00 00 00 00 00 C6 10  .....d.'........
0D0: 00 64 08 27 00 00 00 00 00 00 C7 3E 00 C8 C8 00  .d.'.......>....
0E0: 00 00 00 00 00 00 F0 00 00 64 FD 83 16 01 00 27  .........d.....'
0F0: 4C 0F F1 00 00 64 FD 8A 59 74 42 00 00 00 F2 00  L....d..YtB.....
100: 00 64 FD AD 14 D8 89 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  .d..............
110: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  ................
120: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  ................
130: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  ................
140: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  ................
150: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  ................
160: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 82 00 58 02 00 7B  ............X..{
170: 03 00 01 00 01 B1 02 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  ................
180: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 07 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  ................
190: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 01 00 00 00 00 00 00  ................
1A0: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 FE 79 16 41 99 D2 00 00  .........y.A....
1B0: 00 00 00 00 01 00 06 7E 8A 59 74 42 68 19 05 00  .......~.YtBh...
1C0: AD 14 D8 89 9B 5C 1C 00 00 00 00 00 4C 89 34 0D  .....\......L.4.
1D0: 00 00 00 FF 00 00 00 00 42 20 00 00 2E 00 0B 00  ........B ......
1E0: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 25  ...............%
1F0: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 1C  ................

-- SMART_READ_THRESHOLD ----------------------------------------------------
     +0 +1 +2 +3 +4 +5 +6 +7 +8 +9 +A +B +C +D +E +F
000: 01 00 01 06 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 03 00  ................
010: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 04 14 00 00 00 00  ................
020: 00 00 00 00 00 00 05 24 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  .......$........
030: 00 00 07 1E 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 09 00  ................
040: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 0A 61 00 00 00 00  ...........a....
050: 00 00 00 00 00 00 0C 14 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  ................
060: 00 00 B7 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 B8 63  ...............c
070: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 BB 00 00 00 00 00  ................
080: 00 00 00 00 00 00 BC 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  ................
090: 00 00 BD 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 BE 2D  ...............-
0A0: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 C2 00 00 00 00 00  ................
0B0: 00 00 00 00 00 00 C3 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  ................
0C0: 00 00 C5 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 C6 00  ................
0D0: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 C7 00 00 00 00 00  ................
0E0: 00 00 00 00 00 00 F0 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  ................
0F0: 00 00 F1 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 F2 00  ................
100: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  ................
110: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  ................
120: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  ................
130: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  ................
140: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  ................
150: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  ................
160: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  ................
170: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  ................
180: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  ................
190: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  ................
1A0: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  ................
1B0: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  ................
1C0: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  ................
1D0: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  ................
1E0: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  ................
1F0: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 60  ...............`

The aforementioned pass of Victoria's DDD write procedure is still running (75% done now). The checking process seems to have a somewhat regular pattern of very slow and troublesome stretches where I get lots of high latency checks, and then breaks free for a little while at full speed, unimpeded for about minute or two (equivalent to about 5-10GB), and then back to screechy slowness.
When I started CrystalDiskInfo to get that SMART data, the checking in Victoria was in one of the smooth runs. The moment I clicked the tab for this disk on the CDI window to obtain the report, I heard the disk screeching again and sure enough Victoria's checking was back to rainbow-colored block indicating high latency checks.
I don't know what you take from that. I interpret that nudging the disk for smart data disturbed the delicate equilibrium of internal conflicting threads that allowed Victoria to run smooth, and allowed the rogue thread of whatever-it-is-trying to do, to kick impose itself over. I don't know, sounds kind of reasonable to me.

And yes, a couple of days ago when I was testing things with HDAT 2, I did attempt a SMART full surface self-test and, sure enough, it failed. But since removing the time limitation in Victoria results in that sectors eventually pass, even if it takes forever, and that the screeching seeks seem to kick in somewhat randomly, and also un response to other concurrent requests, it does sound to me that, perhaps, the disk surface is not nearly as bad as all the screeching suggests, and it is really a sofware/config problem, as I suspect.

As I said previously, once this pass is done, I intend to recheck some parts of the disk with the same procedure, but trying to select the in a way that maximizes the chances that the timing of these rough and smooth runs, that I believe are caused by this conflict of internal processes, lands a bad run on sectors that ran smoothly in the current pass, and viceversa.
That's the result I expect. At which point, I don't think there'll be place to belive there's any validity to these sectors being actually damaged.

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BGman

Post subject: Re: 1TB Seagate ST31000524AS being weird - can it be reset?

Posted: May 5th, 2022, 8:57

Joined: September 30th, 2005, 7:33
Posts: 849

05 _85 _85 _36 000000000283 Reallocated Sectors Count
C5 100 __8 __0 000000000027 Current Pending Sector Count

So, the drive needs "internal format" and the proper tool is "serial port terminal". You may find someone to guide you....
@Spildit is not available anymore...

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radorn

Post subject: Re: 1TB Seagate ST31000524AS being weird - can it be reset?

Posted: May 5th, 2022, 12:04

Joined: February 24th, 2016, 18:33
Posts: 36
Location: Spain

Thank you.

Out of curiosity, how do these two factors tell you that an "internal format" is needed?

Also, is that serial port electrically compatible with a PC serial port (RS-232) or is specialized hardware needed? This motherboard still has a header for that and I have an adapter, and can put together a handful of wires, maybe even find a couple of suitable resistors and capacitors in old boards, if needed.

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