Seagate 7200.12 “Init SMART Fail” investigations

[xsoliman]

What’s the latest findings on this ?

Lots of threads on here about this type of 7200.12 busy issue
that shows up as

Init SMART Fail
LED:000000CC FAddr:xxxxxxxx

normally appears after trying to clear SMART with F3 1>N1

eg

viewtopic.php?f=1&t=16552
viewtopic.php?f=1&t=17823
viewtopic.php?f=1&t=23999
viewtopic.php?t=24883
etc

Latest F3 drives 7200.12 and 5400.6 etc



I have a 1TB ST31000528AS 7200.12 drive doing this

Don’t need to recover data, just want to get the drive working again and/or use it to investigate this issue

Hence could risk some m0, commands … [Don’t do this unless experimenting]


V40 was empty, so should be safe
V4 had lots of reallocated entries

Tried lots of m0, commands, some error-ing out at a few %, some reaching 100% after several hours
(as per viewtopic.php?f=13&t=27618)
some leading to InitiateMarkPendingReallocateRequest errors

Eventually got to a 100% state which seemed to largely fix it

Now have new V40 entries
V4 empty at present

Drive would go ready and all sectors readable (a few bad/slow sectors)
but ata interface cant read smart – gets UNC? error

Terminal F3 1>N5 can read the raw smart data
but N1 to clear smart pauses then gives the
Init SMART Fail
LED:000000CC FAddr:xxxxxxxx
error still


Still investigating what is causing this and if any way to fix it fully


V4/V80 has gained some reassigned/glist entries
probably as a result of the ATA level surface scan



Drive is 1TB ST31000528AS CC37
could maybe do firmware update to CC49
http://knowledge.seagate.com/articles/e ... uage=en_US

[disksolution]

At F3>T m0,2,2,,,,,22

if user partition format successfully you can clear smart with N1.

[xsoliman]

Just to recap, the 'refurbished' drive is working well

All sectors readable at SATA interface (a few bad/slow sectors)
but sata interface cant read smart – gets UNC? error

Terminal F3 1>N5 can read the raw smart data
but N1 to clear smart pauses then gives the
Init SMART Fail
LED:000000CC FAddr:xxxxxxxx
error still

Still investigating what is causing this and if any way to fix it fully

Since I know (approx.) where the raw smart data and stuff in the SA is (see my Reading user and SA sectors from terminal tutorial thread) I might start looking round there
Strange that N5 read reads ok
but N1 clear has an issue (relating to one of the SA areas it accesses?)