Extended offline Completed: read failure

[Tom Del Rosso]

SMART long test shows 90% remaining, but also 9 Current Pending Sectors (was
3 before the test). Does that mean 10% of the sectors are bad, or only 9?

And what do you use to read stubborn sectors?


ID# ATTRIBUTE_NAME FLAG VALUE WORST THRESH TYPE
UPDATED WHEN_FAILED RAW_VALUE
1 Raw_Read_Error_Rate 0x002f 200 200 051 Pre-fail
Always - 0
3 Spin_Up_Time 0x0027 220 161 021 Pre-fail
Always - 3975
4 Start_Stop_Count 0x0032 098 098 000 Old_age
Always - 2157
5 Reallocated_Sector_Ct 0x0033 200 200 140 Pre-fail
Always - 0
7 Seek_Error_Rate 0x002e 100 253 000 Old_age
Always - 0
9 Power_On_Hours 0x0032 083 083 000 Old_age
Always - 12839
10 Spin_Retry_Count 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age
Always - 0
11 Calibration_Retry_Count 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age
Always - 0
12 Power_Cycle_Count 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age
Always - 325
192 Power-Off_Retract_Count 0x0032 200 200 000 Old_age
Always - 95
193 Load_Cycle_Count 0x0032 200 200 000 Old_age
Always - 2157
194 Temperature_Celsius 0x0022 119 102 000 Old_age
Always - 31
196 Reallocated_Event_Count 0x0032 200 200 000 Old_age
Always - 0
197 Current_Pending_Sector 0x0032 200 200 000 Old_age
Always - 9
198 Offline_Uncorrectable 0x0030 200 200 000 Old_age
Offline - 0
199 UDMA_CRC_Error_Count 0x0032 200 200 000 Old_age
Always - 12
200 Multi_Zone_Error_Rate 0x0008 200 200 000 Old_age
Offline - 0

SMART Error Log Version: 1
No Errors Logged

SMART Self-test log structure revision number 1
Num Test_Description Status Remaining
LifeTime(hours) LBA_of_first_error
# 1 Extended offline Completed: read failure 90% 12833
187279133

 

[Tom Del Rosso]

SMART long test shows 90% remaining, but also 9 Current Pending
Sectors (was 3 before the test). Does that mean 10% of the sectors
are bad, or only 9?
And what do you use to read stubborn sectors?


197 Current_Pending_Sector 0x0032 200 200 000 Old_age
Always - 9

Now it's up to 13. Would appreciate any tips on software or methods to read
those sectors.

 

[Rod Speed]

SMART long test shows 90% remaining, but also 9 Current Pending Sectors
(was 3 before the test). Does that mean 10% of the sectors are bad, or
only 9?

Only 9

And what do you use to read stubborn sectors?

Why do you want to ?

Spinrite will.

 

[Tom Del Rosso]

Only 9

What does the 90% mean?

Why do you want to ?

I, like you, have a collection of drives with PVR recordings that aren't
worth backing up.

So it's not the most critical thing, but it's a good opportunity to try some
tools.

Spinrite will.

Is that sarcasm or is it actually good for something?

Ever used MHDD?

 

[Rod Speed]

Rod Speed wrote

What does the 90% mean?

Likely that’s where it aborted, where the 9 current pending sectors are.

I, like you, have a collection of drives with PVR recordings that aren't
worth backing up.

So it's not the most critical thing, but it's a good opportunity to try
some tools.

Yeah, I assumed that what you wanted
to do, just wanted to be clear on that.

Is that sarcasm or is it actually good for something?

It is good for trying very hard to read the
sector to see if it can get the data out of it.

Ever used MHDD?

Think so, but that’s only a vague memory.


I'm just playing with a WD2500AAJS that the neighbours
kids managed to kill by kicking out the power plug board
while it was installing Win7 on a tiny little Compaq CQ2250AN
which is basically a laptop in a desktop box with an Atom cpu.

Haven't actually gotta spare SATA drive for it and they have one
out of a dead PC pending so trying to at least get the drive usable
by getting it to reallocate the bad sectors. Its currently claiming
about 200 Uncorrectable Sectors that is stopping anything like
the Win7 install from happening. Just doing a bad sector recovery
on it now with one from Piotr Ulaszewski that’s on the DOS programs
section of Hiren's 15.2 which is reading the bads very aggressively and
is currently claiming its recovering all of them. It might be worth trying
if Spinrite doesn’t get anywhere with yours. Not clear if it is recovering
the bads yet or is just claiming that.

 

[Yousuf Khan]

SMART long test shows 90% remaining, but also 9 Current Pending Sectors (was
3 before the test). Does that mean 10% of the sectors are bad, or only 9?

First what is the software used to rate it? Is it HD Sentinel? If it's
HD Sentinel, then the 90% is just its own internal assessment of how
healthy that disk is vs. a perfect disk (rated 100%). It doesn't mean
that 10% of the disk has failed.

Current Pending Sectors are just sectors that are still weakly readable
(after an extra few retries), but that won't get remapped until the next
time something tries to write to those sectors again. In other words, no
attempt has been made to write to those sectors yet, so they haven't
been remapped out yet. When something tries to write to those weak
sectors, then they will be remapped out and replaced with spare sectors,
at which point they will change from "Current Pending Sectors" to
"Reallocated Sectors Count".

And what do you use to read stubborn sectors?

Pretty much anything can read those sectors, including a disk surface
scan. But reading is not the problem here, it is writing that's the
problem.

If you are using HD Sentinel, then it's got a Disk Surface Scan feature,
one is a non-destructive read-only test, and then it's got a very
destructive write-scan. It's the destructive write-test that will force
the remapping operation to take place. However, it will destroy all of
the data on the disk, including even the partitioning and file system
structural data. It'll become a completely uninitialized disk
afterwards. I think if you have the Professional version of HDS, it's
got a non-destructive write-test, which will try to preserve your data.

Yousuf Khan

 

[Yousuf Khan]

Now it's up to 13. Would appreciate any tips on software or methods to read
those sectors.

It's likely that count will increase, as it is an old disk. The count
increases as normal day-to-day file operations read data off of weak
sectors. It'll simply be discovering more and more weak sectors. There's
a lot of data on a disk that is so infrequently accessed, that nobody
can tell if it's sitting on a weak sector or not, since it's never been
re-read since it's been originally put on the disk.

Yousuf Khan

 

[Tom Del Rosso]

First what is the software used to rate it? Is it HD Sentinel? If it's
HD Sentinel, then the 90% is just its own internal assessment of how
healthy that disk is vs. a perfect disk (rated 100%). It doesn't mean
that 10% of the disk has failed.

No, Smartmontools. The 90% is "Remaining" from the last line of the output
(below). The first error is about 10% from the beginning of the disk, so I
guess it means that the test stops at the first bad one and the rest is
remaining to be tested.

 

[Robert Nichols]

The 90% is "Remaining" from the last line of the output
(below). The first error is about 10% from the beginning of the disk, so I
guess it means that the test stops at the first bad one and the rest is
remaining to be tested.

That's exactly what it means. The test stops on the first error it
encounters. If the drive supports "Selective Self-test" you might be
able to have a test start beyond the known bad area and see what the
rest of the drive looks like.

 

[Arno]

Now it's up to 13. Would appreciate any tips on software or methods to read
those sectors.

Pending sectors are sectors that the disk could not read, despite
trying really hard. You may get lucky, but typically, these are a
case for a data-recovery outfit that can open the drive and potentially
replace the heads.

Also: your disk is dying. Make backups NOW.

Arno

 

[Arno]

It's likely that count will increase, as it is an old disk. The count
increases as normal day-to-day file operations read data off of weak
sectors. It'll simply be discovering more and more weak sectors. There's
a lot of data on a disk that is so infrequently accessed, that nobody
can tell if it's sitting on a weak sector or not, since it's never been
re-read since it's been originally put on the disk.

Yousuf Khan

Indeed. That is why I advise to run a full SMART selftest every
2-4 weeks. That way nothing gets weak over time.

Arno

 

[Arno]

First what is the software used to rate it? Is it HD Sentinel? If it's
HD Sentinel, then the 90% is just its own internal assessment of how
healthy that disk is vs. a perfect disk (rated 100%). It doesn't mean
that 10% of the disk has failed.

Current Pending Sectors are just sectors that are still weakly readable
(after an extra few retries),

No. Pending sectos are sectors that the disk was unable to read.
If the disk can just about read weak sectors, it refreshes them,
and if that fails, reallocates.

but that won't get remapped until the next
time something tries to write to those sectors again. In other words, no
attempt has been made to write to those sectors yet, so they haven't
been remapped out yet. When something tries to write to those weak
sectors, then they will be remapped out and replaced with spare sectors,
at which point they will change from "Current Pending Sectors" to
"Reallocated Sectors Count".

Pretty much anything can read those sectors, including a disk surface
scan. But reading is not the problem here, it is writing that's the
problem.

Ah, no. Pending sectors were unreadable the last time the disk tried.

Arno

 

[Tom Del Rosso]

Pending sectors are sectors that the disk could not read, despite
trying really hard. You may get lucky, but typically, these are a
case for a data-recovery outfit that can open the drive and
potentially replace the heads.

Also: your disk is dying. Make backups NOW.

Yes, it has to wait a couple of days but the drive is disconnected. I hope
it doesn't deteriorate when powered off, do you think?

 

[Arno]

Yes, it has to wait a couple of days but the drive is disconnected. I hope
it doesn't deteriorate when powered off, do you think?

Only normal magnetic deterioration, which usually is pretty slow.

Arno