Need help with "reallocated sector count"?

[Franc Zabkar]

Here is Everest ones about "reallocated sectors count":

ID Attribute Description Threshold Value Worst
Data Status
05 Reallocated Sector Count 36 98 98
98 OK: Value is normal

I also check with ActiveSMART saying the raw value is: 98

Arno said it counts down, i had 2 bad-sectors at the past which i
fixed using Seatools. Since that, i haven't had any bad-blocks shown
in chkdsk or Seatools full surface scan.

So what does that values mean?
ID Attribute Description Threshold Value Worst
Data Status
05 Reallocated Sector Count 36 98 98
98 OK: Value is normal

SmartUDM from Dos: Raw: 000000000062h
reallocated sectors: 98 (but how
reliable is it?)

OK, I see the reason for my confusion. In your case the actual raw
value of 98 sectors (=62 hex) coincides with the "percentage" value or
"normalized" value of 98. Pure coincidence.

- Franc Zabkar

 

[kimiraikkonen]

ID Attribute Description Threshold Value Worst Data Status
05 Reallocated Sector Count 11 100 100 0 OK: Value is normal


Its rather fractured english, not clear what you are asking.


Post the Everest SMART report here.

Here is Everest report for "reallocated sectors count":

ID Attribute Description Threshold Value Worst Data Status
05 Reallocated Sector Count 36 98 98 98 OK: Value is
normal

Sorry, if something is understood due to my English so teach me what
the correct sentences is, therefore i can explain more fluently.

Today, again i applied Seatools full scan (long test) and passed
successfully. Really weird.

 

[Rod Speed]

Here is Everest report for "reallocated sectors count":

ID Attribute Description Threshold Value Worst Data Status
05 Reallocated Sector Count 36 98 98 98 OK: Value is normal

Sorry, if something is understood due to my English so teach me
what the correct sentences is, therefore i can explain more fluently.

Sometimes thats hard because its not clear what you were trying to say/ask.

Today, again i applied Seatools full scan (long test) and passed successfully. Really weird.

Nope, its saying that those reallocated bad sectors
have been reallocated, so currenty the drive is fine.

But since there are so many reallocated sectors, it is certainly dying and wont be fine for long.

Post the full SMART report, not just that one line.

 

[kimiraikkonen]

"Rod", here is full SMART report from Everest, it say everyvalue is
normal.

Meanwhile, this reallocated sectors may remain from past and i don't
want to conclude unless they dramatically continue to populate.

ID Attribute Description Threshold Value Worst Data
Status

01 Raw Read Error Rate 34 64 53 171388353
OK: Value is normal
03 Spin Up Time 0 70 70
0 OK: Always passes
04 Start/Stop Count 20 100 100
692 OK: Value is normal
05 Reallocated Sector Count 36 98 98
98 OK: Value is normal
07 Seek Error Rate 30 81 60
158600840 OK: Value is normal
09 Power-On Time Count 0 93 93
6581 OK: Always passes
0A Spin Retry Count 97 100 100
0 OK: Value is normal
0C Power Cycle Count 20 98 98
2590 OK: Value is normal
C2 Temperature 0 28 51
28 OK: Always passes
C3 Hardware ECC Recovered 0 64 53
171388353 OK: Always passes
C5 Current Pending Sector Count 0 100 100
0 OK: Always passes
C6 Off-Line Uncorrectable Sector Count 0 100 100
0 OK: Always passes
C7 Ultra ATA CRC Error Rate 0 200 200
0 OK: Always passes
C8 Write Error Rate 0 100 253
0 OK: Always passes
CA TA Increase Count 0 100 253
0 OK: Always passes


Thanks.

 

[Arno Wagner]

I don't think its raw value. How will i know? There are only:
current:98 worst:98 threshold:36 data:98. I don't think there are much
bad blocks (98 is so much) and never had any serious problem that may
point 98 bad-blocks.

Says "reallocated sectors count" value lower is better.


So, as summary you advise to consider / care "raw value" ?

For reallocated sectors, yes! Especially since the raw
value is usually a direct count. (Except for some
notepook HDD I have, which seems to count down from
4096000000....)

Which
programs will show "raw value"? Could you give an Windows-based
sample? I tried about 3 programs saying only: current, value,
threshold and worst...

The above is from the smartmontools, which have been ported
to Windows as well. Commandline only, but easily the best
functionality. http://smartmontools.sourceforge.net/

Arno

 

[Arno Wagner]

You need to monitor the raw value. I use a DOS utility named SmartUDM
for this purpose. For Windows there is Everest Home Edition.

My Seagate 13GB HD has been steadily growing defects. Two years ago
they were at 34, today I have 130. During the past week about 10 bad
sectors were added. I have now backed up and retired the drive.

Increase in bad sectors is a very bad sign.

Based on what my Everest and SmartUDM logs show (see below), and
assuming that the numbers are not scaled up for larger HDs, I suspect
that you may have between ~80 and ~120 reallocated sectors.

That would be bad. I had one Maxtor HDD that got about this
high a number in one burst and worked perfectly for another
3 years. But it was in a RAID and I would not trust a disk
with this many bad sectors....

Arno

 

[Arno Wagner]

OK, I see the reason for my confusion. In your case the actual raw
value of 98 sectors (=62 hex) coincides with the "percentage" value or
"normalized" value of 98. Pure coincidence.

That looks very likely to me too now. Quite confusing, I agree.

98 bad sectors is a high number. If it does not increase, the
drive may still be fine (there are those that discard a drive
at the first reallocated secotr, I prefer RAID1 and backups).

Arno

 

[Rod Speed]

"Rod",

No need to quote that, that is my real name.

here is full SMART report from Everest,

It looks fine.

it say everyvalue is normal.

It always does unless the drive is very close to imminent
death, ignore that and focus on the Data numbers.

Meanwhile, this reallocated sectors may remain from past

Yes, they certainly are, but you dont get that many
reallocated sectors unless the drive is dying.

and i don't want to conclude unless they dramatically continue to populate.

Doesnt need to be dramatic, if they keep increasing, the drive is dying.

ID Attribute Description Threshold Value Worst Data Status

01 Raw Read Error Rate 34 64 53 171388353
OK: Value is normal
03 Spin Up Time 0 70 70
0 OK: Always passes
04 Start/Stop Count 20 100 100
692 OK: Value is normal
05 Reallocated Sector Count 36 98 98
98 OK: Value is normal
07 Seek Error Rate 30 81 60
158600840 OK: Value is normal

Thats normal for a seagate. That value does vary with the manufacturer.

09 Power-On Time Count 0 93 93
6581 OK: Always passes
0A Spin Retry Count 97 100 100
0 OK: Value is normal
0C Power Cycle Count 20 98 98
2590 OK: Value is normal
C2 Temperature 0 28 51
28 OK: Always passes

It has been a bit high in the past, but not enough to be the cause
of the reallocated sectors. Thats the main reason I wanted the full
report to see if there was any other problem but the one you showed.

C3 Hardware ECC Recovered 0 64 53
171388353 OK: Always passes

Ditto with seagate drives.

C5 Current Pending Sector Count 0 100 100
0 OK: Always passes
C6 Off-Line Uncorrectable Sector Count 0 100 100
0 OK: Always passes

Those two say that there arent any bads that havent been reallocated.

C7 Ultra ATA CRC Error Rate 0 200 200
0 OK: Always passes

Thats the ribbon cable, its fine.

 

[Rod Speed]

For reallocated sectors, yes! Especially since the raw
value is usually a direct count. (Except for some
notepook HDD I have, which seems to count down from
4096000000....)



The above is from the smartmontools, which have been ported
to Windows as well. Commandline only, but easily the best
functionality. http://smartmontools.sourceforge.net/

But not the most readable report around.

 

[Franc Zabkar]

That looks very likely to me too now. Quite confusing, I agree.

98 bad sectors is a high number. If it does not increase, the
drive may still be fine (there are those that discard a drive
at the first reallocated secotr, I prefer RAID1 and backups).

Arno

I've been living with a dying drive for at least two years. This last
week was the last straw, though.

I find that Seagate's threshold value of 36 is somewhat optimistic. If
I have correctly interpreted my logs, then each percentage (?) point
corresponds to a loss of approximately 40 sectors. So a value of 36
represents a loss of 64 points, which in turn corresponds to about
2560 reallocated sectors.

- Franc Zabkar

 

[Arno Wagner]

On 13 Nov 2007 00:57:43 GMT, Arno Wagner <[email protected]> put finger
to keyboard and composed:

I've been living with a dying drive for at least two years.

Gutsy! ;-)

This last week was the last straw, though.

I find that Seagate's threshold value of 36 is somewhat optimistic. If
I have correctly interpreted my logs, then each percentage (?) point
corresponds to a loss of approximately 40 sectors. So a value of 36
represents a loss of 64 points, which in turn corresponds to about
2560 reallocated sectors.

Well possible. I once had a Maxtor (in a cluster of compute servers)
that was incredible slow and has about 1100 reallocated sectors.
This thing was dying pretty fast (had been dropped and it
took some weeks to develop problems). The thing was that the
SMART status still read good, i.e. above the threshold.
At that time I started monitoring the raw reallocated sector
count and installed email notification on changes of that..

Some vendors are extremely optimisticc with regard to SMART
thresholds. Kind of makes the SMART status alone pretty
worthless. No wonder so many people are asking in this group
for help interpreting SMART data.

Arno

 

[kimiraikkonen]

Arno, Rod (no quatiton mark ), Franc,
Thanks you for following this topic and keeping replying.

So, as overall when you looked at SMART values, i want to summarize
what i got in that topic?

1- There are 98 reallocated bad sectors but there's no unallocated as
a threat of data loss? Right?


2-ID Attribute Description Threshold Value Worst Data Status
05 Reallocated Sector Count 36 98 98 98 OK: Value is normal

That means there are 98 reallocated sectors, but still couldn't
completely understand for Seagate what "threshold - 36" means? It
shouldn't be percantage, does it mean that i'm allowed to allocate
100-36 = 64 bad ones? (frustrating)

3- The other SMART values are fine as stated by many programs. Right?

4- A "reallocated sector count" shows the amount of reallocated /
replaced sectors silently while the drive is operating. When the drive
has a problem with sector, first it tries to replace that sectors with
a "spare" sector thus a "reallocated sector" statistic is updated.

If the sector is completely unreadable or unreallocatable, you see it
as "bad" marked in surface scan tools like Seatools. Did i understand
correct?

5- Though a drive has "reallocated sectors", if it can read every data
(checking with several disk reading utilites), it doesn't have a
unallocatable / unfixable bad sectos which are the reasons of real
data loss.

Those 5 questions are the ones i see answered them clearly.

Again, thank you for following and helping. Very helpful...

Regards.

 

[Folkert Rienstra]

Arno Wagner wrote in news:[email protected]

Increase in bad sectors is a very bad sign.


That would be bad. I had one Maxtor HDD that got about this
high a number in one burst and worked perfectly for another
3 years. But it was in a RAID and I would not trust a disk
with this many bad sectors....

Right Babblebot, far better to trust a drive that has never exhibited any
signs but will die tomorrow just a split second after you hit the Power button.

 

[Folkert Rienstra]

Arno Wagner wrote in news:[email protected]

That looks very likely to me too now. Quite confusing, I agree.

You are a babblebot with a cooked brain. Nothing is confusing to you.

 

[Folkert Rienstra]

Franc Zabkar wrote in news:[email protected]
You're Babblebot. You can't do anything about it. It's in your DNA.

I've been living with a dying drive for at least two years. This last
week was the last straw, though.

I find that Seagate's threshold value of 36 is somewhat optimistic. If
I have correctly interpreted my logs, then each percentage (?) point
corresponds to a loss of approximately 40 sectors. So a value of 36
represents a loss of 64 points, which in turn corresponds to about
2560 reallocated sectors.

Which is still a minute percentage of the number of spare sectors available.

 

[Folkert Rienstra]

Arno Wagner wrote in news:[email protected]

Gutsy! ;-)



Well possible. I once had a Maxtor (in a cluster of compute servers)
that was incredible slow and has about 1100 reallocated sectors.
This thing was dying pretty fast (had been dropped and it
took some weeks to develop problems). The thing was that the
SMART status still read good, i.e. above the threshold.
At that time I started monitoring the raw reallocated sector
count and installed email notification on changes of that..

Some vendors are extremely optimisticc with regard to SMART
thresholds. Kind of makes the SMART status alone pretty
worthless. No wonder so many people are asking in this group
for help interpreting SMART data.

Pity about the moronic answers they get.

 

[Folkert Rienstra]

kimiraikkonen wrote in

Arno, Rod (no quatiton mark ), Franc,
Thanks you for following this topic and keeping replying.

So, as overall when you looked at SMART values, i want to summarize
what i got in that topic?

1- There are 98 reallocated bad sectors but there's no unallocated as
a threat of data loss? Right?


2-ID Attribute Description Threshold Value Worst Data Status
05 Reallocated Sector Count 36 98 98 98 OK: Value is normal

That means there are 98 reallocated sectors, but still couldn't
completely understand for Seagate what "threshold - 36" means? It
shouldn't be percantage, does it mean that i'm allowed to allocate
100-36 = 64 bad ones? (frustrating)

3- The other SMART values are fine as stated by many programs. Right?

4- A "reallocated sector count" shows the amount of reallocated /
replaced sectors silently while the drive is operating. When the drive
has a problem with sector, first it tries to replace that sectors with
a "spare" sector thus a "reallocated sector" statistic is updated.

If the sector is completely unreadable or unreallocatable, you see it
as "bad" marked in surface scan tools like Seatools. Did i understand
correct?

5- Though a drive has "reallocated sectors", if it can read every data
(checking with several disk reading utilites), it doesn't have a
unallocatable / unfixable bad sectos which are the reasons of real
data loss.

Those 5 questions are the ones i see answered them clearly.

Again, thank you for following and helping. Very helpful...

Yeah, pity none of them recognized your original report for what
it was and none of them ever called a S.M.A.R.T. report correct.

 

[Rod Speed]

Arno, Rod (no quatiton mark ),

Just as well, the death squad would have got its orders otherwise |-)

Franc, Thanks you for following this topic and keeping replying.

So, as overall when you looked at SMART values,
i want to summarize what i got in that topic?

1- There are 98 reallocated bad sectors but there's
no unallocated as a threat of data loss? Right?

The english is too fractured there for it to be clear what the last half is asking.

2-ID Attribute Description Threshold Value Worst Data Status
05 Reallocated Sector Count 36 98 98 98 OK: Value is normal

That means there are 98 reallocated sectors,
Yes.

but still couldn't completely understand for Seagate what "threshold - 36" means?

Dont worry about it, those thresholds are too conservative to be useful in this situation.

It shouldn't be percantage, does it mean that i'm allowed
to allocate 100-36 = 64 bad ones? (frustrating)

No, it doesnt mean that.

3- The other SMART values are fine as stated by many programs. Right?

Yes, but its the Data value that matters, not what the SMART utes say.

4- A "reallocated sector count" shows the amount of reallocated /
replaced sectors silently while the drive is operating.

Yes, tho it may have needed a deliberate write to the sector to get the drive
to reallocate it. The drive wont necessarily reallocate on reads that fail, mainly
so you can try hard to get the data out of the sector before its reallocated.

When the drive has a problem with sector, first it tries to replace that sectors
with a "spare" sector thus a "reallocated sector" statistic is updated.

Yes, but not necessarily on a read that fails, see above.

If the sector is completely unreadable or unreallocatable, you see it as "bad"
marked in surface scan tools like Seatools. Did i understand correct?

No, that can also be just a sector that cant be read but which can be
reallocated if you write to it, triggering the drive to do a reallocation.

Its done like that so you can try hard to get data out of the sector before its reallocated.

5- Though a drive has "reallocated sectors", if it can read every data
(checking with several disk reading utilites), it doesn't have a unallocatable
/ unfixable bad sectos which are the reasons of real data loss.

Its more complicated than that with that many reallocated sectors.

Thats usually evidence that the drive is dying.

Whereas one or two reallocated sectors may be quite
acceptible and not evidence that the drive is dying.

Those 5 questions are the ones i see answered them clearly.

Thats too fractured to understand too.

Again, thank you for following and helping. Very helpful...

Thats what these technical newsgroups are for.

 

[kimiraikkonen]

Just as well, the death squad would have got its orders otherwise |-)


The english is too fractured there for it to be clear what the last half is asking.

Then teach me the correct way of explaining, sorry if couldn't put
thoughts into words in my mind.

Dont worry about it, those thresholds are too conservative to be useful in this situation.


No, it doesnt mean that.


Yes, but its the Data value that matters, not what the SMART utes say.


Yes, tho it may have needed a deliberate write to the sector to get the drive
to reallocate it. The drive wont necessarily reallocate on reads that fail, mainly
so you can try hard to get the data out of the sector before its reallocated.


Yes, but not necessarily on a read that fails, see above.


No, that can also be just a sector that cant be read but which can be
reallocated if you write to it, triggering the drive to do a reallocation.

I meant, bad blocks are seen as "bad" in surface scan why they're
really bad / unreadable. They cannot be allocated or allocation
pool(spare area) has failed / full.

Then, when do a user see bad sectors reported after a full / surface
scan?

Its done like that so you can try hard to get data out of the sector before its reallocated.

Did it but still drive seems OK.

Its more complicated than that with that many reallocated sectors.

Thats usually evidence that the drive is dying.

Whereas one or two reallocated sectors may be quite
acceptible and not evidence that the drive is dying.


Thats too fractured to understand too.

Again language critisism, sorry if there were due to confusion.

Thats what these technical newsgroups are for.

Correct.

 

[Rod Speed]

Then teach me the correct way of explaining,

Not possible unless I can work out what you are trying to say in that last half, and I still cant.

sorry if couldn't put thoughts into words in my mind.

I meant, bad blocks are seen as "bad" in surface scan
why they're really bad / unreadable. They cannot be
allocated or allocation pool(spare area) has failed / full.

The allocation pool of spare sectors will be empty, not full.

Then, when do a user see bad sectors reported after a full / surface scan?

Because that is a read only scan, and the drive wont always reallocate
those if it cant read the contents after multiple retrys, so you can use
something else to get the data back before its reallocated.

Did it but still drive seems OK.

Because the diagnostic has rewritten those bad sectors, because you told it to try that.