Seagate: Fine 1 day, bad the next

[uclamathguy]

My Seagate Barracuda IV was working great. A week later I returned home
and I get "Disk read error" on boot. The system was never used during
the week. I run SeaTools on the drive and I get an endless list of bad
sectors. I am running a surface scan and it is running the "resolving
sector/LBA" process. It started at 11pm last night, and it is 9:15am
right now: it is 3% complete but has not hanged. Is it typical for this
process to take so long???

I can't understand this. Is it possible that something else is wrong
and SeaTools is reading it as a sector issue? There is NO clicking
sound either.

Ryan

 

[Rod Speed]

(e-mail address removed) wrote

My Seagate Barracuda IV was working great. A week
later I returned home and I get "Disk read error" on
boot. The system was never used during the week.

Thats not an unusual way to fail for a hard drive.

I run SeaTools on the drive and I get an endless list of bad sectors.

Then there isnt a lot of point doing anything else with
the drive. Just return it under warranty or replace it etc.

I am running a surface scan and it is running the "resolving sector/LBA"
process. It started at 11pm last night, and it is 9:15am right now: it is 3%
complete but has not hanged. Is it typical for this process to take so long???

With lots of bad sectors, yes.

I can't understand this. Is it possible that something else
is wrong and SeaTools is reading it as a sector issue?

Nope. Its getting it right, there are lots of bad sectors
and that very slow result you are getting with a surface
scan is evidence of the same thing, lots of bad sectors.

There is NO clicking sound either.

Some drives are much quieter when recalibrating than others.

 

[Arno Wagner]

My Seagate Barracuda IV was working great. A week later I returned home
and I get "Disk read error" on boot. The system was never used during
the week. I run SeaTools on the drive and I get an endless list of bad
sectors. I am running a surface scan and it is running the "resolving
sector/LBA" process. It started at 11pm last night, and it is 9:15am
right now: it is 3% complete but has not hanged. Is it typical for this
process to take so long???

I can't understand this. Is it possible that something else is wrong
and SeaTools is reading it as a sector issue? There is NO clicking
sound either.

Was the disk subject to mechanical shock?

The only other issue that could turn up as a sector issue I can
think of is a dying PSU.

Arno

 

[Michael Cecil]

My Seagate Barracuda IV was working great. A week later I returned home
and I get "Disk read error" on boot. The system was never used during
the week. I run SeaTools on the drive and I get an endless list of bad
sectors. I am running a surface scan and it is running the "resolving
sector/LBA" process. It started at 11pm last night, and it is 9:15am
right now: it is 3% complete but has not hanged. Is it typical for this
process to take so long???

I can't understand this. Is it possible that something else is wrong
and SeaTools is reading it as a sector issue? There is NO clicking
sound either.

Ryan

I don't know if SeaTools can be wrong, but if you're really asking if your
working drive can just go bad overnight and still produce no horrible
seeking sounds, then the answer is yes. Is there a way to make SeaTools
just report the SMART status without going through an exhaustive procedure
first? You could use a 3rd party tool to report that like Everest or
SANDRA.

 

[TonyB]

Was the disk subject to mechanical shock?

The only other issue that could turn up as a sector issue I can
think of is a dying PSU.

Its not at all unusual with a dying drive.

 

[Arno Wagner]

Its not at all unusual with a dying drive.

Yes, I keep hearing that, but I always experienced warning symptoms
before and many other epople did.

Arno

 

[TonyB]

Yes, I keep hearing that, but I always experienced warning symptoms
before and many other epople did.

Irrelevant to whether it may well have happened in his case.

Most obviously with a sudden partial failure of the read
electronics so say the read amplifier gain has gone bad.

 

[Arno Wagner]

Irrelevant to whether it may well have happened in his case.

Huh? And why is that? Ever heard of statistics? Obviously not....

Most obviously with a sudden partial failure of the read
electronics so say the read amplifier gain has gone bad.

Non-power electronics does very seldomly fail suddenly since the tube
days are over, unless operated seriously out of spec. The typical
pattern is allmost allways a slower degradation.

Arno

 

[TonyB]

Huh? And why is that? Ever heard of statistics? Obviously not....

Statistics are completely irrevant to what he has seen.

Non-power electronics does very seldomly fail suddenly since
the tube days are over, unless operated seriously out of spec.
The typical pattern is allmost allways a slower degradation.

Wrong. You still get sudden failures, most
obviously if one of the bond wires comes off etc.

 

[Arno Wagner]

Statistics are completely irrevant to what he has seen.

As I said...

Wrong. You still get sudden failures, most
obviously if one of the bond wires comes off etc.

That would be a mechanical or electrical failure not an electronic
one.

Arno

 

[TonyB]

As I said...

No you didn't.

That would be a mechanical or electrical failure not an electronic one.

Wrong if it happens inside the ic.

 

[J. Clarke]

As I said...



That would be a mechanical or electrical failure not an electronic
one.

Only if burning out the filament in a tube counts as a "mechanical or
electrical failure not an electronic one".

 

[Arno Wagner]

Arno Wagner wrote:

Only if burning out the filament in a tube counts as a "mechanical or
electrical failure not an electronic one".

That is why I said "modern" electronics....

Arno

 

[J. Clarke]

Arno Wagner wrote:

[...]
Irrelevant to whether it may well have happened in his case.

Huh? And why is that? Ever heard of statistics? Obviously not....

Statistics are completely irrevant to what he has seen.

As I said...

Most obviously with a sudden partial failure of the read
electronics so say the read amplifier gain has gone bad.

Non-power electronics does very seldomly fail suddenly since
the tube days are over, unless operated seriously out of spec.
The typical pattern is allmost allways a slower degradation.

Wrong. You still get sudden failures, most
obviously if one of the bond wires comes off etc.

That would be a mechanical or electrical failure not an electronic
one.

Only if burning out the filament in a tube counts as a "mechanical or
electrical failure not an electronic one".

That is why I said "modern" electronics....

You're missing the point. In both cases (broken filament in a tube or
broken bond wire in an IC) the actual failure is the same, a physically
broken wire. Neither is field repairable except by replacing the IC or the
tube. If you want to call that failure mode in an IC a "mechanical or
electrical failure" and in a tube to be an "electronic failure" be my guest
but I don't think you're going to find very many people who are willing to
go along with that kind of hair-splitting.

Now, you're right that modern electronic devices _tend_ to give warning
before failure, but a tendency is not a certainty and they can fail with no
warning at all. Even more annoying, they can fail
intermittently--sometimes the broken wire will make enough contact to work
for a bit.

 

[v]

Did you have adequate air-flow over your hdd?

 

[Arno Wagner]

Arno Wagner wrote:

Arno Wagner wrote:

[...]
Irrelevant to whether it may well have happened in his case.

Huh? And why is that? Ever heard of statistics? Obviously not....

Statistics are completely irrevant to what he has seen.

As I said...

Most obviously with a sudden partial failure of the read
electronics so say the read amplifier gain has gone bad.

Non-power electronics does very seldomly fail suddenly since
the tube days are over, unless operated seriously out of spec.
The typical pattern is allmost allways a slower degradation.

Wrong. You still get sudden failures, most
obviously if one of the bond wires comes off etc.

That would be a mechanical or electrical failure not an electronic
one.

Only if burning out the filament in a tube counts as a "mechanical or
electrical failure not an electronic one".

That is why I said "modern" electronics....

You're missing the point. In both cases (broken filament in a tube or
broken bond wire in an IC) the actual failure is the same, a physically
broken wire. Neither is field repairable except by replacing the IC or the
tube. If you want to call that failure mode in an IC a "mechanical or
electrical failure" and in a tube to be an "electronic failure" be my guest
but I don't think you're going to find very many people who are willing to
go along with that kind of hair-splitting.

Actually in a modern IC this failure mode is allmost unheard of. It
just does not happen in practice often, the gold-wires used are extremely
reliable. In tubes, on the other hand, this is the main failure mode.
Tubes break down all the time because they loose their heaters. It is
as bit silly to imply these two events are of equal significance.

Now, you're right that modern electronic devices _tend_ to give warning
before failure, but a tendency is not a certainty and they can fail with no
warning at all. Even more annoying, they can fail
intermittently--sometimes the broken wire will make enough contact to work
for a bit.

Of course. Still the original discussion was about what is likely and
what not.

Arno

 

[TonyB]

Arno Wagner wrote:

Arno Wagner wrote:

[...]
Irrelevant to whether it may well have happened in his case.

Huh? And why is that? Ever heard of statistics? Obviously
not....

Statistics are completely irrevant to what he has seen.

As I said...

Most obviously with a sudden partial failure of the read
electronics so say the read amplifier gain has gone bad.

Non-power electronics does very seldomly fail suddenly since
the tube days are over, unless operated seriously out of spec.
The typical pattern is allmost allways a slower degradation.

Wrong. You still get sudden failures, most
obviously if one of the bond wires comes off etc.

That would be a mechanical or electrical failure not an electronic
one.

Only if burning out the filament in a tube counts as a "mechanical
or electrical failure not an electronic one".

That is why I said "modern" electronics....

You're missing the point. In both cases (broken filament in a tube
or broken bond wire in an IC) the actual failure is the same, a
physically broken wire. Neither is field repairable except by
replacing the IC or the tube. If you want to call that failure mode
in an IC a "mechanical or electrical failure" and in a tube to be an
"electronic failure" be my guest but I don't think you're going to
find very many people who are willing to go along with that kind of
hair-splitting.

Actually in a modern IC this failure mode is allmost unheard of.
Wrong.

It just does not happen in practice often,
the gold-wires used are extremely reliable.

It isnt the wire that's the problem, its the bond to the ic that fails.

In tubes, on the other hand, this is the main failure mode.

Wrong again. The main failure mode is
gradual loss off emissivity by the filament/cathode.

Tubes break down all the time because they loose their heaters.
It is as bit silly to imply these two events are of equal significance.

He never said that, just that both see sudden failures.

Of course. Still the original discussion was about what is likely and what
not.

Wrong again. It was actually about what could have happened to his drive.

 

[Eric Gisin]

Actually in a modern IC this failure mode is allmost unheard of. It
just does not happen in practice often, the gold-wires used are extremely
reliable. In tubes, on the other hand, this is the main failure mode.
Tubes break down all the time because they loose their heaters. It is
as bit silly to imply these two events are of equal significance.

Yes, R/W endec chips fail all the time.
They get very hot, and some even sit on the actuator, subject to vibration.
Also common is a wire break between this chip and the head.
All sudden failures as described in the OP.