What good is S.M.A.R.T???

[Guest]

I bought a used Maxtor 300GB PATA drive. Plugged it in, read out the
smart data, all "OK"...so I bought it.
Got it home and tried to format it. No-go. Aborted.
Ran powermax on it. It finds and corrects errors, but it
seems to have an endless supply of errors to be fixed one at a time.
Gives failure codes.
Can't write the boot sector. Can't read the partition table.
I've tried to fdisk it, format it, tried gparted, nothing works.
Makes a scraping noise while it's trying to format, like it's
seriously crashed.

But the S.M.A.R.T data still says it's all "OK".

So, what good is SMART if it can't report a seriously bad drive.
Doesn't seem to have any value as a tool to identify good drives
you're about to buy.

Thanks, mike

 

[Man-wai Chang to The Door (+MS=32B)]

But the S.M.A.R.T data still says it's all "OK".

SMART tried to predict failures. I don't know much about its algorithms
though.

So, what good is SMART if it can't report a seriously bad drive.
Doesn't seem to have any value as a tool to identify good drives
you're about to buy.

Bad sectors found by SCANDISK is a definite sign of aging hard disks.
Note that some high-end operating systems (not Window$ I guess) have a
way of evading bad sectors when detected and logged the event.

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[Rod Speed]

I bought a used Maxtor 300GB PATA drive. Plugged it in, read out the
smart data, all "OK"...so I bought it.
Got it home and tried to format it. No-go. Aborted.
Ran powermax on it. It finds and corrects errors, but it
seems to have an endless supply of errors to be fixed one at a time.
Gives failure codes.
Can't write the boot sector. Can't read the partition table.
I've tried to fdisk it, format it, tried gparted, nothing works.
Makes a scraping noise while it's trying to format, like it's
seriously crashed.

But the S.M.A.R.T data still says it's all "OK".

So, what good is SMART if it can't report a seriously bad drive.

You cant just use the OKs. Post the Everest SMART report.
http://www.majorgeeks.com/download.php?det=4181

Doesn't seem to have any value as a tool to identify good drives you're about to buy.

Bet Everest SMART report does show its a bad drive.

 

[Ed Light]

Try downloading Hard Disk Sentinel. It's free but a license unlocks some
extras. See what it thinks the disk quality is (Health: nnn%), and run
the short self-test. A license unlocks the long test.

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Thanks, robots.

 

[Arno]

I bought a used Maxtor 300GB PATA drive. Plugged it in, read out the
smart data, all "OK"...so I bought it.
Got it home and tried to format it. No-go. Aborted.
Ran powermax on it. It finds and corrects errors, but it
seems to have an endless supply of errors to be fixed one at a time.
Gives failure codes.
Can't write the boot sector. Can't read the partition table.
I've tried to fdisk it, format it, tried gparted, nothing works.
Makes a scraping noise while it's trying to format, like it's
seriously crashed.

But the S.M.A.R.T data still says it's all "OK".

So, what good is SMART if it can't report a seriously bad drive.
Doesn't seem to have any value as a tool to identify good drives
you're about to buy.

Thanks, mike

Wrong question. The right question is "what good are SMART
thresholds?" And the answer is: Not a lot. These are frequently
over-optimistic and only give a failed status for drives that
are very near death or asre already dead. That is why you need
to look at the raw attributes. Just checking whether a threshold
is exceeded is not enough.

Arno

 

[Grant]

Try downloading Hard Disk Sentinel. It's free but a license unlocks some
extras. See what it thinks the disk quality is (Health: nnn%), and run
the short self-test. A license unlocks the long test.

Why pay when basic tools come as part of the OS?

root@deltree:~# smartctl -t long /dev/hda
smartctl version 5.36 [i486-slackware-linux-gnu] Copyright (C) 2002-6 Bruce Allen
Home page is http://smartmontools.sourceforge.net/

=== START OF OFFLINE IMMEDIATE AND SELF-TEST SECTION ===
Sending command: "Execute SMART Extended self-test routine immediately in off-line mode".
Drive command "Execute SMART Extended self-test routine immediately in off-line mode" successful.
Testing has begun.
Please wait 58 minutes for test to complete.
Test will complete after Tue Sep 15 09:22:26 2009

Use smartctl -X to abort test.
root@deltree:~#

Grant.

 

[Guest]

Wrong question. The right question is "what good are SMART
thresholds?" And the answer is: Not a lot. These are frequently
over-optimistic and only give a failed status for drives that
are very near death or asre already dead. That is why you need
to look at the raw attributes. Just checking whether a threshold
is exceeded is not enough.

Arno

You're surely allowed to ask any question you want.
I'd appreciate an answer to the question "I" asked.

If the drive is so bad that it won't even read its own partition
table, shouldn't the SMART data say the drive is bad?

Let me start over with a new question.

What's a good way to determine whether you should buy a used
hard drive?
You can't run a 3-hour full diagnostic at a swapmeet or someone's house.
Need a quick way to get reasonable confidence that the drive is good.
I'd assumed that SMART would do that for me. NOT so.

 

[Rod Speed]

You're surely allowed to ask any question you want.
I'd appreciate an answer to the question "I" asked.

You got one.

If the drive is so bad that it won't even read its own partition
table, shouldn't the SMART data say the drive is bad?

Not necessarily, it depends on what produced that result.

Let me start over with a new question.

What's a good way to determine whether you should buy a used hard drive?

Look at the SMART raw values.

You can't run a 3-hour full diagnostic at a swapmeet or someone's
house. Need a quick way to get reasonable confidence that the drive is good. I'd assumed that SMART would do that for
me.

It does if you understand the SMART raw values.

NOT so.

Fraid so.

 

[Joep]

You're surely allowed to ask any question you want.
I'd appreciate an answer to the question "I" asked.

If the drive is so bad that it won't even read its own partition
table, shouldn't the SMART data say the drive is bad?

Can happen already if ONE sector is 'bad'. One bad sector will not trigger a
SMART alert, SMART doesn't know what's in that particular sector.

Let me start over with a new question.

What's a good way to determine whether you should buy a used
hard drive?
You can't run a 3-hour full diagnostic at a swapmeet or someone's house.
Need a quick way to get reasonable confidence that the drive is good.
I'd assumed that SMART would do that for me. NOT so.

Your assumtion is incorrect.

 

[Arno]

You're surely allowed to ask any question you want.
I'd appreciate an answer to the question "I" asked.

You will not get one from me as you do not as a question
that even represents reality. Or do you claim the raw
SMART attributes for the drive (which is the SMART data)
were fine after a long selftest?

If the drive is so bad that it won't even read its own partition
table, shouldn't the SMART data say the drive is bad?

It very likely does.

Let me start over with a new question.

What's a good way to determine whether you should buy a used
hard drive?
You can't run a 3-hour full diagnostic at a swapmeet or someone's house.
Need a quick way to get reasonable confidence that the drive is good.
I'd assumed that SMART would do that for me. NOT so.

And SMART cannot do that. In fact if you read the technical
documentation on SMART, you would know that it never claimed
to be able to do that. And it is quite obvious that it cannot.
Any reasonable test of a drive includes a full surface scan and
that happens to take the 3 hours you quote (dependent on the
drive).

I understand your frustration at having bought bad hardware.
However you mostly inflicted that on yourself by assuming
SMART is something it is not and never claimed to be.

My personal advice on buying used HDDs is to not do it.
Dives may, e.g., have been droppend and never powered up
again after that. Also, damage from mechanical shock does
not nevessarily show up immeadialtely. It can take weeks
or months. Same with damage from running a drive too hot.

Arno

 

[Arno]

Can happen already if ONE sector is 'bad'. One bad sector will not trigger a
SMART alert, SMART doesn't know what's in that particular sector.

And that is why you need to full surface scan, so SMART knows.

Your assumtion is incorrect.

Indeed.

Arno

 

[DevilsPGD]

In message <[email protected]> spamme0

What's a good way to determine whether you should buy a used
hard drive?

Check the warranty status. If it's a dud, warranty it and get a factory
refurbished one, if it's good then you're laughing.