Hard Drive Problem

WD Internal Drives Desktop & Mobile Drives
1

Hi ! Recently I’ve got problems with my VelociRaptor Hard Drive. The computer has two similar hard drives, model WD1500HLFS-01G6U0 in RAID setup. One of them start to degrade and rebuild very often, so I’ve call a computer specialist to have a look at it. They change all the cables of the drives, scan them with HD Tune, etc. Everything was normal. But when I got it back, the problem appeared again. So I downloaded the Data Lifeguard software from Western Digital and installed it on the computer. After the test, it shown a test error code which is “08 - Too many bad sectors detected”. So, what does it mean for the hard drive and what can I do to fix it ?

Thanks in advanced for your answers !

(P.S : English is not my first language, so it may be possible that I wrote some mistakes and that what I’m trying to say is a little confused. Sorry about that.)

2

if the hdd is running out of sectors it can relocate to, then the drive is already in its grave. You should replace it asap (either new drive or RMA) and backup the data (in case its not redundant raid).

Care to post the SMART log? there are multiple tools to read the smart log.

As for linux, smartctl (part of smartmontools) is your best bet.

If you are on windows, I know of AIDA64 (30-day trial), HD Sentinel (trial) and even HD Tune (never used it though). Some tools have issues reading SMART through raid, so if HD tune fails, check out AIDA64.

Dunno about OS X though… Maybe something from that list: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_S.M.A.R.T._tools

In case you’re a millionaire: once you backed up all the data and made sure, that you can’t really make the situation any worse, you might wanna give tools such as HDD Regenerator a try. Those often cost 100 bucks or more and can supposedly fix dead/defective sectors. I somewhat doubt that claim and it is probably, just like anti-virus software, snake-oil, but well, if you’re rich (unlike me), it doesn’t really hurt, since it also got that 30 days money back guarantee (according to the homepage). there is also a demo available which is said to recover the first bad sector and gives a probability if it can fully fix that drive. If you do this, please report back to me, since i kinda want to know if its even doing anything. Can’t test it myself, all my drives are still healthy :wink:

3

So I installed AIDA64. The problem is that the degraded disk is undetectable. The software can’t read it… I’ll have to wait for it to rebuild again before being able to see its SMART log with it. I forgot to precise that I’m using Windows XP Pro 32 bits edition as OS.

And I think you are right, I will have to replace the drive it by a new one. Thankfully it is still on warranty until 2014 :slight_smile: . But before this, I want to see what results AIDA64 will give me.

4

You could temporarily eject the defective drive from your RAID array (or just plug it into another computer or controller) to read the SMART values. May I ask what RAID controller you are using? I am mainly familiar with software based raid (Linux and Intel’s Matrix Firmware RAID mainly). I also wonder how much the performance (when using RAID5 and RAID0) increases with a proper HW RAID controller with maybe some RAM that additionally buffers the data.

5

There are two SCIS/RAID Controllers :

  • Generic Marvell 61xx RAID Controller

  • Intel(R) Desktop/Workstation/Server Express Chipset SATA RAID Controller

Both are up to date. Also, I got Intel Rapid Storage Technology, and it says it is a RAID 1 type volume. The two disk are 140GB each.

I have to say that I am not a computer specialist so I don’t know that much… :slight_smile:

And I can’t plug the defective drive in an other computer because I don’t have an other one, and this is my job’s computer that is use daily. I can’t lose it for a minute.

6

Since you are also apparently using Intel Storage Raid like me, I find it strange that you cannot access SMART while the disk is rebuilding… I have never tested it personally, but I do know that I can still see and even read from a rebuilding drive or raid partition… Hopefully, it’s not totally broken right now

7

The problem here is that it is not “always” rebuilding. Sometime it decides to rebuild but then come back degraded again after a certain time. And since it is not rebuilding and stay in degraded status, I don’t have access to any information about the drive.

8

So, the hard drive finally rebuilt back. Here is the SMART data results(well, I think it is this…). It’s strange because it says that everything is Ok.

[WDC WD1500HLFS-01G6U0 (WD-WXL908050489)] 

ID    Attribute Description                         Threshold    Value     Worst      Data         Status

01  Raw Read Error Rate                                 51         200         200          0                 OK: Value is normal

03  Spinup Time                                                21          200         200       2966             OK: Value is normal

04  Start/Stop Count                                           0            99           99         1092             OK: Always passes

05  Reallocated Sector Count                       140          200        200           0                 OK: Value is normal

07  Seek Error Rate                                           0            200         200           0                OK: Always passes

09  Power-On Time Count                               0               78          78       16551            OK: Always passes

0A  Spinup Retry Count                                     0            100         100          0                  OK: Always passes

0B  Calibration Retry Count                              0            100         100          0                 OK: Always passes

0C  Power Cycle Count                                     0              99           99       1044               OK: Always passes

C0  Power-Off Retract Count                            0             200        200         37                 OK: Always passes

C1  Load/Unload Cycle Count                         0             200         200      1092              OK: Always passes

C2  Temperature                                                 0            120          107        27                 OK: Always passes

C4  Reallocation Event Count                          0             200          200         0                  OK: Always passes

C5  Current Pending Sector Count                 0             200          200          0                  OK: Always passes

C6  Offline Uncorrectable Sector Count         0             200          200          0                  OK: Always passes

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

C8  Write Error Rate                                           0              200          200         0                   OK: Always passes

9

mhhh thats very strange. Sure you picked the right disk, since this log doesn’t show anything wrong. xD

My brother had issues with Intel’s ICH9r raid controller before. Random rebuilding as well (after either a crash or a fresh boot). Strangely enough, I had the same chip with no issues. Defective? Maybe. Could have been the BIOS as well.

If there is a BIOS update available for your motherboard, update it. These tend to also include updated firmwares for your onboard raid controller as well.

Also, ensure the connections are clean and maybe even replace it, to make sure the cable itself isn’t broken: Both SATA data and powercables are cheap nowadays.

10

All cables has been replaced last week. And I changed the connexion’s port of each drive too. It changes nothing. I’ll try to update the BIOS driver and if it’s not working, I think I’ll just replace the defective hard disk or send it somewhere it could be fix properly. I also heard that the VelociRaptor is not a good choice for a RAID setup. Maybe it could be the problem itself…

And yes, I know it is very strange about the log, but I picked up the right disk and everything is Ok. Even the other disk’s log dosen’t show any problem at all.

11

Here more food for thought: Connect the drives with a different sata port on the mobo. Intel RAID wont have a problem with drives suddenly being connected on another port. if suddenly, this issue arises on another disk, you know that its your mobo and not the hdds.

Also, with the recent decrease of the price for SSDs, there isn’t much of a point anymore for these high rpm drives. but thats just my opinion on the matter.

12

Connecting the drives with a different sata port on the mobo has already been tried. No changes at all. The same thing happen to the same drive. I think the last thing to do is to format the computer and set the Marvell driver for the RAID, and if this is not working I’ll set two normal SATA drives or just replace the defective disk. Thanks a lot for your help David64 ! I appreciate ! :slight_smile: