# SMART errors on disk - what to do?



## smokie (Dec 27, 2002)

Having recently lost a drive of a dual drive TiVo I bit the bullet and put in a 400Gb Samsung as recommended here.

It is taking me an age to get back to where I was, but this morning I have DailyMail running again.

Worryingly, it says "WARNING: SMART errors detected on drive A - check log. " The kernel log has 6 instances today only of

Feb 4 09:49:16 (none) last message repeated 795 times
Feb 4 09:49:16 (none) kernel: hda: drive_cmd: status=0x51 { DriveReady SeekComplete Error } 
Feb 4 09:49:16 (none) kernel: hda: drive_cmd: error=0x04 { DriveStatusError }, secCnt=0, LBAsect=12734377 
Feb 4 09:49:16 (none) kernel: hda: drive_cmd: status=0x51 { DriveReady SeekComplete Error } 
Feb 4 09:49:16 (none) kernel: hda: drive_cmd: error=0x04 { DriveStatusError }, secCnt=0, LBAsect=12734377 
Feb 4 09:49:16 (none) kernel: tuning:lock 0 

mostly with the same LBAsect. The log only goes back about 18 hours.

Should I worry, if so what should I do?


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## blindlemon (May 12, 2002)

Looks like you may have a dodgy sector on the drive 

I assume you ran a full surface scan before fitting it?


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

Unfortunately looks like a faulty hard drive to me, although blindlemon would have more views. 19 month old pair of Samsung 250 Gb HA250JCs here but no sector errors of this kind being reported. And nothing of this kind being reported by my daily mail program.

What do you get if you type */bin/smartctl -a /dev/hda* at the Telnet prompt?

Or if you run *mfscheck *at the Telnet prompt.

Ideally you need to pull the drive and run Samsung's own diagnostic test software on the drive in a PC.


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

blindlemon said:


> Looks like you may have a dodgy sector on the drive
> 
> I assume you ran a full surface scan before fitting it?


You shouldn't tease people like that just because they didn't buy a fully error tested and pre prepared hard drive from you.  

You know perfectly well that most of us amateurs would forget to run such a disk check the first time we did a hard drive upgrade. But more importantly how shortened do you think is the likely life of a hard drive showing such a sector error on day one is? After all there is still the three year warranty anyway.


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## PaulWilkinsUK (Mar 20, 2006)

Pete77 said:


> You shouldn't tease people like that just because they didn't buy a fully error tested and pre prepared hard drive from you.
> 
> You know perfectly well that most of us amateurs would forget to run such a disk check the first time we did a hard drive upgrade. But more importantly how shortened do you think is the likely life of a hard drive showing such a sector error on day one is? After all there is still the three year warranty anyway.


Oooh we are a bit venomous this morning arent we Pete77


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## cwaring (Feb 12, 2002)

Well, _I_ noticed the smiley's


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

PaulWilkinsUK said:


> Oooh we are a bit venomous this morning arent we Pete77


No just friendly banter between I and blindlemon I thought - notice the smileys.

We all know that blindlemon is quite happy for people to do their own upgrades if they feel up to it and also to give them assistance on here himself if they get stuck. And I often point people who don't want to do their own hard drive upgrade in the direction of www.tivoheaven.co.uk


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## PaulWilkinsUK (Mar 20, 2006)

Pete77 said:


> You shouldn't tease people like that just because they didn't buy a fully error tested and pre prepared hard drive from you.


Seems to me that Pete77 takes every opertunity to have a pop at Blindlemon and his uber business whenever he can  . Sour grapes? 

Anyhow, our poor man has some SMART issues. Personally, I've found once SMART gets the 'ump' about a disk, its curtains!


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## blindlemon (May 12, 2002)

Pete77 said:


> how shortened do you think is the likely life of a hard drive showing such a sector error on day one is?


It _might_ have a long and useful life in a PC once the sector had been remapped, but I wouldn't use it in a TiVo, that's for sure :down:


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

PaulWilkinsUK said:


> Seems to me that Pete77 takes every opertunity to have a pop at Blindlemon and his uber business whenever he can  . Sour grapes?


No I don't run a Tivo upgrading business and if I was always having a pop at blindlemon then why would I frequently be providing links to the Tivoheaven website for people who want a pre-prepared upgrade.

However blindlemon did sound a bit schoolmasterly today with his blandishments that the poor upgrader in question would surely have run a hard drive check at the start of the process when he knows perfectly well that is precisely what many solo upgraders would overlook doing until it was too late. And he didn't even mention using the mfscheck or smartctl commands at the Telnet prompt just so that the worst could be fully confirmed. Still it is early on a Sunday morning.

I wonder if you are at all familiar with the concept of irony PaulWilkins?


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## blindlemon (May 12, 2002)

Pete77 said:


> he knows perfectly well that is precisely what many solo upgraders would overlook doing until it was too late.


That's why I asked.

I think maybe the 'early Sunday morning' excuse needs to be wheeled out in your favour Pete


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## PaulWilkinsUK (Mar 20, 2006)

Pete77 said:


> I wonder if you are at all familiar with the concept of irony PaulWilkins?


 Yup - thats the same as Coppery and Silvery, aint it?


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## smokie (Dec 27, 2002)

Sorry guys, please don't argue on my behalf!  I personally have utmost respect for Pete and Blindlemon, both of whom I have got much invaluable assistance from directly or indirectly.

mfscheck scan tells me that I have 0 fatal, 0 severe, 0 warnings.

smartctl tells me that the device is a HD400LD which supports version 7. It then goes on to say that the "Drive supports SMART and is disabled. Use option -e to enable." Should I do that then re-run it?

I will check what it's recording this pm and maybe do the Samsung thing if 'er indoors isn't using it. I'd quite like to back it up now anyway.

Given that this drive is only weeks old but hasn't completely failed, would it qualify for a replacement? Or, more importantly, money back? I have no problem buying another drive then sending this one back (to enable me to backup everything before this one goes! - I would no doubt need some help here for that process though, but I guess a forum search, or Hinsdale, wil help)


btw the drive came from Savastore for about £78.


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

smokie said:


> smartctl tells me that the device is a HD400LD which supports version 7. It then goes on to say that the "Drive supports SMART and is disabled. Use option -e to enable." Should I do that then re-run it?


Its Interesting that smartctl says SMART is disabled. I wonder if this has somehow confused the reporting by dailymail.

I would have thought trying the option to enable it (which can otherwise only be done with the disk out of the machine and using the Samsung hard drive utilities CD) would be a good option. You can then tell us what smartctl reports back.

Perhaps there isn't a fault with the drive after all and this is how dailymail behaves if SMART isn't enabled and yet SMART reporting in DailyMail is turned on. You might have another more up to date copy of smartctl in var/hack/bin if you followed the DailyMail install instructions and this is the Smartctl dailymail is using. Try /var/hack/bin/smartctl -a /dev/hda and see if what this reports is the same as /var/bin/smartctl -a /dev/hda


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

blindlemon said:


> I think maybe the 'early Sunday morning' excuse needs to be wheeled out in your favour Pete


I see you still haven't got over me mentioning our friend Andrew in NI and his cheaper Cachecards.


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## smokie (Dec 27, 2002)

Yep, smartctl 5.1-9 says (amongst other things)

SMART support is: Available, device has SMART capability
SMART support is: Disabled

The fact remains that there are some errors in the log so I guess there really are some probs?


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

smokie said:


> Yep, smartctl 5.1-9 says (amongst other things)
> 
> SMART support is: Available, device has SMART capability
> SMART support is: Disabled
> ...


Might as well enable SMART though and see what report you then get out of smartctl though.


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## smokie (Dec 27, 2002)

OK. I've searched around www.samsung.com and found this page http://www.samsung.com/Products/HardDiskDrive/utilities/index.htm which has something in it called HUTIL for checking disks. I don't see SMARTCTL anywhere there (Can I not just enable using the -e switch on the TiVo?)

Are these tests non-destructive? They warn about backing up data but I know that's often precautionary only.

And if it requires remapping, is that like a format. i.e. will I lose everything or maybe just some bits of the odd broadcast. Alternatively, if it shows problems is that sufficient to request a returns?


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

smokie said:


> http://www.samsung.com/Products/HardDiskDrive/utilities/index.htm which has something in it called HUTIL for checking disks. I don't see SMARTCTL anywhere there (Can I not just enable using the -e switch on the TiVo?)


I think you would be better off enabling SMART with -e switch in smartctl and then running a full report once SMART is enabled.

smartctl is a linux utility for assessing disk health status on SMART drives that has been ported for Tivo use. There isn't a Samsung utility called smartctl.



> Are these tests non-destructive? They warn about backing up data but I know that's often precautionary only.
> 
> And if it requires remapping, is that like a format. i.e. will I lose everything or maybe just some bits of the odd broadcast. Alternatively, if it shows problems is that sufficient to request a returns?


I think if the Samsung utility needs to reallocate any bad sectors on the drive etc its pretty much had it so far as working in Tivo is concerned.

I would enable Smart using the -e switch in smartctl first and then see what daily mail and smartctl with the -a switch reports.

So far as returning drives is concerned I don't know what the rules are on bad sectors etc and whether a certain number are meant to be acceptable like dead pixels on a TFT display (even though I don't find any dead pixels to be acceptable personally). You can always exaggerate and claim it was making strange clicking noises etc, etc. I think hard drive manufacturers find most customers don't make gratuitous returns of hard drives once they are in use as its obviously an enormous hassle for the customer on the whole.


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## blindlemon (May 12, 2002)

smokie said:


> Are these tests non-destructive?


Yes, the tests are, but erasing the drive or doing a low level format are not.


smokie said:


> If it requires remapping, is that like a format. i.e. will I lose everything or maybe just some bits of the odd broadcast.


If you erase just the sector you have been having problems with then the drive firmware may remap it. What effect that will have depends on where on the drive it is, but if it's just part of a video stream then you should be OK (although the recording may fail to play back properly). However, as I said before, if one sector is bad then the likelihood is that others will follow, so I would try to avoid putting the drive back in a TiVo if at all possible.


smokie said:


> if it shows problems is that sufficient to request a returns?


If HUTIL shows an error then you can return it via www.rexo.co.uk - normally takes around a week. You will have to pay for the postage to send it back, but it will probably be quicker and easier than trying to get an RMA via the retailer.


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## smokie (Dec 27, 2002)

Done - Dailymail now doesn't mention SMARTCTL anywhere. either to say it's OK or it's not. So maybe it's just a "feature" of Dailymail if SMART isn't enabled.

Running SMARTCTL -a from BIN gives quite a bit of info, including "Check SMART passed" but there is a section which says

"Attribute - Raw Read Error Read Rate, Flag 0x0f86, Value 160, Worst 000, Threshold 051, Raw Value 00932eb09000"

The later SMARTCTL says "SMART - overall-health assessment-test result: PASSED

There is a table below which looks like this (with better formatting!)

SMART Attributes Data Structure revision number: 16
Vendor Specific SMART Attributes with Thresholds:
ID# ATTRIBUTE_NAME FLAG VALUE WORST THRESH TYPE WHEN_FAILED RAW_VALUE
1 Raw_Read_Error_Rate 0x000f 100 100 051 Old_age - 0
3 Spin_Up_Time 0x0007 100 100 015 Old_age - 8256
4 Start_Stop_Count 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age - 6
5 Reallocated_Sector_Ct 0x0033 253 253 010 Old_age - 0
7 Seek_Error_Rate 0x000f 253 253 051 Old_age - 0
8 Seek_Time_Performance 0x0025 253 253 015 Old_age - 0
9 Power_On_Hours 0x0032 253 253 000 Old_age - 8
10 Spin_Retry_Count 0x0033 253 253 051 Old_age - 0
11 Calibration_Retry_Count 0x0012 253 253 000 Old_age - 0
12 Power_Cycle_Count 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age - 6
190 Unknown_Attribute 0x0022 062 062 000 Old_age - 38
194 Temperature_Celsius 0x0022 124 124 000 Old_age - 38
195 Hardware_ECC_Recovered 0x001a 100 100 000 Old_age - 6157374
196 Reallocated_Event_Count 0x0032 253 253 000 Old_age - 0
197 Current_Pending_Sector 0x0012 253 253 000 Old_age - 0
198 Offline_Uncorrectable 0x0030 253 253 000 Old_age - 0
199 UDMA_CRC_Error_Count 0x003e 200 200 000 Old_age - 0
200 Multi_Zone_Error_Rate 0x000a 100 100 000 Old_age - 0
201 Unknown_Attribute 0x000a 253 253 000 Old_age - 0



So maybe panic over, yes?


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## smokie (Dec 27, 2002)

Blindlemon posted as I was writing the above. Will await a verdict then act appropriately (whoops of joy or contact rexo!!)


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

smokie said:


> Blindlemon posted as I was writing the above. Will await a verdict then act appropriately (whoops of joy or contact rexo!!)


On the latest smartctl I get the same values as you for Raw_Read_Error_Rate on my nearly 20 month old drives.

I strongly suspect that DailyMail was thrown by having the smart reporting feature enabled in its config file but then having to communicate with a non SMART enabled drive. But the only way to be sure about this is to put the drive back in a PC and run the official non destructive Samsung diagnostic tests. If they don't find any problem nothing will be altered and you can simply put the drive back in the Tivo and carry on.


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## smokie (Dec 27, 2002)

Will do, at some point in the near future.

Kernel log has just 2 Seek Complete errors since 14:32 yesterday - in different sectors - which I guess isn't good (but could be worse). Lesson learnt re running full diags before even using the drive...

I note the point above that while the drive may be happy in a PC, it is unlikely to last forever in a TiVo! I'm inclined to buy another HD400LD, copy the lot and use the current one in the PC (would have been better if it had been SATA though).

The Good News is that I have Dailymail working again in CRON - this hadn't worked for months (since changing ISP I suppose) and I didn't bother fixing it. I'm also working my way through other hacks and new hacks and updated versions are being installed. (Currently wondering why I should install TiVoWebPlus, and struggling with getting Hackman to run...)


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

smokie said:


> (Currently wondering why I should install TiVoWebPlus, and struggling with getting Hackman to run...)


Little reason really unless you ever want to change your channel lineup remotely over the internet via Tivoweb or want to check your hard drive health status in the Tivo over the internet.

The Channel Preferences module for easily selecting Channels You Receive and your Favourite channels in one clear on screen page in TivoWebPlus has not so far been replicated in TivoWeb and the Info function in TivoWebPlus has been expanded to encompass the Smart health status of the disk. But there are quite a few modules that were written for TivoWeb that don't seem to work as well under TivoWebPlus. And it definitely isn't more stable than Tivoweb either. In any event Daily Mail also reports on the SMART health status of the disk too.


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## yungee (Dec 29, 2002)

My experience of SMART is that it usually warns of impending disaster, ooh, about 4 seconds before the drive goes "pop"! 

I wouldn't rely on it for anything useful really.

If I suspect the HD is beginning to die, I'll pull it and boot up a PC with MHDD and have a poke around:

http://hddguru.com/content/en/software/2005.10.02-MHDD/

Other Hard Drive diagnostics, firmware etc. that may be of interest to you fine fellows (tons of it!):

http://files.hddguru.com/


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

yungee said:


> My experience of SMART is that it usually warns of impending disaster, ooh, about 4 seconds before the drive goes "pop"!


Well that's useful then. 

And there was I thinking smartctl would warn me of problems a month or two before my hard drives reached the end of the line. :down:


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