Is my hard drive dying or not?

[hans030390]

One of our computers has been acting funny. It boots up quick and such, but after logging on, things slow to a crawl. There is basically nothing loading on boot. Checked for viruses, etc. It doesn't make sense. And sometimes it just acts weird.

And the hard drive is loud.

SO, I downloaded the WD diagnostic tool. Upon loading it, it instantly labeled the hard drive as having failed the SMART status. Ok, so I was right. But, just to be safe, I ran a quick test (SMART) AND a full blown diagnostics with the SAME utility. Both of those passed. WTF? The program still loads up saying my HDD fails SMART, yet it passes the test (even the SMART test).

I am very confused.

 

[Elixer]

For the most part, any SMART warning/error pretty much means the drive is ready to retire.
I would try another SMART reader, like this one: http://crystalmark.info/?lang=en (CrystalDiskInfo) It is free.

Not really sure why it would report a SMART error, and not reporting the same error while doing the quick/long tests, unless you mean, on the BIOS screen, that it reported a SMART error?

 

[Nothinman]

I believe the short and long SMART tests only deal with reading data from the drive but the SMART status takes into account the other attributes like reallocated sector count, seek error rate, seek time performance, etc. A tool like smartctl from smartmontools will show you all of the attributes and their values.

 

[hans030390]

Originally posted by: Elixer
For the most part, any SMART warning/error pretty much means the drive is ready to retire.
I would try another SMART reader, like this one: http://crystalmark.info/?lang=en (CrystalDiskInfo) It is free.

Not really sure why it would report a SMART error, and not reporting the same error while doing the quick/long tests, unless you mean, on the BIOS screen, that it reported a SMART error?

No. The SMART error was displayed upon opening the WD Diagnostics software (within Windows). But, when I actually ran the SMART test, it passed. Same goes for the "thorough" test.

CrystalDiskInfo reports that the HDD health is good.

Hm. Wonder what's bogging down the computer, then...and why the HDD is so loud when it's working (which is a LOT when I log in).

 

[aken909]

Have you Defraged recently? What you say sounds like the M.O. of a really fragmented drive?

 

[hans030390]

Originally posted by: aken909
Have you Defraged recently? What you say sounds like the M.O. of a really fragmented drive?

Not yet. It's my families computer, not mine...I don't remember the last time I came over and defragmented it...but I don't think it was THAT long ago.

 

[aken909]

Haha yeah, i'm going to say its probably that, your dad was dl'ing way to many porn torrents! =P

 

[Elixer]

Originally posted by: hans030390

Originally posted by: Elixer
For the most part, any SMART warning/error pretty much means the drive is ready to retire.
I would try another SMART reader, like this one: http://crystalmark.info/?lang=en (CrystalDiskInfo) It is free.

Not really sure why it would report a SMART error, and not reporting the same error while doing the quick/long tests, unless you mean, on the BIOS screen, that it reported a SMART error?

No. The SMART error was displayed upon opening the WD Diagnostics software (within Windows). But, when I actually ran the SMART test, it passed. Same goes for the "thorough" test.

CrystalDiskInfo reports that the HDD health is good.

Hm. Wonder what's bogging down the computer, then...and why the HDD is so loud when it's working (which is a LOT when I log in).

Also worth mentioning, SMART isn't a very good indicator for trying to determine if a HD is about to die. Out of all the HDs I have had, only 1 had SMART errors, before it died. The rest died without one peep from a SMART warning/error. So it is pretty much worthless IMO.

If it is getting louder than normal, I would think a bearing is about to die, so time for a new HD.

 

[taltamir]

it supposedly catches 60% of failures. how many units are you including in your sample?

 

[Elixer]

Originally posted by: taltamir
it supposedly catches 60% of failures. how many units are you including in your sample?

7 HDs (different models/makes) for me, and company had 15 HDs go belly up with no SMART indication, they just died. A few of those were <6 months, some were <12 months, and the majority were <20 months.
Heat wasn't a issue, nor was vibration. At the company, they were raid class drives, running mostly 24/7, except 1 day a month, where everything gets shut down for about 1 hour. They all just failed in the RAID array, and once removed from the arrays, I tried to run diagnostic software on them, and none of them would respond, and not one of them reported a SMART error (from the company).

 

[jimhsu]

Or in other words P(SMART error|fail) (prob. of SMART error given that the hard drive failed) is pretty low. Though I suspect P(fail|SMART error) is fairly high. Do we have enough samples for the bayesian probability?

 

[RebateMonger]

I can't think of a single case where there I saw a SMART error BEFORE the drive exhibited major failure symptoms. In fact, I don't think I've ever SEEN a SMART error! I probably run into 15 failed or failing hard drives a year.

 

[hans030390]

Well, it still boots up very fast after defragmenting (did not use the build in Windows app for this), but still runs like crap for a couple minutes after logging in. Hard drive is audible under the desk, 3 feet away or so. RAM is good...no spyware or viruses, etc.

And Western Digital's disk diagnostics claims the HDD has a SMART failure when opened, but not after tests. Other programs show the drive to be healthy.

So...verdict?

 

[RebateMonger]

Originally posted by: hans030390
So...verdict?

Genrally, I'd say that SMART is so conservative that ANY warnings should be taken very seriously.

You never did say if there are any disk- or disk-controller-related errors in the System Events Log. That's a sure sign of trouble and will usually be seen when a system is running slowly because of disk errors.

 

[SergeC]

Update your motherboard's BIOS, and test it again.

 

[hans030390]

Originally posted by: RebateMonger

Originally posted by: hans030390
So...verdict?

Genrally, I'd say that SMART is so conservative that ANY warnings should be taken very seriously.

You never did say if there are any disk- or disk-controller-related errors in the System Events Log. That's a sure sign of trouble and will usually be seen when a system is running slowly because of disk errors.

Only system log error is something about DMICall failing to load.

Originally posted by: SergeC
Update your motherboard's BIOS, and test it again.

They're already up to date.

 

[jimhsu]

Re: SMART errors, this link may be helpful:

labs.google.com/papers/disk_failures.pdf

Their conclusions mirror those here:

? Contrary to previously reported results, we found
very little correlation between failure rates and either
elevated temperature or activity levels.
? Some SMART parameters (scan errors, reallocation
counts, offline reallocation counts, and probational
counts) have a large impact on failure probability.
? Given the lack of occurrence of predictive SMART
signals on a large fraction of failed drives, it is unlikely
that an accurate predictive failure model can
be built based on these signals alone.

 

[aken909]

Well lots of people have given advice.

If you defragged and its still noisy it may be going bad, though I have seen noisy drives last a long time.
But these days you can get hard drives new for $50-75 in the 500-1tb range so if you have a few extra bucks then back up your files and reinstall windows, or you could use a hd clone software if you want to keep the data intact or can't reinstall windows for some reason.