What will cause S.M.A.R.T. Fail?

[i845G]

"My harddisk failed!!!", I screamed.

After I scanned my drive with the Norton Disk Doctor... My harddisk failed... Why is it like that... My HDD is Maxtor DiamondMax Plus 9 6Y060L0... I used the Maxtor Diagnostic Software called PowerMax to test it... It failed the SMART Test... What will cause SMART Fail? Or is this HDD model problematic... I had 2 HDDs, this model, failed before... This is my 2nd RMA drive... Failed 3 times in 2 months... Why...

For your details... This is my PC Specs...
AMD XP 2000+
ABIT NF7
256MB DDR 333 SDRAM CL2.5 - Kingston
Windows XP Pro with SP1
ATi Radeon 9000 64MB DDR SDRAM
300Watt Power Supply

 

[AndyHui]

FAQ: What is SMART for hard drives?

SMART monitors over 35 drive attributes, so without dedicated SMART software, the SMART features built into the motherboard BIOS won't tell you exactly what the problem is. There are a few freeware SMART tools out there if you really want to know exactly what the problem is.

Either way, backup your data now and get an RMA.

 

[i845G]

Can you tell me the tools that monitor the SMART attributes?

.... What caused my HDD's SMART fail?

 

[i845G]

Is it because that I use Norton Disk Doctor to check my drive, so my HDD failed? The temperature was considered OK to me when it was scanning the drive... about 38... Idle is at about 29-30... I see no reasons that it was an overheating issue... Why? Is this model problematic?

 

[AndyHui]

It may not be because of Norton. Failures can happen for all sorts of reasons.
It happens....nothing special about the model.

Try Active SMART.

As I said, there's not much you can do about it. Just get an RMA and don't worry about it.

 

[i845G]

My 1st HDD of this model failed 2 days after I bought...

The 1st RMA drive died after running the Norton Disk Doctor
The 2nd RMA drive died after running the Norton Disk Doctor too

After scanning... The drives became extremely slow... After I restarted... They couldn't boot into Windows XP... I used the Maxtor PowerMax to check... It said that my drives failed the SMART Self Test...

I have another old Quantum Fireball CX 10.2 ATA-66 running in my pc with no problems...
Ah... Why is it like that...
I think my power supply shouldn't be the cause... As its spec is higher than most generic power power supply: 15A for +12V, 30A for +5V, 20A for +3.3V...

My AMD board, ABIT NF7, has an ATX 12V connector that is designed for P4... I am using the 40-Pin/80-Wire Cable too... My PC power socket is connected to the AVR too... Could anybody that uses this model tell me if they have any problems or not?

 

[zephyrprime]

There are a buch of things that can cause a SMART failure. Drives keep a category of things that can fail and the standard for this is called SMART. On my maxtor, the SMART parameters monitored are:

03 spin up time
04 start/stop count
05 reallocated sector count
06 read channel margin
07 seek error rate
08 seek time performance
09 power-on hours count
0A spin up retry count
0B calibration retry count
0C power cycle count
C0 power-off retract count
C1 load/unload cycle count
C2 temperature
C3 unknown attribure
C4 reallocation event count
C5 current pending sector count
C6 off-line scan uncorrectable sector count
C7 Ultra ATA CRC error count
C8 Write error count
C9 unknown
CA unknown
CB unknown
CC unknown
CD unknown
CE unknown
CF unknown
D0 unknown
D1 unknown
63 unknown
64 unknown
65 unknown


The exact parameters monitored depends on brand and model.

 

[i845G]

Originally posted by: zephyrprime
There are a buch of things that can cause a SMART failure. Drives keep a category of things that can fail and the standard for this is called SMART. On my maxtor, the SMART parameters monitored are:

03 spin up time
04 start/stop count
05 reallocated sector count
06 read channel margin
07 seek error rate
08 seek time performance
09 power-on hours count
0A spin up retry count
0B calibration retry count
0C power cycle count
C0 power-off retract count
C1 load/unload cycle count
C2 temperature
C3 unknown attribure
C4 reallocation event count
C5 current pending sector count
C6 off-line scan uncorrectable sector count
C7 Ultra ATA CRC error count
C8 Write error count
C9 unknown
CA unknown
CB unknown
CC unknown
CD unknown
CE unknown
CF unknown
D0 unknown
D1 unknown
63 unknown
64 unknown
65 unknown


The exact parameters monitored depends on brand and model.

The thing I want to know is that what causes these S.M.A.R.T. attributes to fail?... Overheating? Power Supply? or....

 

[TheCorm]

The thing I want to know is that what causes these S.M.A.R.T. attributes to fail?... Overheating? Power Supply? or....

S.M.A.R.T Technology is like a quick doctors medical examination, it checks various issues on the hard drive, if the hard drive is on it's way out then it will throw up a message....it won't throw up a fail message because of overheating...

Corm

 

[tart666]

S.M.A.R.T Technology is like a quick doctors medical examination,

The way I understand it, all SMART does is remember all errors, like read, seek, or write, and reports the frequency of those errors to you.

Typically an alarm is set, so after say 100 read errors the warning goes off during boot / SMART check.

A failed SMART test is enough reason to RMA the drive, also giving you a few days/weeks/years to offload your data before the drive totals.

 

[zephyrprime]

The thing I want to know is that what causes these S.M.A.R.T. attributes to fail?... Overheating? Power Supply? or....

...dumb luck. It's usually not heat or power supply. Heat causes any motor to die sooner but only a faulty motor would die within the normal life span of a drive even if it was running a little hot.

I've taken apart many hard drives. I've seen a hard drive that failed because one of it's heads fell off. I used to have another one that failed because of some motor problem (this was salvaged by the freezer trick). I've also seen many drives that have platters whose entire surface is covered with fine scratches. However, I've also seen many drives with no obvious physical defect at all but were dead.

 

[sharkeeper]

What will cause S.M.A.R.T. Fail?

S.T.U.P.I.D.I.T.Y Sorry, couldn't resist! Stupid hard drives.

Yes a lot of drives have been going out! That's what backups are for!

Sure I hear people saying what the hell are you going to use to back up 200 GB? Well you have to figure what your priorities are. You can always use a cheap program like handybackup and backup stuff you don't want to lose to another hard disk. Then you can back up critical stuff that never changes to optical medium. Tape is another option, although the hardware gets expensive when you cross the 40GB range.

Cheers!

 

[i845G]

U mean that faulty motor is the most likely cause to my HDD failure?

 

[bozo1]

Originally posted by: i845G
U mean that faulty motor is the most likely cause to my HDD failure?

There is no way for any of us to know what is wrong with your drive. It could be anything. Motor problem, failed electronic component, overclocking your system too high.

Everyone here is just guessing.

 

[i845G]

Why overclocking will damage HDD? Could you explain to me? Thanks

 

[bozo1]

I've seen overclocking cause the SMART deal to activate even though there is nothing wrong with the drive.