Which S.M.A.R.T test to believe

[Texun]

I'm going to replace the drive anyway but was wondering if anyone ever received conflicting SMART status reports on a drive. If so what was the end result?

I have my OS on a WD drive in my file server. A few weeks ago I checked the SMART status using the option in Speedfan. It came back with bad news and said the drive was near death and should be replaced PDQ, so I DL'd the WD Data Lifeguard tool and ran it. The drive came up clean with no problems.

Last night I got my first BSOD in years while moving files. I ran the test in Speedfan and it reported the following:

NOTE : your hard disk has 290 reallocated sectors (this value is very large and your hard disk should be replaced). Hard disks do have spare sectors (usually from 256 up to 1024) used to replace bad ones. This remapping operation is transparent to the end user. Anyway, this can lead to degradated performances (because remapped sectors are in different places of the disk than the original ones and the head needs additional moving). If reallocated sectors grow over time, you might encounter some serious troubles. A backup of the most important data is suggested anyway.

NOTE : your hard disk has 1 pending sectors. Those are sectors that couldn't be properly read and that the hard disk logic is waiting for a write operation to try to remap to a spare sector (if available). According to the Reallocated Sector Count attribute, your hard disk seems to have available spare sectors. A simple disk surface scan won't be enough to force the remap operation. You need a read/write surface scan to remap the sector. The best option should be a tool that knows about what should be read from that sector so that it has some option to apply the best fix to the missing data.

The overall fitness for this drive is 39%.
The overall performance for this drive is 94%.
The link to get back and see a new report about this hard disk in the future is this. Consider that new hard disks and new checks are added over time.
DISCLAIMER: this report does its best to highlight issues and warnings related to your hard disk. It cannot be held responsible for any mistake. This page and its results cannot be used in any other way but the one defined by its author.

The Data Lifeguard still says it's ok but I don't trust it. The report from SF along with the BSOD and a red flag in the Event Viewer say something is wrong with the drive. The Event viewer gave a generic complaint about not getting a response from the drive. Either way it will be gone in a few days wen my new one arrives. I have my OS cloned so I'm not too concerned as long as the image is good.

It seems odd that two tools designed for the same thing would provide much different reports. If not for the BSOD and Event Viewer flag I'm not sue I would have acted as quickly as I did.

 

[Nocturnal]

Hitachi Drive Fitness Tool

Download that, burn to CD and run. If it passes, you're okay. If not, you're not okay.

Also you want to do a CHKDSK. There should be a .dmp file in C:\Windows\Minidump. Run it through the Microsoft Debugger to see exactly what is causing the computer to blue screen.

 

[Texun]

Thanks. I did and it won't run without locking up. I guess that confirms what I already know. I backed up 50 gigs of data off that drive just last week, and damn glad I did!

 

[RebateMonger]

One design goal of the SMART tests was to have low false positives. According to a recent Google study of 100,000 hard drives, SMART doesn't catch all the failures, but when SMART DOES give a warning, the odds of a drive failure in the next 60 days are quite high. Personally, if I got a SMART warning, I'd scrap (or RMA) the drive.

 

[RU482]

Originally posted by: Nocturnal
Hitachi Drive Fitness Tool

Download that, burn to CD and run. If it passes, you're okay. If not, you're not okay.

Also you want to do a CHKDSK. There should be a .dmp file in C:\Windows\Minidump. Run it through the Microsoft Debugger to see exactly what is causing the computer to blue screen.

I repair tablet PCs for a living. THe vast majority of our tablets have hitachi drives in them, so I religiously run the Hitachi drive fitness test as part of my RMA process. I gotta admit, there have been quite a few instances where a drive has passed this test multiple times (before and after re-imaging the hard drive), to only come back the next week with corruption issues and then a failed test.

Don't say hitachi drive fitness test is the end all be all.