is my hard drive toast?

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Xsen

Reputable
May 29, 2015
5
0
4,510
Hi,

I have a "Western Digital Caviar 2TB SATAII 64MB Cache 3.5-inch Green Internal Hard Drive" that I bought about 4 years ago on my media server that seems to have died. I'd like your opinion to see if there is any hope (ie could it be just the partition table or something that is messed up?).

Anyhow, the drive was on a debian server running pretty much 24/7.
There is only 1 partition on the disk.
After moving some files from one disk to another on the server, suddenly nothing on this partition was available, and it looked like the disk was un-mounted.
The server wouldn't restart until I removed the offending drive (there were some error messages in a loop like "failed command READ DMA", "status {DRDY ERR}" which were not very promising).

I've plugged the disk on a hard drive docking station (USB) on my windows 7 desktop, and ran some tests with smartctl:

  • ■ smartctl.exe --test=long -T verypermissive /dev/sdf
    ■ smartctl.exe -a -T verypermissive /dev/sdf

The output of the last command is:
smartctl 6.4 2015-06-04 r4109 [x86_64-w64-mingw32-win7-sp1] (sf-6.4-1)
Copyright (C) 2002-15, Bruce Allen, Christian Franke, www.smartmontools.org

=== START OF INFORMATION SECTION ===
Model Family: Western Digital Caviar Green (AF)
Device Model: WDC WD20EARS-00MVWB0
Serial Number: WD-WCAZA5728115
LU WWN Device Id: 5 0014ee 205aafb75
Firmware Version: 51.0AB51
User Capacity: 2,000,398,934,016 bytes [2.00 TB]
Sector Size: 512 bytes logical/physical
Device is: In smartctl database [for details use: -P show]
ATA Version is: ATA8-ACS (minor revision not indicated)
SATA Version is: SATA 2.6, 3.0 Gb/s
Local Time is: Sun Aug 02 15:51:19 2015 GMTDT
SMART support is: Available - device has SMART capability.
SMART support is: Enabled

=== START OF READ SMART DATA SECTION ===
SMART Status not supported: Incomplete response, ATA output registers missing
SMART overall-health self-assessment test result: PASSED
Warning: This result is based on an Attribute check.

General SMART Values:
Offline data collection status: (0x82) Offline data collection activity
was completed without error.
Auto Offline Data Collection: Enabled.
Self-test execution status: ( 89) The previous self-test completed having
the electrical element of the test
failed.
Total time to complete Offline
data collection: (37680) seconds.
Offline data collection
capabilities: (0x7b) SMART execute Offline immediate.
Auto Offline data collection on/off support.
Suspend Offline collection upon new
command.
Offline surface scan supported.
Self-test supported.
Conveyance Self-test supported.
Selective Self-test supported.
SMART capabilities: (0x0003) Saves SMART data before entering
power-saving mode.
Supports SMART auto save timer.
Error logging capability: (0x01) Error logging supported.
General Purpose Logging supported.
Short self-test routine
recommended polling time: ( 2) minutes.
Extended self-test routine
recommended polling time: ( 363) minutes.
Conveyance self-test routine
recommended polling time: ( 5) minutes.
SCT capabilities: (0x3035) SCT Status supported.
SCT Feature Control supported.
SCT Data Table supported.

SMART Attributes Data Structure revision number: 16
Vendor Specific SMART Attributes with Thresholds:
ID# ATTRIBUTE_NAME FLAG VALUE WORST THRESH TYPE UPDATED WHEN_FAILED RAW_VALUE
1 Raw_Read_Error_Rate 0x002f 200 200 051 Pre-fail Always - 0
3 Spin_Up_Time 0x0027 253 168 021 Pre-fail Always - 1058
4 Start_Stop_Count 0x0032 098 098 000 Old_age Always - 2749
5 Reallocated_Sector_Ct 0x0033 200 200 140 Pre-fail Always - 0
7 Seek_Error_Rate 0x002e 199 199 000 Old_age Always - 141
9 Power_On_Hours 0x0032 079 079 000 Old_age Always - 15986
10 Spin_Retry_Count 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 0
11 Calibration_Retry_Count 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 0
12 Power_Cycle_Count 0x0032 099 099 000 Old_age Always - 1118
192 Power-Off_Retract_Count 0x0032 200 200 000 Old_age Always - 80
193 Load_Cycle_Count 0x0032 194 194 000 Old_age Always - 20434
194 Temperature_Celsius 0x0022 119 108 000 Old_age Always - 31
196 Reallocated_Event_Count 0x0032 200 200 000 Old_age Always - 0
197 Current_Pending_Sector 0x0032 200 200 000 Old_age Always - 0
198 Offline_Uncorrectable 0x0030 200 200 000 Old_age Offline - 0
199 UDMA_CRC_Error_Count 0x0032 200 200 000 Old_age Always - 0
200 Multi_Zone_Error_Rate 0x0008 200 200 000 Old_age Offline - 0

SMART Error Log Version: 1
No Errors Logged

SMART Self-test log structure revision number 1
Num Test_Description Status Remaining LifeTime(hours) LBA_of_first_error
# 1 Extended offline Completed: electrical failure 90% 15986 -

SMART Selective self-test log data structure revision number 1
SPAN MIN_LBA MAX_LBA CURRENT_TEST_STATUS
1 0 0 Not_testing
2 0 0 Not_testing
3 0 0 Not_testing
4 0 0 Not_testing
5 0 0 Not_testing
Selective self-test flags (0x0):
After scanning selected spans, do NOT read-scan remainder of disk.
If Selective self-test is pending on power-up, resume after 0 minute delay.
Click to expand...

I'm particularly concerned by the bit saying:
Self-test execution status: ( 89) The previous self-test completed having
the electrical element of the test
failed.
Click to expand...

WD's "Data Lifeguard Diagnostic for Windows" doesn't even see the hard drive... when it even shows up in Windows' "Disk Management" tool.

Thanks for your input :)

Edit: just realised that according to that it has been running for 15986 hours... or 666 days. Hmm, looks like it's properly doomed :D
 
Solution
SuperSoph_WD
I'm stating the obvious here, Xsen, and unfortunately, the drive has too many bad sectors which is something you cannot fix yourself. Usually HDD sectors marked as bad are unavailable for usage again. I'm glad that you don't have any essential data that needs recovery though, because it might have been costly.
Since the WD Green is 4 years old, I'm afraid you're out of warranty as well, so I'd recommend you to start looking for a new hard drive replacement because there's no magic that could be done in your too-many-bad-sectors case. :(

Best of luck! Hope I was helpful!
SuperSoph_WD
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SuperSoph_WD

SuperSoph_WD

Glorious
Jul 30, 2014
6,758
3
45,960
Hey there, Xsen!

I'm very sorry to hear about your WD Green failing on you! :( Could you please tell me how the drive appears in Disk Management? Are you able to access your files from the docking station? If yes, I'd strongly advise you to back up them up immediately.
It's weird that Data LifeGuard is unable to see the drive since it's detected by the system. I'd recommend you to try some of the third-party tools suggested here: http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/282651-32-best-diagnostic-testing-utility
This way we could benchmark these SMART results.

Keep me posted! :)
SuperSoph_WD
 
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Xsen

Reputable
May 29, 2015
5
0
4,510


Oh how nice of you to drop in to look into this :)

Well here is how it looks in Disk Management:
iQulhOd.png


Interestingly this time the drive shows up in WD Data LifeGuard Diagnostics!!

I started a long test and it failed with the below:
Test Result: FAIL
Test Error Code: 08-Too many bad sectors detected.
Click to expand...

The quick test stays stuck at around 90%:
s8TB1ql.png


Trying the long test after again, it seems to stay stuck on the same sector forever...

Regarding the files no they don't show up :) It's not too bad as there's nothing I can't afford to loose on that drive. I'm just trying to determine if the drive is dead or if there is some magic that can be done (like if it was only the partition table that was damage or something similar).
 
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SuperSoph_WD

SuperSoph_WD

Glorious
Jul 30, 2014
6,758
3
45,960
I'm stating the obvious here, Xsen, and unfortunately, the drive has too many bad sectors which is something you cannot fix yourself. Usually HDD sectors marked as bad are unavailable for usage again. I'm glad that you don't have any essential data that needs recovery though, because it might have been costly.
Since the WD Green is 4 years old, I'm afraid you're out of warranty as well, so I'd recommend you to start looking for a new hard drive replacement because there's no magic that could be done in your too-many-bad-sectors case. :(

Best of luck! Hope I was helpful!
SuperSoph_WD
 
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Solution
X

Xsen

Reputable
May 29, 2015
5
0
4,510


Thanks for your help :) I just wanted a second opinion so that I could burry it being confident there was nothing more I could do!
 
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