Disk failure of my HDD?

VOT Productions · 2012-05-30 14:15:00

[votproductions@Arch ~]$ sudo uname -a
Linux Arch 3.3.7-1-ck #1 SMP PREEMPT Mon May 21 21:50:24 EDT 2012 x86_64 GNU/Linux

I think one of my disks are failing, /dev/sdb at ata4.0.

Here's an extract from dmesg:

[ 3210.426363] ata4: lost interrupt (Status 0x50)
[ 3210.426380] ata4.00: exception Emask 0x0 SAct 0x0 SErr 0x0 action 0x6 frozen
[ 3210.426384] ata4.00: failed command: READ DMA
[ 3210.426390] ata4.00: cmd c8/00:00:8f:ad:c9/00:00:00:00:00/e0 tag 0 dma 131072 in
[ 3210.426391]          res 40/00:01:01:00:00/00:00:00:00:00/00 Emask 0x4 (timeout)
[ 3210.426394] ata4.00: status: { DRDY }
[ 3210.426402] ata4: soft resetting link
[ 3210.690275] ata4.00: configured for UDMA/33
[ 3210.690287] ata4: EH complete

Edit: Also displays READ DMA EXT and IDENTIFY DEVICE.

Here's smartctl for the drive:

smartctl 5.42 2011-10-20 r3458 [x86_64-linux-3.3.7-1-ck] (local build)
Copyright (C) 2002-11 by Bruce Allen, http://smartmontools.sourceforge.net

=== START OF INFORMATION SECTION ===
Model Family:     Seagate Barracuda 7200.9
Device Model:     ST3160812AS
Serial Number:    5LS8BP3F
Firmware Version: 3.ADJ
User Capacity:    160,000,000,000 bytes [160 GB]
Sector Size:      512 bytes logical/physical
Device is:        In smartctl database [for details use: -P show]
ATA Version is:   7
ATA Standard is:  Exact ATA specification draft version not indicated
Local Time is:    Wed May 30 15:43:41 2012 IST
SMART support is: Available - device has SMART capability.
SMART support is: Enabled

=== START OF READ SMART DATA SECTION ===
SMART overall-health self-assessment test result: PASSED
See vendor-specific Attribute list for marginal Attributes.

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:      (   0)	The previous self-test routine completed
					without error or no self-test has ever 
					been run.
Total time to complete Offline 
data collection: 		(  430) seconds.
Offline data collection
capabilities: 			 (0x5b) SMART execute Offline immediate.
					Auto Offline data collection on/off support.
					Suspend Offline collection upon new
					command.
					Offline surface scan supported.https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=142371
					Self-test supported.
					No 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: 	 (  54) minutes.

SMART Attributes Data Structure revision number: 10
Vendor Specific SMART Attributes with Thresholds:
ID# ATTRIBUTE_NAME          FLAG     VALUE WORST THRESH TYPE      UPDATED  WHEN_FAILED RAW_VALUE
  1 Raw_Read_Error_Rate     0x000f   117   084   006    Pre-fail  Always       -       120025057
  3 Spin_Up_Time            0x0003   099   093   000    Pre-fail  Always       -       0
  4 Start_Stop_Count        0x0032   096   096   020    Old_age   Always       -       4490
  5 Reallocated_Sector_Ct   0x0033   100   100   036    Pre-fail  Always       -       0
  7 Seek_Error_Rate         0x000f   081   060   030    Pre-fail  Always       -       17677491374
  9 Power_On_Hours          0x0032   085   085   000    Old_age   Always       -       13545
 10 Spin_Retry_Count        0x0013   100   100   097    Pre-fail  Always       -       0
 12 Power_Cycle_Count       0x0032   096   096   020    Old_age   Always       -       4224
187 Reported_Uncorrect      0x0032   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       0
189 High_Fly_Writes         0x003a   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       0
190 Airflow_Temperature_Cel 0x0022   058   039   045    Old_age   Always   In_the_past 42 (Min/Max 42/42)
194 Temperature_Celsius     0x0022   042   061   000    Old_age   Always       -       42 (0 14 0 0 0)
195 Hardware_ECC_Recovered  0x001a   109   045   000    Old_age   Always       -       42397154
197 Current_Pending_Sector  0x0012   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       0
198 Offline_Uncorrectable   0x0010   100   100   000    Old_age   Offline      -       0
199 UDMA_CRC_Error_Count    0x003e   200   200   000    Old_age   Always       -       0
200 Multi_Zone_Error_Rate   0x0000   100   253   000    Old_age   Offline      -       0
202 Data_Address_Mark_Errs  0x0032   100   253   000    Old_age   Always       -       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  Short offline       Completed without error       00%     13536         -
# 2  Short offline       Aborted by host               80%     13536         -
# 3  Extended offline    Aborted by host               80%      7632         -
# 4  Short offline       Completed without error       00%         0         -

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.

So why does it matter?
Trying to access it via Dolphin ends up Dolphin being frozen. Trying to access it via Thunar says it's loading but it doesn't complete. Manual mount and fdisk -l simply stall. Finally, boot is spammed with those errors and it keeps checking for this drive and because of that, boot has increased to 10 minutes. But IMPORTANTLY, if I let the PC rest for a few minutes, the disk returns to normal for 5 minutes.

This is a NTFS device, so I checked it using chkdsk on Windows and VERY slowily (used to be 5 minutes, now I have to leave it for an hour), it completes and it says there are no errors.

The good news is that it's a backup device, so it doesn't contain any data that are important because they are all on my other sda1 disk, used also for the OS. However, I still would like this one fixed, because it suddenly just did that...

I also did change the cable connection, and that DID work for a while. The first time this happened, I replugged the SATA drive and it worked for a day. Second time it happened, I did the same and it worked for another day. But today, I did that, and it DIDN'T work. I even tried swapping cables from the main sda1 to this, nope, doesn't work.

If you are wondering why on earth am I running a SATA drive in IDE mode, it's because the BIOS only supports IDE mode and yet, detects SATA drives -_-.

Any thoughts?

Edit: Pacman stalls on checking for file conflicts too!

Last edited by VOT Productions (2012-05-30 20:52:29)

VOT Productions · 2012-06-01 15:45:40

Update: Removed this HDD and plugged in a DVD drive, now I'm getting DVD drive errors! Something fishy is happening...
Sorry, I misread the error message.

Now if I plug in the HDD POST doesn't through! I think it's dying

Last edited by VOT Productions (2012-06-01 16:21:33)

MoonSwan · 2012-06-01 17:54:29

Flash the bios. Yes your hard drive is dying. You can either attempt to repair it with the drive manufacturer's utilities or clone it to another working drive to get your data. Use smartctl to see if that has been tripped. Heat build-up will make a dying drive worse, just fyi...so hit it with an outside fan and open the case, might help stave off death for another few minutes.

cfr · 2012-06-01 23:00:44

Do you know why the tests on the drive were aborted? Or why it started two short tests within the same hour?

There are not many tests in the log. Did you only enable testing after you started to have problems? (Although there is one test from quite a while back? Also aborted...)

Can you try the drive in another machine? Maybe run the extended test on it there?

R00KIE · 2012-06-02 10:22:26

The drive seems to be dying alright, I would do as MoonSwan recomends, get another drive that is larger than that one and do a full disk backup. Do use any reasonable means to keep the dying drive cool as it will probably give you a better chance of recovering all data.

Don't run any more tests on the drive as it will add more working hours to a drive that is already not too well, one extra pass of a test can be the difference between getting all data and having some data lost.

@cfr
The tests were probably issued manually and since short offline tests last for only a couple of minutes it is possible to have more than one test in the same hour.

As for getting "Aborted by host" status, I believe that it is not uncommon, at least for extended offline tests, but if I remember correctly I've never seen that for short offline tests. The reason why it happens is that you issue the test and then leave the drive alone, since there is no activity from the outside to the drive it may go to sleep, or something may put the drive to sleep, such as an usb/sata/ide controller bridge, in that case the test will be aborted and the status will be "Aborted by host".

I have seen this behavior with some of my external hard drives and I needed to put a script doing something on the drive every couple of minutes to keep it from going into standby so the extended offline test could be completed.

Arch Linux

#1 2012-05-30 14:15:00

Disk failure of my HDD?

#2 2012-06-01 15:45:40

Re: Disk failure of my HDD?

#3 2012-06-01 17:54:29

Re: Disk failure of my HDD?

#4 2012-06-01 23:00:44

Re: Disk failure of my HDD?

#5 2012-06-02 10:22:26

Re: Disk failure of my HDD?

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