Hard disk low-level format

bachtiar · 2022-05-21 03:22:17

I have a 4TB HGST hard disk that is supposed to be failing according to smartctl.

Model Family:     Hitachi/HGST Deskstar 7K4000
Device Model:     HGST HDS724040ALE640
User Capacity:    4,000,787,030,016 bytes [4.00 TB]
Sector Sizes:     512 bytes logical, 4096 bytes physical
Rotation Rate:    7200 rpm
Form Factor:      3.5 inches

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     0x000b   100   100   016    Pre-fail  Always       -       0
  2 Throughput_Performance  0x0005   137   137   054    Pre-fail  Offline      -       79
  3 Spin_Up_Time            0x0007   139   139   024    Pre-fail  Always       -       571 (Average 540)
  4 Start_Stop_Count        0x0012   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       1032
  5 Reallocated_Sector_Ct   0x0033   001   001   005    Pre-fail  Always   FAILING_NOW 1984
  7 Seek_Error_Rate         0x000b   100   100   067    Pre-fail  Always       -       0
  8 Seek_Time_Performance   0x0005   117   117   020    Pre-fail  Offline      -       36
  9 Power_On_Hours          0x0012   093   093   000    Old_age   Always       -       54281
 10 Spin_Retry_Count        0x0013   100   100   060    Pre-fail  Always       -       0
 12 Power_Cycle_Count       0x0032   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       954
192 Power-Off_Retract_Count 0x0032   098   098   000    Old_age   Always       -       3079
193 Load_Cycle_Count        0x0012   098   098   000    Old_age   Always       -       3079
194 Temperature_Celsius     0x0002   107   107   000    Old_age   Always       -       56 (Min/Max 16/58)
196 Reallocated_Event_Count 0x0032   001   001   000    Old_age   Always       -       3837
197 Current_Pending_Sector  0x0022   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       0
198 Offline_Uncorrectable   0x0008   100   100   000    Old_age   Offline      -       0
199 UDMA_CRC_Error_Count    0x000a   200   200   000    Old_age   Always       -       0

Interestingly, there are no uncorrectable sectors, which makes me think that there were no failed sector reads and all the reallocations happened during sector writes.

Since this drive is not in active use anymore I would like to clear the list of reallocated sectors and do a manual read/write test with badblocks to see I can make the disk work again. Is there any low-level tool that can clear the list of realloacted sectors?

Last edited by bachtiar (2022-05-21 03:23:18)

seth · 2022-05-21 06:29:13

The drive is very hot (either because of the environment or heavy load and aging mechanics) - and also toast.

You'd want to reset the drives firmware which is going to require some vendor/model specific tool.
There're some shady (I guess I don't have to explain why this is typically done) tools available for that on the interwebz (also for hitachi), but they require windows (often even special versions).

bachtiar · 2022-05-21 07:17:58

Yes, at this time I'm just stressing it to see what/how will happen, and I'm willing to do anything it takes to see if I can somehow get it back to usable state.

Do you have any links to those tools? Thanks!

seth · 2022-05-21 10:53:27

Google for "hitachi hdd firmware reset", I cannot recommend any of the tools you're going to find (not even them being malware free)

Maniaxx · 2022-05-21 19:09:16

@seth:
You mean explicitly "reset tools" or reflashing firmware?

Slithery · 2022-05-21 19:24:15

Why would you want to get rid of useful data?

seth · 2022-05-21 19:38:04

Reflashing/updating the firmware should™ rather not affect the smart data which logs eg. the age of the device.
One could try if the FW got corrupted and simply reports bogus values but otherwise there few benign reasons to reset the SMART data and make the drive look like it's fresh out of the factory…

bachtiar · 2022-05-21 22:06:12

@Slithery: The drives ship out of the factory with a certain number of reserved sectors which are not visible to the user, but are used internally by SMART as replacement sectors for when a user-visible sector fails to read or write. This remapping is done in the firmware, and the replacement table is typically stored on disk surface. In my case, the drive had used up all replacement sectors, but I suspect that the disk itself might actually still be OK (i.e. such a scenario might happen when the disk is mounted in a poorly vibration dampened case, which in my case is exactly the case).

So what I want is to clear the disk to the state in which it was when it came out of the factory, then put it into a new case and do a surface check to see if the sectors that were previously remapped as failed would now work. As @seth mentioned, this procedure is extremely low-level and requires specific tools from drive manufacturer.

Last edited by bachtiar (2022-05-21 22:09:45)

Arch Linux

#1 2022-05-21 03:22:17

Hard disk low-level format

#2 2022-05-21 06:29:13

Re: Hard disk low-level format

#3 2022-05-21 07:17:58

Re: Hard disk low-level format

#4 2022-05-21 10:53:27

Re: Hard disk low-level format

#5 2022-05-21 19:09:16

Re: Hard disk low-level format

#6 2022-05-21 19:24:15

Re: Hard disk low-level format

#7 2022-05-21 19:38:04

Re: Hard disk low-level format

#8 2022-05-21 22:06:12

Re: Hard disk low-level format

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