Hi,
Please see attached image.
I guess this is not a good sign.
- The drive functions just fine.
- The value increases every day...
- i do not understand the values displayed there
- the smart check tool from the manufacturer says everything is fine (= seagate)
Can you please help me ?
kind regards, Tom
SMART tool interpretation
SMART tool interpretation
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hdsentinel
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Re: SMART tool interpretation
Hi,
Of course there are no problems with the selected line.
As you may see, in the text description it is not mentioned at all - because it does NOT count the number of errors.
Seagate drives use these attributes (Raw Read Error Rate, Seek Error Rate, Hardware ECC Recovered) as counters for ALL such operations/events, but not the count of errors/problems.
This was discussed previously on this topic: viewtopic.php?f=32&t=735
Of course there are no problems with the selected line.
As you may see, in the text description it is not mentioned at all - because it does NOT count the number of errors.
Seagate drives use these attributes (Raw Read Error Rate, Seek Error Rate, Hardware ECC Recovered) as counters for ALL such operations/events, but not the count of errors/problems.
This was discussed previously on this topic: viewtopic.php?f=32&t=735
Re: SMART tool interpretation
Hi hdsentinel,
thanx for your quick reply.
I was talking about number 196 "reallocation event count".
kind regards, Tom
thanx for your quick reply.
I was talking about number 196 "reallocation event count".
kind regards, Tom
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hdsentinel
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Re: SMART tool interpretation
Hi Tom,
I see. The other attribute (1 Raw read error rate) was selected, so I suspect that was the question.
It seems the drive has some suspicious sectors, which are constantly examined by the hard disk drive to verify their reliability.
Now they seem to be fine but it is possible that they will be re-allocated at a later use (which means that the drive would never use them again and redirecting all further reads/writes to the spare area instead). If this happens, the 5 Reallocated sectors count would increase.
The drive may experience new and new such sectors every day (that's why the counter increases). During that, the system may be slower, hard to response or even seem to be frozen.
Sometimes this issue may not be related to real disk problem as it could be caused by weaker power supply, data communication / data cable issues. I'd recommend to check them first. Also general system instability (eg. overclock, incorrect cooling of other system components) can be problem.
After the above were verified (and corrected if required), I'd recommend to diagnose which part(s) of the disk may be affected, reveal and fix any possible problems, as described in the Support -> F.A.Q. section:
http://www.hdsentinel.com/faq.php#health
http://www.hdsentinel.com/faq.php#tests
The best would be if you can use the Disk menu Surface Test -> Reinitialise Disk Surface test.
This test fills the drive with special initialisation patterns and then clears the surface, forcing the hard disk to re-check the sectors and re-allocate them if required. After the test, the value (and the overall status of the disk) should be stabilized.
It is possible only if you perform a full backup of the disk and use it as a secondary (eg. non-system) drive in a system.
I see. The other attribute (1 Raw read error rate) was selected, so I suspect that was the question.
It seems the drive has some suspicious sectors, which are constantly examined by the hard disk drive to verify their reliability.
Now they seem to be fine but it is possible that they will be re-allocated at a later use (which means that the drive would never use them again and redirecting all further reads/writes to the spare area instead). If this happens, the 5 Reallocated sectors count would increase.
The drive may experience new and new such sectors every day (that's why the counter increases). During that, the system may be slower, hard to response or even seem to be frozen.
Sometimes this issue may not be related to real disk problem as it could be caused by weaker power supply, data communication / data cable issues. I'd recommend to check them first. Also general system instability (eg. overclock, incorrect cooling of other system components) can be problem.
After the above were verified (and corrected if required), I'd recommend to diagnose which part(s) of the disk may be affected, reveal and fix any possible problems, as described in the Support -> F.A.Q. section:
http://www.hdsentinel.com/faq.php#health
http://www.hdsentinel.com/faq.php#tests
The best would be if you can use the Disk menu Surface Test -> Reinitialise Disk Surface test.
This test fills the drive with special initialisation patterns and then clears the surface, forcing the hard disk to re-check the sectors and re-allocate them if required. After the test, the value (and the overall status of the disk) should be stabilized.
It is possible only if you perform a full backup of the disk and use it as a secondary (eg. non-system) drive in a system.
Re: SMART tool interpretation
Hi hdsentinel, (finally someone that knows what he is talking about when it comes to SMART...)
Allow me to explain my situation.
The drive in question is part of a brand new (1 month old) lenovo w510 portable. It is already a warranty replacement of the original drive...
The first day i received the laptop i installed your tool.
It immediately reported the exact same issue as this (replacement) drive.
I called lenovo support and, since i think they did not understand anything i was talking about (= smart), they just sent me another drive under warranty...
When i installed this drive it produced the same issues, why i think that the smart tools (= other tools report the exact same issue) are interpreting the values wrong ?
Should this drive be replaced or is this normal behaviour ?
Your help is very very much appreciated !
kind regards, Tom
Allow me to explain my situation.
The drive in question is part of a brand new (1 month old) lenovo w510 portable. It is already a warranty replacement of the original drive...
The first day i received the laptop i installed your tool.
It immediately reported the exact same issue as this (replacement) drive.
I called lenovo support and, since i think they did not understand anything i was talking about (= smart), they just sent me another drive under warranty...
When i installed this drive it produced the same issues, why i think that the smart tools (= other tools report the exact same issue) are interpreting the values wrong ?
Should this drive be replaced or is this normal behaviour ?
Your help is very very much appreciated !
kind regards, Tom
Last edited by TOMVH on 2011.01.05. 23:07, edited 1 time in total.
Re: SMART tool interpretation
hd sentinel
Could you, or anyone that knows the answer, please look at my question ?
Thank you very much,
Tom
Could you, or anyone that knows the answer, please look at my question ?
Thank you very much,
Tom
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hdsentinel
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Re: SMART tool interpretation
Hi,
Excuse me for the delay
I'm sure the software interprets the values correctly: the attribute indicates that the drive tried to re-allocate some sectors.
This issue (alone) is not really critical, even warranty replacement may not be required.
I would not call it normal as I agree it is not expected on a new drive but it may happen.
I've encountered drive with such problem (which showed in HDSentinel surface test a measurable lower performance on some blocks) but after the whole drive surface was verified by the Reinitialise Disk Surface test, it is still working without problems.
So I'd try to test the drive in an other system, to verify its reliability and verify if further error(s) are developing or not.
If not and the surface seems to be perfect, I'd recommend to "acknowledge" the problems in Hard Disk Sentinel (this means you can manually re-set the error counter on the S.M.A.R.T. page by using "Offset" column at the appropriate attribute) and this would increase the health back to 100% and the software will only report any further problems - if there will be any.
Alternatively, if you worry and you prefer to ask warranty replacement, please try to ask for a drive from other manufacturer if possible (I'm not sure but maybe). I suspect your replacement drive is from the same type / model / size.
Excuse me for the delay
I'm sure the software interprets the values correctly: the attribute indicates that the drive tried to re-allocate some sectors.
This issue (alone) is not really critical, even warranty replacement may not be required.
I would not call it normal as I agree it is not expected on a new drive but it may happen.
I've encountered drive with such problem (which showed in HDSentinel surface test a measurable lower performance on some blocks) but after the whole drive surface was verified by the Reinitialise Disk Surface test, it is still working without problems.
So I'd try to test the drive in an other system, to verify its reliability and verify if further error(s) are developing or not.
If not and the surface seems to be perfect, I'd recommend to "acknowledge" the problems in Hard Disk Sentinel (this means you can manually re-set the error counter on the S.M.A.R.T. page by using "Offset" column at the appropriate attribute) and this would increase the health back to 100% and the software will only report any further problems - if there will be any.
Alternatively, if you worry and you prefer to ask warranty replacement, please try to ask for a drive from other manufacturer if possible (I'm not sure but maybe). I suspect your replacement drive is from the same type / model / size.
Re: SMART tool interpretation
indeed, lenovo has sent me exactly the same disk as a replacement for the previous one.
I do not know if testing / reinitializing would resolve things, because the value keeps rising every day, (and i do not have another test system available).
What does the rapid increase of this (and no other smart value) actually mean ?
I suspect that this is not normal behaviour for a new drive ?
Lenovo support responds with running their (basic) smart tool that says everything is just fine, so i will have a very hard time convincing them that also this drive is (going to) fail...
Again your help is very much appreciated.
kind regards,
Tom
I do not know if testing / reinitializing would resolve things, because the value keeps rising every day, (and i do not have another test system available).
What does the rapid increase of this (and no other smart value) actually mean ?
I suspect that this is not normal behaviour for a new drive ?
Lenovo support responds with running their (basic) smart tool that says everything is just fine, so i will have a very hard time convincing them that also this drive is (going to) fail...
Again your help is very much appreciated.
kind regards,
Tom
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hdsentinel
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Re: SMART tool interpretation
The drive continuously scans for defective sectors. It is possible that every day it finds new and new areas which needs to examined (this increase the counter) and may need to be reallocated (currently there are no such sectors on your drive as the reallocated sectors count is still zero).
The testing may help as it would scan the whole surface and force the drive to perform this procedure on the whole surface. This would help as the status after the test would be stable - and hopefully the surface would be fine and the counter would not increase in the future.
At that point I'd say the drive is correct and could be used (with constant monitoring of status).
The testing may help as it would scan the whole surface and force the drive to perform this procedure on the whole surface. This would help as the status after the test would be stable - and hopefully the surface would be fine and the counter would not increase in the future.
At that point I'd say the drive is correct and could be used (with constant monitoring of status).
Re: SMART tool interpretation
Ok, a few more questions :
when you look at the screenshot (from hd sentinel offcourse ) from my first post, you see param number 196 (reallocation event count) with the numbers 30 (threshold) / 100 (Value) / Worst (100) / OK (Status) / Data (86F800000163)
I do not understand those ...
Under the smart table you see a graph with numbers that make a bit more sense ( = the value that keeps rising, currently at +400) (with a combo next to it "attribute graph" that i also do not understand)
ps : would you accept this behaviour from a new disk ?
Please have some patience with me my friend
kind regards, Tom.
when you look at the screenshot (from hd sentinel offcourse
) from my first post, you see param number 196 (reallocation event count) with the numbers 30 (threshold) / 100 (Value) / Worst (100) / OK (Status) / Data (86F800000163)I do not understand those ...
Under the smart table you see a graph with numbers that make a bit more sense ( = the value that keeps rising, currently at +400) (with a combo next to it "attribute graph" that i also do not understand)
ps : would you accept this behaviour from a new disk ?
Please have some patience with me my friend
kind regards, Tom.
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hdsentinel
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Re: SMART tool interpretation
196 (reallocation event count) with the numbers 30 (threshold) / 100 (Value) / Worst (100) / OK (Status) / Data (86F800000163)
Let's start from the end (right side):
The important part is the the very end of the number: 0163 which is a hexadecimal number. If you convert it to decimal, it is 355, the number of the problems occured with this attribute. You can see this number (or a value already higher than that) on the graph below the list of attributes. That graph shows the change of the value, eg. how it increased on the previous days.
If you do not want to manually calculate, just right click on the S.M.A.R.T. table and select "Decimal Data Fields" to display as decimal numbers.
As this number will increase, the "Value" field will then decrease, depending on the number of problems.
When the "Value" drops below the "Threshold", the drive is considered to be failing. With other words, at that point, the drive would have enough problems for warranty replacement (the number of problems would reach the limit set by the manufacturer).
There are many problems with this method. For example as you can see, even the increasing number of problems did not trigger any change of the "Value" field (that's why it is still on 100, factory default value) so there may be many thousands of problems would be required to reach the threshold, risking the data loss.
If you want, you can read more about this topic at www.hdsentinel.com/smart (or select Support -> Knowledge Base -> S.M.A.R.T. function on www.hdsentinel.com )
It is not really expected but of course can happen on a new drive.
As I wrote, this can be annoying (personally I'd also worry) but I'd perform extensive testing as described to
1) verify if the drive status is stabilized after the tests (the surface is usable without problems and the counter stops and do not increase further). Then the situation is acceptable and the drive could be used.
2) if there are enough problems revealed, the drive will be considered _really_ failing so warranty replacement would be possible. It would be much better to do it now, before you'd fill the drive with 100's of GB important data.
Let's start from the end (right side):
The important part is the the very end of the number: 0163 which is a hexadecimal number. If you convert it to decimal, it is 355, the number of the problems occured with this attribute. You can see this number (or a value already higher than that) on the graph below the list of attributes. That graph shows the change of the value, eg. how it increased on the previous days.
If you do not want to manually calculate, just right click on the S.M.A.R.T. table and select "Decimal Data Fields" to display as decimal numbers.
As this number will increase, the "Value" field will then decrease, depending on the number of problems.
When the "Value" drops below the "Threshold", the drive is considered to be failing. With other words, at that point, the drive would have enough problems for warranty replacement (the number of problems would reach the limit set by the manufacturer).
There are many problems with this method. For example as you can see, even the increasing number of problems did not trigger any change of the "Value" field (that's why it is still on 100, factory default value) so there may be many thousands of problems would be required to reach the threshold, risking the data loss.
If you want, you can read more about this topic at www.hdsentinel.com/smart (or select Support -> Knowledge Base -> S.M.A.R.T. function on www.hdsentinel.com )
It is not really expected but of course can happen on a new drive.
As I wrote, this can be annoying (personally I'd also worry) but I'd perform extensive testing as described to
1) verify if the drive status is stabilized after the tests (the surface is usable without problems and the counter stops and do not increase further). Then the situation is acceptable and the drive could be used.
2) if there are enough problems revealed, the drive will be considered _really_ failing so warranty replacement would be possible. It would be much better to do it now, before you'd fill the drive with 100's of GB important data.
Re: SMART tool interpretation
Thank you very very much for your time and effort.
I have asked support to replace my disk (other brand/model this time...) based on this thread.
thank you again.
Tom
I have asked support to replace my disk (other brand/model this time...) based on this thread.
thank you again.
Tom
Re: SMART tool interpretation
dear hdsentinel,
Lenovo has sent me exactly the same drive.
I installed your tool with the following result (please see attachment)
This means that this is the 3rd broken disk from lenovo ?
kind regards, Tom.
Lenovo has sent me exactly the same drive.
I installed your tool with the following result (please see attachment)
This means that this is the 3rd broken disk from lenovo ?
kind regards, Tom.
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hdsentinel
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Re: SMART tool interpretation
Hi Tom,
Exactly the same drive (so you received back the previous drive you used) or different drive but from the same model?
I suspect that maybe they have a pool of similar drives for replacement, maybe from the same shipment. That's why I'd ask for a different drive (but I'm not sure if it is possible).
I'd connect this disk to an other PC as secondary drive and test it throughly by the tests in Hard Disk Sentinel (Disk menu -> Surface test) to check if it really has problems and verify if the status is not stable only in the corresponding notebook.
Exactly the same drive (so you received back the previous drive you used) or different drive but from the same model?
I suspect that maybe they have a pool of similar drives for replacement, maybe from the same shipment. That's why I'd ask for a different drive (but I'm not sure if it is possible).
I'd connect this disk to an other PC as secondary drive and test it throughly by the tests in Hard Disk Sentinel (Disk menu -> Surface test) to check if it really has problems and verify if the status is not stable only in the corresponding notebook.
Re: SMART tool interpretation
no , the sent me a new drive (same model , other serial) so , i have 2 drives spare right now...
if i buy a 2,5 sata => usb connector , can i perform this test you are talking about ?
Thank you very much for your fast replies.
Tom
if i buy a 2,5 sata => usb connector , can i perform this test you are talking about ?
Thank you very much for your fast replies.
Tom
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hdsentinel
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Re: SMART tool interpretation
I see.
Yes, with a 2.5 Sata -> USB converter you can connect the drive as secondary drive and perform the testing.
Just make sure to use an Y USB cable which connects the external drive to 2x USB slots to provide enough power for the drive. Some enclosures come with such cable but some do not.
Yes, with a 2.5 Sata -> USB converter you can connect the drive as secondary drive and perform the testing.
Just make sure to use an Y USB cable which connects the external drive to 2x USB slots to provide enough power for the drive. Some enclosures come with such cable but some do not.