My external USB hard drive suddenly started clicking and was no longer accessible. There had been no SMART warnings from HDS. I sent the drive in for Diagnostics/Data Recovery, and was told that the magnetic media had been slowly deteriorating and a head had now crashed.
Why were there no SMART warnings?
Slowly Deteriorating Drive - no SMART warnings
-
hdsentinel
- Site Admin
- Posts: 3128
- Joined: 2008.07.27. 17:00
- Location: Hungary
- Contact:
Re: Slowly Deteriorating Drive - no SMART warnings
Thanks for your message.
I'm really sorry to hear what happened and can completely understand if you feel angry.
In some rare situations it is hard (or even not possible) to predict failure. If the drive seems working, did not find and record any problems (even minor issues reported by any of its sensors) then everything seems perfect.
Generally, this is exactly what we want to avoid and do the best to fight against possible unnoticeable failures.
This sounds really interesting. Generally, if the magnetic media would deteriorate, it would not result in clicking sounds and especially not result in "head crash".
If the magnetic media deteriorate, then the hard disk seems working correctly - and all sectors can be read / written. Just after writing any data into some of the sectors, the data may not actually written (a next read operation confirms that the original data or just zeroes stored there).
This is extremely rare situation and very hard to detect - and just investigating some of such drives we could collect and add extra protection, warning and test-methods to diagnose and report such issues long before they could result in data loss.
So if you experienced clicking sound and head crash, it may be related to other kind of problems, for example
- mechanical damage (caused by shock / vibration or so)
- power issue: insufficient power may result that the hard disk could not park properly (or could not start up next time properly).
These are the most common causes of clicking sounds (when the drive tries to spin up and position to the administrative area) and possible physical damage of heads and/or the surface itself. But these issues are not really detectable...
The best would be to check the last known status of the hard disk. Depending on the current model, family, firmware and the complete "raw" details Hard Disk Sentinel could detect, we may see some (even minor) issues which could be reported - so then failure could be avoided.
For this, please use the
File menu -> Open status of offline disks option and select the appropriate hard disk from the list of previously connected hard disk drives.
Then Hard Disk Sentinel will show it like if it would be still connected.
Please use Report menu -> Send test report to developer option. This way it is possible to check this last known status and verify what may point on possible problems and this may result in a warning message to increase attention.
Really sorry again for this, I hope with the report things can be improved to prevent this happening again.
I'm really sorry to hear what happened and can completely understand if you feel angry.
In some rare situations it is hard (or even not possible) to predict failure. If the drive seems working, did not find and record any problems (even minor issues reported by any of its sensors) then everything seems perfect.
Generally, this is exactly what we want to avoid and do the best to fight against possible unnoticeable failures.
This sounds really interesting. Generally, if the magnetic media would deteriorate, it would not result in clicking sounds and especially not result in "head crash".
If the magnetic media deteriorate, then the hard disk seems working correctly - and all sectors can be read / written. Just after writing any data into some of the sectors, the data may not actually written (a next read operation confirms that the original data or just zeroes stored there).
This is extremely rare situation and very hard to detect - and just investigating some of such drives we could collect and add extra protection, warning and test-methods to diagnose and report such issues long before they could result in data loss.
So if you experienced clicking sound and head crash, it may be related to other kind of problems, for example
- mechanical damage (caused by shock / vibration or so)
- power issue: insufficient power may result that the hard disk could not park properly (or could not start up next time properly).
These are the most common causes of clicking sounds (when the drive tries to spin up and position to the administrative area) and possible physical damage of heads and/or the surface itself. But these issues are not really detectable...
The best would be to check the last known status of the hard disk. Depending on the current model, family, firmware and the complete "raw" details Hard Disk Sentinel could detect, we may see some (even minor) issues which could be reported - so then failure could be avoided.
For this, please use the
File menu -> Open status of offline disks option and select the appropriate hard disk from the list of previously connected hard disk drives.
Then Hard Disk Sentinel will show it like if it would be still connected.
Please use Report menu -> Send test report to developer option. This way it is possible to check this last known status and verify what may point on possible problems and this may result in a warning message to increase attention.
Really sorry again for this, I hope with the report things can be improved to prevent this happening again.
viking wrote:My external USB hard drive suddenly started clicking and was no longer accessible. There had been no SMART warnings from HDS. I sent the drive in for Diagnostics/Data Recovery, and was told that the magnetic media had been slowly deteriorating and a head had now crashed.
Why were there no SMART warnings?
Re: Slowly Deteriorating Drive - no SMART warnings
It would be good if this could be prevented!
I just got a second drive that is clicking (now not accessible ) and a third drive that is clicking but still accessible (I need to try to backup the data ASAP).
I am a little concerned about sending a report, not knowing what it contains. Can I save and send you a text report instead? Where would I send it?
p.s. My previous post needed to go through review for some reason!? I hope it doesn't happen again to this post..
I just got a second drive that is clicking (now not accessible ) and a third drive that is clicking but still accessible (I need to try to backup the data ASAP).
I am a little concerned about sending a report, not knowing what it contains. Can I save and send you a text report instead? Where would I send it?
p.s. My previous post needed to go through review for some reason!? I hope it doesn't happen again to this post..
-
hdsentinel
- Site Admin
- Posts: 3128
- Joined: 2008.07.27. 17:00
- Location: Hungary
- Contact:
Re: Slowly Deteriorating Drive - no SMART warnings
Generally the report contains technical information regarding to storage devices (hard disks, SSDs, etc), devices like motherboard, chipset, disk controllers and information related to the operating system (Windows type, current resolution) and so.
I can confirm that you can review the report before sending: if you open Configuration -> Send test report page, there you can create this developer-report, save to text file and send it later, after reviewed.
Sorry, but due to high amount of spam, all posts need to be reviewed and approved before they appear.
The problem is that the forum engine has no option to automatically approve further posts of a user (I mentioned in an other post at viewtopic.php?f=32&t=10359&p=13962&hilit=clever#p13962 )
I can confirm that you can review the report before sending: if you open Configuration -> Send test report page, there you can create this developer-report, save to text file and send it later, after reviewed.
Sorry, but due to high amount of spam, all posts need to be reviewed and approved before they appear.
The problem is that the forum engine has no option to automatically approve further posts of a user (I mentioned in an other post at viewtopic.php?f=32&t=10359&p=13962&hilit=clever#p13962 )