Smart Message

Hi
After I installed SUSE 10.3, I have been getting the message from S.M.A.R.T that my hard drive is failing.
Now I have checked every way I can think of and as far as I can tell, my hard drive is fine?
Any idea what is going on, and is my hard drive really failing?
Jim

Hi
After I installed SUSE 10.3, I have been getting the message from S.M.A.R.T that my hard drive is failing.
Now I have checked every way I can think of and as far as I can tell, my hard drive is fine?
Any idea what is going on, and is my hard drive really failing?
Jim
[/b]

My advice is to find from your HD producer a test program and check your drive with it.
I also had something similar but my HD seem to be in good health.

I also have exactly the same problem here... having checked evt in the BIOS, still get the message for almost two months now. Do not know what to do. If you guys can shows us some light, most thankful we will be.

Cheers

alot of the times it is a false reading from S.M.A.R.T you can shut it off if you prefer in yast2 > System > System Services
it was doing it to me on a new HD so i just shut it off it was annoying lol

Thanks Havoc65
I have now turned it off.
Regards Jim

Thanks Havoc65
I have now turned it off.
Regards Jim
[/b]

IMHO, it's not the best idea.
Please give us output of (under the root account):
smartctl -A /dev/<your disk>

<your disk> you can find in the output of:
hwinfo --disk in Device File: string.

Hi Bambino

The error mesage is,
Your hard disk drive is failing! S.M.A.R.T. message: Device: /dev/sda, 2 Offline uncorrectable
sectors.

And the smartctl-A/dev/sda is,

smartctl -A /dev/sda
smartctl version 5.37 [i686-suse-linux-gnu] Copyright © 2002-6 Bruce Allen
Home page is http://smartmontools.sourceforge.net/

=== START OF READ SMART DATA SECTION ===
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 0x000f 100 100 046 Pre-fail Always - 188009
2 Throughput_Performance 0x0005 100 100 030 Pre-fail Offline - 29360128
3 Spin_Up_Time 0x0003 100 100 025 Pre-fail Always - 1
4 Start_Stop_Count 0x0032 098 098 000 Old_age Always - 7646
5 Reallocated_Sector_Ct 0x0033 100 100 024 Pre-fail Always - 8589934592000
7 Seek_Error_Rate 0x000f 100 100 047 Pre-fail Always - 116
8 Seek_Time_Performance 0x0005 100 100 019 Pre-fail Offline - 0
9 Power_On_Seconds 0x0032 089 089 000 Old_age Always - 5602h+38m+34s
10 Spin_Retry_Count 0x0013 100 100 020 Pre-fail Always - 0
12 Power_Cycle_Count 0x0032 099 099 000 Old_age Always - 7628
192 Power-Off_Retract_Count 0x0032 098 098 000 Old_age Always - 732
193 Load_Cycle_Count 0x0032 092 092 000 Old_age Always - 85008
194 Temperature_Celsius 0x0022 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 29 (Lifetime Min/Max 14/50)
195 Hardware_ECC_Recovered 0x001a 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 776
196 Reallocated_Event_Count 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 285802496
197 Current_Pending_Sector 0x0012 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 0
198 Offline_Uncorrectable 0x0010 099 099 000 Old_age Offline - 2
199 UDMA_CRC_Error_Count 0x003e 200 200 000 Old_age Always - 0
200 Multi_Zone_Error_Rate 0x000f 100 100 060 Pre-fail Always - 11290
203 Run_Out_Cancel 0x0002 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 2628559635054

I do hope this makes sense to you, as it makes none to me
Regards Jim

=== START OF READ SMART DATA SECTION ===
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 0x000f 100 100 046 Pre-fail Always - 188009
2 Throughput_Performance 0x0005 100 100 030 Pre-fail Offline - 29360128
3 Spin_Up_Time 0x0003 100 100 025 Pre-fail Always - 1
4 Start_Stop_Count 0x0032 098 098 000 Old_age Always - 7646
5 Reallocated_Sector_Ct 0x0033 100 100 024 Pre-fail Always - 8589934592000
7 Seek_Error_Rate 0x000f 100 100 047 Pre-fail Always - 116
8 Seek_Time_Performance 0x0005 100 100 019 Pre-fail Offline - 0
9 Power_On_Seconds 0x0032 089 089 000 Old_age Always - 5602h+38m+34s
10 Spin_Retry_Count 0x0013 100 100 020 Pre-fail Always - 0
12 Power_Cycle_Count 0x0032 099 099 000 Old_age Always - 7628
192 Power-Off_Retract_Count 0x0032 098 098 000 Old_age Always - 732
193 Load_Cycle_Count 0x0032 092 092 000 Old_age Always - 85008
194 Temperature_Celsius 0x0022 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 29 (Lifetime Min/Max 14/50)
195 Hardware_ECC_Recovered 0x001a 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 776
196 Reallocated_Event_Count 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 285802496
197 Current_Pending_Sector 0x0012 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 0
198 Offline_Uncorrectable 0x0010 099 099 000 Old_age Offline - 2
199 UDMA_CRC_Error_Count 0x003e 200 200 000 Old_age Always - 0
200 Multi_Zone_Error_Rate 0x000f 100 100 060 Pre-fail Always - 11290
203 Run_Out_Cancel 0x0002 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 2628559635054
[/b]

First of all you hard disk is probably not very young:
-------------
4 Start_Stop_Count ... 7646
9 Power_On_Seconds ... 5602h+38m+34s

The most crucial parameters are:
------------
195 Reallocated_Sector_Count ... 8589934592000 (unreal data, is HDD SMART monitoring activated in BIOS?)
196 Reallocated_Event_Count ... 285802496 (unreal...)
These two usually report the situation when HDD on himself is trying to hide bad sectors.
The huge unreal values as in your case often appear even with healthy Seagate HDDs.

198 Offline_Uncorrectable ... 2
Unfortunately Your HDD has two bad blocks.

199 UDMA_CRC_Error_Count .... 0
usually indicates controller or cable errors.

What's next? At least I'd advise you to backup your data.
If you want to repair:
1. from my point of view one of the best free HHD tool is MHDD (although developing had been frozen).
http://hddguru.com/content/en/software/2005.10.02-MHDD/
Here you will find CD (to boot from and run MHDD) images and docs.
Please note, that MHDD will try to reallocate bad blocks, so your data may be destroyed.
Your HDD must be Master not Slave.
2. Use a tool from HDD manufacturer.

Hope this helps.

Thanks Bambino.
Yes my hard disk is about four years old.
Most of my important data is backed to a USB Western Digital disk, and I will add the few other things I am missing tonight.
I almost wish it would crash, as then maybe I could persuade my wife I need a new laptop
Regards Jim

Better replace that old hard drive! I recommend using a new hard drive of the same size or larger. Use this command to mirror your original hard drive to the new drive (no need to re-install SuSE!):

# dd if=/dev/hda of=/dev/hdb conv=noerror,sync

This webpage is also very helpful for creating backups, especially for the MBR:

http://www.cyberciti.biz/tips/how-do-i-mak...up-with-dd.html