Seatools Smart test fail but no bad sectors detected

[Somaye94]

Hi
I had a WD 250 gb HDD on my laptop (dell inspiron mini) which failed permenantly, then I replaced it with a seagate go 640 external hdd that I had for about 3 years but rarely used. Now after a few days I recieve the "Windows detects a hard disk problem" repeatedly. I ran chkdsk /f but nothing was wrong. Seatools SMART test fails, but long generic test PASS.
What should I do? Is this hdd also failing? please help!!!

p.s. I also installed windows anew. (7 starter to 7 ultimate)

 

[hang-the-9]

The SMART tests are a warning, not a sure sign that the disk will fail. But, if you do get errors, it shows that it has a much greater chance than normal of a failure. The Windows message comes from the SMART info the disk shares with the operating system.

Keep in mind that chkdsk command does not look for errors outside of the file system. If it sees that the file system and files are all OK, it passes. The hard drive can have some other hardware issue and chkdsk won't show that at all unless that issue manifests a side-effect of corrupting sectors on the drive.

Think of the SMART warnings as a check oil light. You see that, you may think maybe I need to change the oil, that changing of the oil is the chkdsk command, but it won't help if the issue is mechanical, say the oil pump itself.

 

[Somaye94]

Thanks for the reply. So, if the disk has been somehow physically damaged it is on the way of failing, but the chkdsk wont show it.
Can this kind of problem be solved by formating the disk?

 

[fzabkar]

SeaTools is useless as a SMART diagnostic. It simply reports PASS or FAIL. Instead I would examine the SMART report with a tool such as CrystalDiskInfo.

http://crystalmark.info/software/CrystalDiskInfo/index-e.html

Look for reallocated, pending, or uncorrectable sectors. You will probably find that the drive has more than 2500 reallocated sectors.

 

[Somaye94]

-Thanks
I used the software and it says health BAD and the only red item is "07 seek error rate". What does this mean? (I read in this thread http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/224921-32-seek-error-rate-seagate-7200-sata-500gb that it is ok and wont cause any problems)
These are the results.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
CrystalDiskInfo 6.3.2 (C) 2008-2015 hiyohiyo
Crystal Dew World : http://crystalmark.info/
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

OS : Windows 7 Ultimate SP1 [6.1 Build 7601] (x86)
Date : 2015/04/04 8:27:48

-- Controller Map ----------------------------------------------------------
+ ATA Channel 0 (0) [ATA]
- ST9640322AS ATA Device
- ATA Channel 1 (1) [ATA]
- ATA Channel 2 (2) [ATA]
- ATA Channel 3 (3) [ATA]
+ Standard AHCI 1.0 Serial ATA Controller [ATA]
- ATA Channel 0 (0)
- ATA Channel 1 (1)
- ATA Channel 2 (2)
- ATA Channel 3 (3)

-- Disk List ---------------------------------------------------------------
(1) ST9640322AS : 640.1 GB [0/0/0, pd1] - st

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
(1) ST9640322AS
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Model : ST9640322AS
Firmware : 0001BSM2
Serial Number : ********
Disk Size : 640.1 GB (8.4/137.4/640.1/640.1)
Buffer Size : 8192 KB
Queue Depth : 32
# of Sectors : 1250263728
Rotation Rate : 5400 RPM
Interface : Serial ATA
Major Version : ATA8-ACS
Minor Version : ATA8-ACS version 4
Transfer Mode : ---- | SATA/150
Power On Hours : 2179 hours
Power On Count : 1050 count
Temperature : 33 C (91 F)
Health Status : Bad
Features : S.M.A.R.T., APM, 48bit LBA, NCQ
APM Level : 8080h [ON]
AAM Level : ----

-- S.M.A.R.T. --------------------------------------------------------------
ID Cur Wor Thr RawValues(6) Attribute Name
01 111 _99 __6 00000222A0F0 Read Error Rate
03 _96 _96 __0 000000000000 Spin-Up Time
04 _98 _98 _20 000000000B96 Start/Stop Count
05 100 100 _36 000000000000 Reallocated Sectors Count
07 _29 _29 _30 148900478734 Seek Error Rate
09 _98 _98 __0 000000000883 Power-On Hours
0A 100 100 _97 000000000000 Spin Retry Count
0C _99 _99 _20 00000000041A Power Cycle Count
B8 100 100 _99 000000000000 End-to-End Error
BB 100 100 __0 000000000000 Reported Uncorrectable Errors
BC 100 _97 __0 00010001003A Command Timeout
BD 100 100 __0 000000000000 High Fly Writes
BE _67 _52 _45 000021160021 Airflow Temperature
BF 100 100 __0 000000000000 G-Sense Error Rate
C0 100 100 __0 0000000002E0 Power-off Retract Count
C1 _95 _95 __0 000000002E20 Load/Unload Cycle Count
C2 _33 _48 __0 000F00000021 Temperature
C3 _46 _43 __0 00000222A0F0 Hardware ECC recovered
C5 100 100 __0 000000000000 Current Pending Sector Count
C6 100 100 __0 000000000000 Uncorrectable Sector Count
C7 200 200 __0 000000000001 UltraDMA CRC Error Count
FA __1 __1 __0 000000002BA4 Read Error Retry Rate
FB 100 __1 __0 0000000004CF Vendor Specific
FC 100 __1 __0 0000000001B1 Vendor Specific
FE 100 100 __0 000000000000 Free Fall Protection

-- IDENTIFY_DEVICE ---------------------------------------------------------
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
000: 0C5A 3FFF C837 0010 0000 0000 003F 0000 0000 0000
010: FFFF FFFF FFFF FFFF FFFF FFFF FFFF FFFF FFFF 584E
020: 0000 4000 0004 3030 3031 4253 4D32 5354 3936 3430
030: 3332 3241 5320 2020 2020 2020 2020 2020 2020 2020
040: 2020 2020 2020 2020 2020 2020 2020 8010 0000 2F00
050: 4000 0200 0200 0007 3FFF 0010 003F FC10 00FB 0110
060: FFFF 0FFF 0000 0407 0003 0078 0078 0078 0078 0000
070: 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 001F 0D02 0000 0048 0040
080: 01F0 0029 346B 7D09 6123 3469 BC09 6123 007F 004D
090: 004D 8080 FFFE 0000 FE00 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000
100: 82B0 4A85 0000 0000 0000 0000 6003 0000 5000 C500
110: 1E6A BDE7 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 401E
120: 401C 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0029 82B0
130: 4A85 82B0 4A85 2020 0002 0140 0108 5000 3C06 3C0A
140: 0000 003C 0000 0008 0000 0000 007F 0280 0000 0000
150: 0008 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 4100 8000
160: 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000
170: 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000
180: 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000
190: 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000
200: 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 103B 0000 0000 4001
210: 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 1518 0000 0000
220: 0000 0000 1010 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000
230: 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000
240: 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000
250: 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 49A5

-- SMART_READ_DATA ---------------------------------------------------------
+0 +1 +2 +3 +4 +5 +6 +7 +8 +9 +A +B +C +D +E +F
000: 0A 00 01 0F 00 6F 63 F0 A0 22 02 00 00 00 03 03
010: 00 60 60 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 04 32 00 62 62 96
020: 0B 00 00 00 00 00 05 33 00 64 64 00 00 00 00 00
030: 00 00 07 0F 00 1D 1D 34 87 47 00 89 14 00 09 32
040: 00 62 62 83 08 00 00 00 00 00 0A 13 00 64 64 00
050: 00 00 00 00 00 00 0C 32 00 63 63 1A 04 00 00 00
060: 00 00 B8 32 00 64 64 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 BB 32
070: 00 64 64 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 BC 32 00 64 61 3A
080: 00 01 00 01 00 00 BD 3A 00 64 64 00 00 00 00 00
090: 00 00 BE 22 00 43 34 21 00 16 21 00 00 00 BF 32
0A0: 00 64 64 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 C0 32 00 64 64 E0
0B0: 02 00 00 00 00 00 C1 32 00 5F 5F 20 2E 00 00 00
0C0: 00 00 C2 22 00 21 30 21 00 00 00 0F 00 00 C3 1A
0D0: 00 2E 2B F0 A0 22 02 00 00 00 C5 12 00 64 64 00
0E0: 00 00 00 00 00 00 C6 10 00 64 64 00 00 00 00 00
0F0: 00 00 C7 3E 00 C8 C8 01 00 00 00 00 00 00 FA 32
100: 00 01 01 A4 2B 00 00 00 00 00 FB 0E 00 64 01 CF
110: 04 00 00 00 00 00 FC 00 00 64 01 B1 01 00 00 00
120: 00 00 FE 00 00 64 64 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
130: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
140: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
150: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
160: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 73
170: 03 00 01 00 01 A4 02 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
180: 00 00 00 00 48 1E 00 00 02 04 04 04 04 04 04 04
190: 04 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 01 00 00 00 00 00 00
1A0: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 65 DE 59 5E 4D 07 00 00
1B0: 00 00 00 00 01 00 4D 37 E4 5D E1 B3 F0 02 00 00
1C0: E3 78 D7 70 0A 2C 00 00 00 00 00 00 BC 62 34 00
1D0: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 6A 25 00 00 5C 01 32 00
1E0: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 3B
1F0: 02 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 68

-- SMART_READ_THRESHOLD ----------------------------------------------------
+0 +1 +2 +3 +4 +5 +6 +7 +8 +9 +A +B +C +D +E +F
000: 01 00 01 06 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 03 00
010: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 04 14 00 00 00 00
020: 00 00 00 00 00 00 05 24 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
030: 00 00 07 1E 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 09 00
040: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 0A 61 00 00 00 00
050: 00 00 00 00 00 00 0C 14 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
060: 00 00 B8 63 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 BB 00
070: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 BC 00 00 00 00 00
080: 00 00 00 00 00 00 BD 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
090: 00 00 BE 2D 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 BF 00
0A0: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 C0 00 00 00 00 00
0B0: 00 00 00 00 00 00 C1 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
0C0: 00 00 C2 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 C3 00
0D0: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 C5 00 00 00 00 00
0E0: 00 00 00 00 00 00 C6 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
0F0: 00 00 C7 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 FA 00
100: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 FB 00 00 00 00 00
110: 00 00 00 00 00 00 FC 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
120: 00 00 FE 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
130: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
140: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
150: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
160: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
170: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
180: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
190: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
1A0: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
1B0: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
1C0: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
1D0: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
1E0: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
1F0: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 BB

 

[fzabkar]

Yes, your HDD is failing. I would backup your data and replace the drive.

SMART has reported a failure because the normalised value (29) of the Seek Error Rate attribute has fallen below its threshold (30).

07 _29 _29 _30 148900478734 Seek Error Rate

The drive has recorded 5257 (= 0x1489) seek errors in 4687668 (= 0x00478734) seeks.

(-10) log(0x1489 / 0x00478734) = 29.5

http://www.google.com/search?q=-10+log+%280x1489+%2F+0x00478734%29

The following attributes are also exhibiting problems. There are 58 (= 0x3A) Command Timeouts, and the Read Error Retry Rate has also hit bottom. Attributes FA and FC have hit bottom at some time in the past.

BC 100 _97 __0 00010001003A Command Timeout
FA __1 __1 __0 000000002BA4 Read Error Retry Rate
FB 100 __1 __0 0000000004CF Vendor Specific
FC 100 __1 __0 0000000001B1 Vendor Specific

 

[hang-the-9]

Thanks for the reply. So, if the disk has been somehow physically damaged it is on the way of failing, but the chkdsk wont show it.
Can this kind of problem be solved by formating the disk?

No, you can't fix a bad disk with a format, the only thing a format may help with is re-mapping bad sectors and removing them from use, but it will not fix the drive. Once you see errors, you will tend to continue to see more errors until it's no longer readable.