SMART Data Corrupted?

[FedeXS]

Hi everyone, I'm new around here... First of all, sorry about my english, it's not perfect, I'm from Argentina...

I have a question, I have 2 HDDs (WD2000JS and WD2500AAJS), and I was cleaning a little my computer, but when I connected it again, the drives weren't detected.

Later they were detected but Windows started to freeze. I disconnected all the cables (data and power) and connected all again and now it appears to be working fine.

But the WD2000JS has some weird problems now, the temperature sensor is not present anymore (it only shows the 2500AAJS) and SMART data is really messed up.

Some attributes are not present anymore (Temperature, Reallocated Sector Count, etc), there is now 2 Offline uncorrectable sector count with different values. And a lot of attributes that were at zero, now have with huge numbers.

Take a look at the SMART values before (at the left) and now (at the right)...

http://img16.imageshack.us/img16/1691/sinttulo1pst.jpg

The drive appears to be working fine (the OS is installed on that one), WD diagnostic says that everything is fine, and there are no bad sectors...

http://img19.imageshack.us/img19/6320/dibujofua.jpg

But what do you think about that SMART values? It's a little strange...

Thanks in advance.

 

[DonDon]

Wow, that is the first time I have seen this issue come up. Well, here is my 2 pennies.

SMART only helps determine if a drive is going bad. According to GOOGLE LABS, SMART errors only precede about one third of all drive failures. But, when you do start getting SMART errors, it almost always means the drive is dieing, and fairly soon.

So, if this computer has important data, or the computer is used for your livelihood, I would spend the money to get a new drive.

If not, you should be ok. You should never keep just one copy of important data anyway. I would just install HD Tune, and run the surface scan every couple of months.

Don

 

[FedeXS]

Thanks for the reply, I don't have many important data on this drive, just the OS (Vista x64) and the installed software, I just bought the 2500AAJS to copy all the important data.

The drive is still covered by WD's warranty (it's like 2 years old), but the WD soft says the drive is OK, so I think I can't send it to RMA.

But the SMART corruption is really weird, it's impossible that the drive is failing so bad like it says on the raw data, because it works great, speed (on HDTach or HD Tune) is exactly the same than before the errors, and it doesn't have even one bad sector. And the strangest thing is why there is no more "reallocated sector count", "temperature", "start/stop count" and "seek error rate" attributes...

 

[FedeXS]

The disk started to fail today (it use to did the same thing some months ago but it got "fixed" by the WD soft and it worked fine til now).

It turns off and on randomly (you can hear the sound it does when it parks the heads), the system stops responding for a couple of seconds, and then it turns on and the system starts responding again.

It gets worst when I copy a file from the other drive to this one, it shuts down instantly.

You can watch it yourself in this video (sorry about the bad quality, I had to compress it because my upload sucks).

You can see and hear the drive shutting off. The first time I did reset the system, but the other times, it turned off, and then, it started working again.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YGyTh7fuOzE

It's really frustrating, because it works fine for days, but sometimes it starts doing this, but the WD Diagnostics, still says the disk is fine, so I don't know if they will accept the RMA, I just emailed them, let's wait to see what they have to say...

Thanks, and again, sorry about my english...

 

[DonDon]

You can RMA the drive for any reason. Just tell them the SMART data is not readable and they should not give you any hassles.

Unfortunately, you will prolly get back a refurbished drive that someone else sent in for an intermittent problem.

Good luck.

 

[FedeXS]

Yes, that's true, but still, this drive is a pain in the a**, it's either RMA or throwing it down the window, I think RMA is a better choice for everyone...

Thanks.

 

[DonDon]

Yes, that's true, but still, this drive is a pain in the a**, it's either RMA or throwing it down the window, I think RMA is a better choice for everyone...

Thanks.

Nah, just look first then throw it out the window. That way no one gets hurt.

Don