disc problem 1: seagate click of death

[Stephen]

Hello,

Two of my discs seem to have failed today. Both are Seagate Barracuda
internal SATA 1Tb. I'll make two posts as they appear to have
different problems.

If I hold this disc to my ear, when power is applied, I can hear the
disc spin up. Then it makes eleven clicks. These are sufficiently loud
that I could hear them without holding the disc to my ear. After
eleven clicks, the disc spins down and stops.

I am using windows xp and the disc is invisible to it. I have not
installed any hardware or software recently.

I was wondering if there was anything I could do; any software that I
could run to read the disc and copy any data across?

I have read via google and it seems there is a "click of death" of
seagate and wd drives and I wonder if this is what has happened here?

I think most the disc is unimportant but I can't be sure that there
aren't one or two folders of photos that I would like to save on that
disc.

Thanks
Stephen.

[Jaimie Vandenbergh]

On Tue, 03 Sep 2013 21:42:35 +0100, Stephen
<ste...@nowhere.com.invalid> wrote:

>Hello,
>
>Two of my discs seem to have failed today. Both are Seagate Barracuda
>internal SATA 1Tb. I'll make two posts as they appear to have
>different problems.
>
>If I hold this disc to my ear, when power is applied, I can hear the
>disc spin up. Then it makes eleven clicks. These are sufficiently loud
>that I could hear them without holding the disc to my ear. After
>eleven clicks, the disc spins down and stops.

This means that the disk is failing its internal startup sequence, and
with the clicking it's probably that the head cannot locate any tracks
(each click is an attempt to seek and then resetting to the zero
position), meaning the hardware has gone bad. You could get a bootable
SMART test CD, and see what its failure reason is.

There's almost certainly no way to fix it with software, but there are
a couple of physical things you can try.

1) It's vaguely possible that the power connector is bad - try a
different power lead from the PSU, or in an external caddy if you have
one.

2) The freezer trick isn't likely to work in this case, it's more for
motor failures, but might be worth a try. If you happen to have
appropriate power+data cables plug those in, then seal the drive into
a plastic bag (sellotape it shut) with the cables hanging out. If you
don't, just seal the drive into the bag. Pop it in a freezer for half
an hour or so. Bring it out, plug it in (or unseal the bag and plug it
in), see if it gets going. (The bag thing is to avoid condensation).

>I have read via google and it seems there is a "click of death" of
>seagate and wd drives and I wonder if this is what has happened here?

The clicking is a symptom, not a reason. It's not something that kills
a drive, it's what a certain type of dead drive does.

>I think most the disc is unimportant but I can't be sure that there
>aren't one or two folders of photos that I would like to save on that
>disc.

Fingers crossed.

Now, while you're thinking about it, you should set up a proper backup
regimen.

Cheers - Jaimie
--
A mind stretched by an idea can never go back to its original dimensions.
- Conan Doyle

[Stephen]

On Tue, 03 Sep 2013 22:06:40 +0100, Jaimie Vandenbergh
<jai...@sometimes.sessile.org> wrote:

>You could get a bootable
>SMART test CD, and see what its failure reason is.

Thanks. Do you recommend a particular one?

[Jaimie Vandenbergh]

I use Hiren's BootCD for most of that sort of thing, excellent swiss
army knife that it is. It has most manufacturer's own disk tools on
it, as well as generics like SmartUDM and CrystalDiskInfo.

Cheers - Jaimie
--
"If you're not able to ask questions and deal with the answers without feeling
that someone has called your intelligence or competence into question, don't
ask questions on Usenet where the answers won't be carefully tailored to avoid
tripping your hair-trigger insecurities." - D M Procida, UCSM

[Stephen]

On Thu, 05 Sep 2013 08:59:04 +0100, Jaimie Vandenbergh

<jai...@sometimes.sessile.org> wrote:

>On Thu, 05 Sep 2013 07:02:59 +0100, Stephen
><ste...@nowhere.com.invalid> wrote:
>
>>On Tue, 03 Sep 2013 22:06:40 +0100, Jaimie Vandenbergh
>><jai...@sometimes.sessile.org> wrote:
>>
>>>You could get a bootable
>>>SMART test CD, and see what its failure reason is.
>>
>>Thanks. Do you recommend a particular one?
>
>I use Hiren's BootCD for most of that sort of thing, excellent swiss
>army knife that it is. It has most manufacturer's own disk tools on
>it, as well as generics like SmartUDM and CrystalDiskInfo.
>
> Cheers - Jaimie

Hello,

I have tried the HDDscan programme but it cannot read the smart data
from the drive.

I downloaded rstudio and that took forever to load and saw that there
was a disc attached but that was as far as it went. I found a recovery
program on the seagate website that looks identical to rstudio but it
loads faster and will attempt to scan the disc, so perhaps it is
specially optimised for seagate drives? However, it advises not
running the scan because of errors.

I think I have made a breakthrough; I have noticed that this is a 1Tb
Barracuda 7200.12. It should be model st31000524as (from memory) but
bios reports it as model ST_M13FQBL and says the capacity is 3.8Gb. I
did write down all the information about number of cylinders etc for
you but I've lost the piece of paper, so I will have to write them
down all over again.

I think another utility (I can't remember which) said it could not
read sector 0. This is hardly surprising if the bios is wrong about
the number of cylinders and sectors etc.

I found a few posts via google with people who have barracuda drives
that fail this way. They suggest connecting to the drive through a
serial port but I am not sure if I am that brave!

I am wondering whether the drive's firmware somehow got damaged;
perhaps it was writing to ti when the power went off? Would reflashing
the firmware fix this? Presumably all the information about file
structure is on the disc not the firmware, so would not be lost be
reflashing the firmware?

Thanks.

[Raj Kundra]

"Stephen" <ste...@nowhere.com.invalid> wrote in message
news:gi18391pkaa0n4lqo...@4ax.com...

Try this:
http://www.dell.com/support/drivers/us/en/04/driverdetails?driverid=VT38P

[Jaimie Vandenbergh]

On Sat, 14 Sep 2013 08:03:05 +0100, Stephen
<ste...@nowhere.com.invalid> wrote:

>I think I have made a breakthrough; I have noticed that this is a 1Tb
>Barracuda 7200.12. It should be model st31000524as (from memory) but
>bios reports it as model ST_M13FQBL and says the capacity is 3.8Gb.

Ouch. Yes, that's seriously screwed up, and it does sound like it's at
the disk's firmware layer.

It may be possible to resuscitate by flashing the firmware as you
suggest - at this stage there's not a lot to lose, I'd say.

Cheers - Jaimie
--
The square root of rope is string. -- Core 3, Valve

[Johny B Good]

On Sat, 14 Sep 2013 13:17:06 +0100, Jaimie Vandenbergh
<jai...@sometimes.sessile.org> wrote:

>On Sat, 14 Sep 2013 08:03:05 +0100, Stephen
><ste...@nowhere.com.invalid> wrote:
>
>>I think I have made a breakthrough; I have noticed that this is a 1Tb
>>Barracuda 7200.12. It should be model st31000524as (from memory) but
>>bios reports it as model ST_M13FQBL and says the capacity is 3.8Gb.
>
>Ouch. Yes, that's seriously screwed up, and it does sound like it's at
>the disk's firmware layer.
>
>It may be possible to resuscitate by flashing the firmware as you
>suggest - at this stage there's not a lot to lose, I'd say.
>

I thought it rather suspicious that _two_ hdds should fail on the
same day. in view of the bios reporting a totally different model
number, it is all rather reminiscent of a memorable malware attack I
saw on a victim's PC nearly a decade ago where not only had both HDDs
failed but also the two optical drives and a NIC rom had had their
bios rom code corrupted. The only saving grace being that the MoBo
bios rom had remained un-molested, presumably because the order of
attack had been muddled by the attacking malware so the system was too
broken for this final coup de grace to succeed.

The OP is a little bit more fortunate in that it might indeed be
possible to restore the HDD bios code, unlike my customer who landed
up with two totally dead HDDs, two dead optical drives one of which,
the CDRW afaicr, had literally burnt out a chip or two, and a dead
NIC.

Admittedly, the 'forensic evidence' for this diagnosis was the fact
that everything which had failed relied upon flashable roms and it was
such a large list of simultaneous failures that couldn't be accounted
for due to a PSU voltage spike event (there was too much other
surviving stuff that should also have failed from such an overvoltage
event).
--
Regards, J B Good

[Rob Morley]

On Sat, 14 Sep 2013 08:03:05 +0100

Stephen <ste...@nowhere.com.invalid> wrote:

> bios reports it as model ST_M13FQBL and says the capacity is 3.8Gb. I

> I am wondering whether the drive's firmware somehow got damaged;
> perhaps it was writing to ti when the power went off? Would reflashing
> the firmware fix this? Presumably all the information about file
> structure is on the disc not the firmware, so would not be lost be
> reflashing the firmware?
>

From what I've read about it, that fake model ID is coming from the
firmware, because it's failing to read the System Area of the platter.
That suggests to me that the firmware is fine but the disc, or hardware
reading it, is knackered.

[Gordon]

On 2013-09-14, Johny B Good <johnny...@invalid.ntlworld.com> wrote:
> On Sat, 14 Sep 2013 13:17:06 +0100, Jaimie Vandenbergh
><jai...@sometimes.sessile.org> wrote:
>
>>On Sat, 14 Sep 2013 08:03:05 +0100, Stephen
>><ste...@nowhere.com.invalid> wrote:
>>
>>>I think I have made a breakthrough; I have noticed that this is a 1Tb
>>>Barracuda 7200.12. It should be model st31000524as (from memory) but
>>>bios reports it as model ST_M13FQBL and says the capacity is 3.8Gb.
>>
>>Ouch. Yes, that's seriously screwed up, and it does sound like it's at
>>the disk's firmware layer.
>>
>>It may be possible to resuscitate by flashing the firmware as you
>>suggest - at this stage there's not a lot to lose, I'd say.
>>
>
> I thought it rather suspicious that _two_ hdds should fail on the
> same day.

Not really. Maths/statistics says that random events are mor likely to
happen together, as in had one whatever, the probabilty of another one in
the near future is increased.

My Father always used to say that problems happened in threes. One right
after the other.

Sorry, bit off topic.

[Chris Ridd]

On 2013-09-15 05:37:51 +0000, Gordon said:

> On 2013-09-14, Johny B Good <johnny...@invalid.ntlworld.com> wrote:
>> On Sat, 14 Sep 2013 13:17:06 +0100, Jaimie Vandenbergh
>> <jai...@sometimes.sessile.org> wrote:
>>
>>> On Sat, 14 Sep 2013 08:03:05 +0100, Stephen
>>> <ste...@nowhere.com.invalid> wrote:
>>>
>>>> I think I have made a breakthrough; I have noticed that this is a 1Tb
>>>> Barracuda 7200.12. It should be model st31000524as (from memory) but
>>>> bios reports it as model ST_M13FQBL and says the capacity is 3.8Gb.
>>>
>>> Ouch. Yes, that's seriously screwed up, and it does sound like it's at
>>> the disk's firmware layer.
>>>
>>> It may be possible to resuscitate by flashing the firmware as you
>>> suggest - at this stage there's not a lot to lose, I'd say.
>>>
>>
>> I thought it rather suspicious that _two_ hdds should fail on the
>> same day.
>
> Not really. Maths/statistics says that random events are mor likely to
> happen together, as in had one whatever, the probabilty of another one in
> the near future is increased.

Especially if they're both the same model, maybe from the same
manufacturing batch, and with the same firmware.

--
Chris

[Johny B Good]

On 15 Sep 2013 05:37:51 GMT, Gordon <Gor...@clear.net.nz> wrote:

>On 2013-09-14, Johny B Good <johnny...@invalid.ntlworld.com> wrote:
>> On Sat, 14 Sep 2013 13:17:06 +0100, Jaimie Vandenbergh
>><jai...@sometimes.sessile.org> wrote:
>>
>>>On Sat, 14 Sep 2013 08:03:05 +0100, Stephen
>>><ste...@nowhere.com.invalid> wrote:
>>>
>>>>I think I have made a breakthrough; I have noticed that this is a 1Tb
>>>>Barracuda 7200.12. It should be model st31000524as (from memory) but
>>>>bios reports it as model ST_M13FQBL and says the capacity is 3.8Gb.
>>>
>>>Ouch. Yes, that's seriously screwed up, and it does sound like it's at
>>>the disk's firmware layer.
>>>
>>>It may be possible to resuscitate by flashing the firmware as you
>>>suggest - at this stage there's not a lot to lose, I'd say.
>>>
>>
>> I thought it rather suspicious that _two_ hdds should fail on the
>> same day.
>
>Not really. Maths/statistics says that random events are mor likely to
>happen together, as in had one whatever, the probabilty of another one in
>the near future is increased.

Yes, but on the same day? If both drives were in the same machine (it
wasn't absolutely clear), it's more likely the second suffered FS
corruption as a consequential effect of the fault on the HDD suffering
the 'Click of Death'. My little anecdote was to remind us all of the
possibility of Malware with a 'Chernobyl' like 'Sting in the Tail'.

>
>My Father always used to say that problems happened in threes. One right
>after the other.

As far as SMPSU component failures are concerned, that's so often
true. It only needs a single component to fail to make a SMPSU 'Go
Bang!' due to a cascade of failure of two or more components. It's the
main reason why, even experts. are advised against wasting time and
money on repair attempts.

>
>Sorry, bit off topic.

Not really, it's all part and parcel of systematic failures. In this
case, the second HDD with FS corruption (aggravated by the OP's
initial panic response) was most likely triggered by the fault with
the first disk.

[Johny B Good]

On Sun, 15 Sep 2013 07:19:02 +0100, Chris Ridd <chri...@mac.com>
wrote:

They were two seperate problems (I'd overlooked his second post). In
this case, the second disk may well have suffered FS corruption as a
direct consequence of the first disk's failure.

I'm sure that you're alluding to the big flaw in the thinking that
drove the design of RAID arrays where that effect has certainly been
observed many many times too often.

If nothing else, the practice of using a "Redundent Array of
Inexpensive Disks" has shown up the "TimeBomb" element hidden within
the MTBF/MTTF statistics for hard disk drives.

Hopefully, most home builders who are considering setting up a RAID
array for improved availability (rather than to boost performance)
should be aware of the phenomena to which you refer and go into this
particular minefield with both eyes wide open.