Shamil's Blog. Software Engineering Processes, Android, CI, Devops.

http://forum.ixbt.com/topic.cgi?id=17:22648

Labels: driver, hdd, windows

free utility:
http://cmrr.ucsd.edu/people/Hughes/SecureErase.shtml

Labels: bookmarks, erase, hdd, security

I've issues now with my new WD hdd that I asked my friend to bring me from abroad. He carried it in baggage (not a hand luggage), so it has been damaged: bad sectors appeared in 7 days of usage (I did not test surface when first format). Bad that WD heads are not locked in a new hdds so they can damage surface when hdd is shocked!

Labels: bad sector, flight, hdd, wd

I'm changing my main hdd from 1tb Seagate (see previous post about seagate problems) to 1tb WD green.

Surprise

I've got new 1Tb WD HDD formatted with "Advanced Format". I'm going to use it as main hdd after cloning partitions from current Seagate. First thing I made is just cloned whole hdd and restarted from new one. Hmm, performance is REALLY BAD. Let's read the manual...

Details

The instruction on new hdd says: use WD Align utility if you use cloning software. No details. Just does some magic to your hdd.
The thing that was not said almost anywhere on wdc.com or all the other sites who just repost text from wdc: when to run wd align utility?

Problem: aligning takes huge time.

The purpose of wd align tools is to align partitions on the border of 4kb (usually size is 512b) physical sectors (ntfs cluster is aligned in this case and the overall performance is better). HDD emulates more accurate 512b-step addressing, but this is very slow, because NTFS uses 4k clusters that usually (3/4 probability :-), with default winxp partitioning increases to 100%, because of some strange reserve of 63 sectors before first partition) breaks to 2 physical sectors. The problem is that to "align" 30Gb partition (not even half of whole 1Tb hdd space) filled to 25Gb with data, it requires more than an hour! If you have already cloned partitions with data filled for example 500Gb (50% of whole disk), it takes ~20 hours. I had ~750 Gb of data. Not way to align in a reasonable time.

Solution:

The right way is to make empty partitions before cloning your data to new hdd, align it with "paragon wd align" (~10 seconds for 500Gb partition, pretty fast), and after that clone your data using for example Norton Ghost. The only trick is to know sizes of target partitions. To be sure your data fits there well, adjust free space to be more than 3-5%. And remember that not all data cloning software defragments target partition, some use "sector to sector" copy (only non-empty sectors of course).

Good luck with Advanced Format disks! Some say that soon all of HDDs will be made using AF (the 4k sector size increase disk space usage, because require less low-level intersector markers which require some space).

Labels: advanced format, hdd, sector size, wd, wd align, winxp

I've recovered all data from my Maxtor Diamond max 22 (Seagate 7200.11 clone), see this link for details. The HDD was locked due to Seagate firmware problem (BSY status error). Finally, I've used commands from this guide and Siemens M55 RS-232 cable. Also I asked my friend to make a MAX232-based scheme, but it was incompatible for some reason and I've fallen back to phone cable (which was the backup solution). I did not get the LBA 0 problem after fixing BSY state error.
So if you have this problem, drop me a message in comments to get details on procedure, I will try to help you.
UPD: here's cool video guide (using Nokia USB cable and they disconnecting head block while I disconnected spin motor - result seems to be the same).

Labels: 7200.11, BSY, data recovery, hdd, maxtor, seagate, success story

Update: affected models (not serial numbers): ST31000340AS ST31000340NS STM31000340AS ST3750330AS ST3750330NS STM3750330AS ST3750630AS ST3500320NS STM3500320AS ST3640330AS ST3250310NS STM31000334AS ST3640530AS STM3320614AS ST3500320AS STM3160813AS ST3500620AS ST3500820AS ST31500341AS ST31000333AS ST3640323AS ST3640623AS ST3320613AS ST3320813AS ST3160813AS.

If you like to check whether your hdd is affected by a Seagate/Maxtor firmware fault, use this short tutorial.

Enter your drive's serial number here into: Seagate's firmware update check tool (https://apps1.seagate.com/rms_af_srl_chk/). After that, follow the instructions. If you see "No action required", your drive is not affected by the firmware fault.

How to know your drive's serial:

Linux

I use startctl (http://smartmontools.sourceforge.net).

smartctl -i /dev/sdX

(press TAB after dev/sd and enter your drive number from the given list, for example /dev/sda. However on different distros hdd filename differs, so ou may need to refer to docs). In output of command you'll see your serial:

Serial number:      9RA21232

Windows

I use Seagate DriveDetect.
Here's a screenshot of how output should look like.

In any case, back your data up regularly!

Labels: failure, hdd, seagate

I have Maxxtor Diamond  Max 22 500Gb (STM3500320AS model with "mx15" firmware).

The problem this model has is same as in Seagate 7200.11 series: some counters in system area overflow... and microcontroller disables all IO operations to prevent data loss (which is, of course, logicallly thinking, good idea. But the criteria does not seem to be the right). Therefore, all data is stored OK inside bricked HDD. 

Symptops: HDD BUSY led are being turned on during computers seeks for HDD on startup, this process is VERY long and ALWAYS ends with either a message "boot device not found" (if affected HDD is a system one), or system loads, but affected HDD is not detected by the system (at all, not only partitions, but THERE'S NO ANY HDD detected, even with specialized Seagate's Tools, or DriveDetect utils).

This is it, so-called "BSY" failure. The HDD is brick now :-)

Now I've restored my system partition from backup and waiting for my friend to solder the RS232-to-TTL (COM - to - service connector) signal convertor. I've also found the needed Seagate service commands to unbrick the HDD with BSY error.

Please check whether your HDD is affected and in any case: BACK your data UP regularily!

Labels: backup, BSY, error, failure, hdd, maxtor, seagate