I have killed my HDD

Question

I have some trouble with my external USB 3.0 drive with 1Tb HDD. I had formatted it wrong way: I wrote /dev/sdb instead /dev/sdb1, and now I have no ability to use this drive.

fdisk /dev/sdb
fdisk: unable to read /dev/sdb: Input/output error

Last saturday I have used dd command for writing sdb device with zeros. Today the process has been finished (my second PC run this command for a week). But I found one interesting thing with dd. If I set count = 1 I see next:

bs=512 - Input/Output error
bs=1024 - Input/Output error
bs=4096 - Okay!

But all what I try had no success. sfdisk also says that he has IO error.

The HDD is connected to SATA with no USB adapter.

What I did...

I removed all partitions using gparted
I created a new partition table but gparted creashed
I recreated partitions using fdisk
Something happend in my head and I decided to fill device with zeros using dd
When I started dd and calculated how many days I need to finish the process I pressed Ctrl+C and... After that fdisk says that block 0 is unreadable/unwritable

I have tried sfdisk, wait till dd fill all disk and many other...

dmesg says:

[573000.557900] Buffer I/O error on device sdb, logical block 244187588
[573000.558550] lost page write due to I/O error on sdb

smartctl -a /dev/sdb:

smartctl 6.2 2013-07-26 r3841 [x86_64-linux-3.13.0-95-generic] (local build)
Copyright (C) 2002-13, Bruce Allen, Christian Franke, www.smartmontools.org

=== START OF INFORMATION SECTION ===
Model Family:     Seagate Momentus SpinPoint M8 (AF)
Device Model:     ST1000LM024 HN-M101MBB
Serial Number:    S318J9DG719286
LU WWN Device Id: 5 0004cf 21029e6dc
Firmware Version: 2BA30001
User Capacity:    1,000,204,886,016 bytes [1.00 TB]
Sector Sizes:     512 bytes logical, 4096 bytes physical
Rotation Rate:    5400 rpm
Device is:        In smartctl database [for details use: -P show]
ATA Version is:   ATA8-ACS T13/1699-D revision 6
SATA Version is:  SATA 3.0, 6.0 Gb/s (current: 3.0 Gb/s)
Local Time is:    Sat Sep 10 13:39:04 2016 MSK
SMART support is: Available - device has SMART capability.
SMART support is: Enabled

=== START OF READ SMART DATA SECTION ===
SMART overall-health self-assessment test result: PASSED

General SMART Values:
Offline data collection status:  (0x00) Offline data collection activity
                    was never started.
                    Auto Offline Data Collection: Disabled.
Self-test execution status:      (  23) The self-test routine was aborted by
                    the host.
Total time to complete Offline 
data collection:        (12480) seconds.
Offline data collection
capabilities:            (0x5b) SMART execute Offline immediate.
                    Auto Offline data collection on/off support.
                    Suspend Offline collection upon new
                    command.
                    Offline surface scan supported.
                    Self-test supported.
                    No Conveyance Self-test supported.
                    Selective Self-test supported.
SMART capabilities:            (0x0003) Saves SMART data before entering
                    power-saving mode.
                    Supports SMART auto save timer.
Error logging capability:        (0x01) Error logging supported.
                    General Purpose Logging supported.
Short self-test routine 
recommended polling time:    (   2) minutes.
Extended self-test routine
recommended polling time:    ( 208) minutes.
SCT capabilities:          (0x003f) SCT Status supported.
                    SCT Error Recovery Control supported.
                    SCT Feature Control supported.
                    SCT Data Table supported.

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     0x002f   100   100   051    Pre-fail  Always       -       0
  2 Throughput_Performance  0x0026   252   252   000    Old_age   Always       -       0
  3 Spin_Up_Time            0x0023   090   089   025    Pre-fail  Always       -       3246
  4 Start_Stop_Count        0x0032   089   089   000    Old_age   Always       -       11227
  5 Reallocated_Sector_Ct   0x0033   252   252   010    Pre-fail  Always       -       0
  7 Seek_Error_Rate         0x002e   252   252   051    Old_age   Always       -       0
  8 Seek_Time_Performance   0x0024   252   252   015    Old_age   Offline      -       0
  9 Power_On_Hours          0x0032   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       4289
 10 Spin_Retry_Count        0x0032   252   252   051    Old_age   Always       -       0
 11 Calibration_Retry_Count 0x0032   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       19
 12 Power_Cycle_Count       0x0032   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       247
191 G-Sense_Error_Rate      0x0022   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       80
192 Power-Off_Retract_Count 0x0022   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       48
194 Temperature_Celsius     0x0002   064   054   000    Old_age   Always       -       26 (Min/Max 16/46)
195 Hardware_ECC_Recovered  0x003a   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       0
196 Reallocated_Event_Count 0x0032   252   252   000    Old_age   Always       -       0
197 Current_Pending_Sector  0x0032   252   252   000    Old_age   Always       -       0
198 Offline_Uncorrectable   0x0030   252   252   000    Old_age   Offline      -       0
199 UDMA_CRC_Error_Count    0x0036   200   200   000    Old_age   Always       -       0
200 Multi_Zone_Error_Rate   0x002a   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       1241
223 Load_Retry_Count        0x0032   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       19
225 Load_Cycle_Count        0x0032   079   079   000    Old_age   Always       -       221164

SMART Error Log Version: 1
No Errors Logged

SMART Self-test log structure revision number 1
Num  Test_Description    Status                  Remaining  LifeTime(hours)  LBA_of_first_error
# 1  Short offline       Aborted by host               70%       427         -
# 2  Short offline       Completed without error       00%       330         -
# 3  Short offline       Completed without error       00%       162         -
# 4  Short offline       Completed without error       00%        52         -

SMART Selective self-test log data structure revision number 0
Note: revision number not 1 implies that no selective self-test has ever been run
 SPAN  MIN_LBA  MAX_LBA  CURRENT_TEST_STATUS
    1        0        0  Aborted_by_host [70% left] (0-65535)
    2        0        0  Not_testing
    3        0        0  Not_testing
    4        0        0  Not_testing
    5        0        0  Not_testing
Selective self-test flags (0x0):
  After scanning selected spans, do NOT read-scan remainder of disk.
If Selective self-test is pending on power-up, resume after 0 minute delay.

Input/output error - this isn't caused by formatting /dev/sdb instead of /dev/sdb1. Either your disk is damaged or your USB adapter doesn't work properly. Try to connect the disk directly via SATA, without the USB adapter. — Martin von Wittich, Sep 10, 2016 at 9:47
Yes, I already did it. My bad, forgot to clarify: the HDD is connected to SATA with no USB adapter — Макс Торгунаков, Sep 10, 2016 at 9:52
So, can you edit the post to tell how you formatted the drive (which command), if that's what caused the problem? Also, what does dmesg show? (assuming this was on Linux) — ilkkachu, Sep 10, 2016 at 10:14
Then the disk is probably broken. Could you post the output of smartctl -a /dev/sdb? — Martin von Wittich, Sep 10, 2016 at 10:29

dhag · Accepted Answer · 2018-02-21 22:43:37Z

2

If 4k sectors are possible to write and the HDD runs fine, it might mean that this is a native 4k HDD (sometimes called advanced format) without the possibility to emulate 512 byte sectors. I haven't seen such drives, yet. Every drive I used could emulate 512 sectors, it just ran a bit slower, because of unaligned access.

You need to check with dd if=/dev/sdb of=/dev/null bs=1m if the HDD would start to read and not abort instantly (1m is multiple of 4k). If the dd command runs fine then it seems it is a 4k drive. If you want to access such HDD, you need tools that are capable to align accesses to 4k sectors.

edited Feb 21, 2018 at 22:43

dhag

15.8k4 gold badges55 silver badges65 bronze badges

answered Sep 10, 2016 at 10:44

Martin Sugioarto

1,0277 silver badges9 bronze badges

plex@ubuntu-server:/dev$ sudo dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sdb count=1 bs=1M 1+0 records in 1+0 records out 1048576 bytes (1.0 MB) copied, 0.0117557 s, 89.2 MB/s
– Макс Торгунаков
Sep 10, 2016 at 10:50
It might also be the USB chipset in the enclosure. I formatted drives in my PC implicitly using 512 sectors, then put it in my enclosure and my partitions were unreadable. I discovered the enclosure only supported 4k sectors and the partitions weren't properly aligned for it.
– Hoov
Sep 10, 2016 at 10:51
No difference in behavior between connecting via USB and SATA
– Макс Торгунаков
Sep 10, 2016 at 10:55

Add a comment |

Jan Stavěl · Accepted Answer · 2016-09-10 14:06:49Z

From the looks of it, I'd guess the disk's dead, dying (or was faulty from the beginning maybe). Formatting the device instead of partition shouldn't be able to do this, happened to me a few times as well, without any damage to device (unlike the data... :)

I have a similar disk, 2TB external USB3 Seagate, I'll post my smartctl output for comparison. For the moment, I'd try running the extended self-test (using either the gui GSmartControl or smartctl. It takes time, for my drive about 6 hrs, yours should be roughly half that tme.)


root@fubuntu:~# smartctl -a /dev/sdc |tee sdc-smartctl-`ds`.log
smartctl 6.5 2016-01-24 r4214 [x86_64-linux-4.4.0-36-generic] (local build)
Copyright (C) 2002-16, Bruce Allen, Christian Franke, www.smartmontools.org

=== START OF INFORMATION SECTION ===
Model Family:     Seagate Samsung SpinPoint M9T
Device Model:     ST2000LM003 HN-M201RAD
Serial Number:    S34RJ9FG538619
LU WWN Device Id: 5 0004cf 20fceabd1
Firmware Version: 2BC10008
User Capacity:    2 000 398 934 016 bytes [2,00 TB]
Sector Sizes:     512 bytes logical, 4096 bytes physical
Rotation Rate:    5400 rpm
Form Factor:      2.5 inches
Device is:        In smartctl database [for details use: -P show]
ATA Version is:   ATA8-ACS T13/1699-D revision 6
SATA Version is:  SATA 3.0, 6.0 Gb/s (current: 3.0 Gb/s)
Local Time is:    Sat Sep 10 15:17:41 2016 CEST
SMART support is: Available - device has SMART capability.
SMART support is: Enabled

=== START OF READ SMART DATA SECTION ===
SMART overall-health self-assessment test result: PASSED

General SMART Values:
Offline data collection status:  (0x80) Offline data collection activity
                    was never started.
                    Auto Offline Data Collection: Enabled.
Self-test execution status:      (   0) The previous self-test routine completed
                    without error or no self-test has ever 
                    been run.
Total time to complete Offline 
data collection:        (24480) seconds.
Offline data collection
capabilities:            (0x5b) SMART execute Offline immediate.
                    Auto Offline data collection on/off support.
                    Suspend Offline collection upon new
                    command.
                    Offline surface scan supported.
                    Self-test supported.
                    No Conveyance Self-test supported.
                    Selective Self-test supported.
SMART capabilities:            (0x0003) Saves SMART data before entering
                    power-saving mode.
                    Supports SMART auto save timer.
Error logging capability:        (0x01) Error logging supported.
                    General Purpose Logging supported.
Short self-test routine 
recommended polling time:    (   1) minutes.
Extended self-test routine
recommended polling time:    ( 408) minutes.
SCT capabilities:          (0x003f) SCT Status supported.
                    SCT Error Recovery Control supported.
                    SCT Feature Control supported.
                    SCT Data Table supported.

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     0x002f   100   100   051    Pre-fail  Always       -       0
  2 Throughput_Performance  0x0026   056   056   000    Old_age   Always       -       22251(vs.0)
  3 Spin_Up_Time            0x0023   088   087   025    Pre-fail  Always       -       3875
  4 Start_Stop_Count        0x0032   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       326(vs 11227!)
  5 Reallocated_Sector_Ct   0x0033   252   252   010    Pre-fail  Always       -       0
  7 Seek_Error_Rate         0x002e   252   252   051    Old_age   Always       -       0
  8 Seek_Time_Performance   0x0024   252   252   015    Old_age   Offline      -       0
  9 Power_On_Hours          0x0032   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       414
 10 Spin_Retry_Count        0x0032   252   252   051    Old_age   Always       -       0
 12 Power_Cycle_Count       0x0032   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       87
191 G-Sense_Error_Rate      0x0022   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       31
192 Power-Off_Retract_Count 0x0022   252   252   000    Old_age   Always       -       0 (aka unclean shutdown, yours 48 for just 247 total power cycles.
194 Temperature_Celsius     0x0002   064   049   000    Old_age   Always       -       23 (Min/Max 15/51)
195 Hardware_ECC_Recovered  0x003a   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       0
196 Reallocated_Event_Count 0x0032   252   252   000    Old_age   Always       -       0
197 Current_Pending_Sector  0x0032   252   252   000    Old_age   Always       -       0
198 Offline_Uncorrectable   0x0030   252   252   000    Old_age   Offline      -       0
199 UDMA_CRC_Error_Count    0x0036   200   200   000    Old_age   Always       -       0
200 Multi_Zone_Error_Rate   0x002a   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       6 (vs 1241)
223 Load_Retry_Count        0x0032   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       2 (vs 19)
225 Load_Cycle_Count        0x0032   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       3879 (vs 221164!)

SMART Error Log Version: 1
No Errors Logged

SMART Self-test log structure revision number 1
Num  Test_Description    Status                  Remaining  LifeTime(hours)  LBA_of_first_error
# 1  Extended offline    Completed without error       00%       398         - Do the extended offline test.
# 2  Short offline       Completed without error       00%       383         -

SMART Selective self-test log data structure revision number 0
Note: revision number not 1 implies that no selective self-test has ever been run
 SPAN  MIN_LBA  MAX_LBA  CURRENT_TEST_STATUS
    1        0        0  Completed [00% left] (0-65535)
    2        0        0  Not_testing
    3        0        0  Not_testing
    4        0        0  Not_testing
    5        0        0  Not_testing
Selective self-test flags (0x0):
  After scanning selected spans, do NOT read-scan remainder of disk.
If Selective self-test is pending on power-up, resume after 0 minute delay.

IMHOAFAIK, it's a hw error and the disk's done for, I'm afraid , but I'd do the extended offline self-test nevertheless. Is it still under warranty, by chance?

No the disk is in perfect condition. The high Load_Cycle_Count is something he should take care of, yes. This is a bug in the HDD firmware (powersaving is too Windows-specific). There might be a workaround for Linux, I don't know. Otherwise there are no problems. — Martin Sugioarto, Sep 10, 2016 at 16:04
No, warranty has expired. That is a reason why I try to fix it... — Макс Торгунаков, Sep 10, 2016 at 18:42
@MartinSugioarto - the drive APM and AAM can be adjusted in Linux as well, at least with most HDD. Snce I don't know how to do it in terminal, I use the Gnome Disks app for the task - menu - Drive Settings <C-e> and from there you can disable/adjust APM,AAM,standby and writecache. — Jan Stavěl, Sep 10, 2016 at 21:36
As for the hw/fw failure - I had a HDD once, that was in perfect health according to SMART and other test, seemed to be writing data, but wasn't able to read a single bit from them - The sounds he started to make (and which intensified gradually) however betrayed him..The heads crashed on the platters in a matter of days. Doesn't need to be the case here, just sayin'... — Jan Stavěl, Sep 10, 2016 at 21:50

Stack Exchange Network

I have killed my HDD

2 Answers 2

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged
hard-disk
dd
fdisk
mbr
superblock
.

Hot Network Questions

I have killed my HDD

2 Answers 2

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged hard-diskddfdiskmbrsuperblock.

Related

Hot Network Questions

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged
hard-disk
dd
fdisk
mbr
superblock
.