Analyzing a Faulty Hard Disk using Smartctl
From Thomas-Krenn-Wiki
Under Linux, you can read the SMART (Self-Monitoring, Analysis and Reporting Technology) information from the hard disk using smartctl. In this example, we will show how to analyze a defective hard disk. The hard disk in this example can no longer read several sectors and is therefore defective. It has to be replaced.
Contents
Displaying SMART Information
The smartctl -a /dev/DEVICENAME command will display all SMART information for the affected hard disk. The hard disk in this example is showing increased errors for multiple SMART settings.
root@ubuntu-10-10:~# smartctl -a /dev/sdb
smartctl 5.40 2010-03-16 r3077 [x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu] (local build)
Copyright (C) 2002-10 by Bruce Allen, http://smartmontools.sourceforge.net
=== START OF INFORMATION SECTION ===
Model Family: SAMSUNG SpinPoint F2 EG series
Device Model: SAMSUNG HD502HI
Serial Number: S1VZJ9CS712490
Firmware Version: 1AG01118
User Capacity: 500,107,862,016 bytes
Device is: In smartctl database [for details use: -P show]
ATA Version is: 8
ATA Standard is: ATA-8-ACS revision 3b
Local Time is: Wed Feb 9 15:30:42 2011 CET
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: ( 0) The previous self-test routine completed
without error or no self-test has ever
been run.
Total time to complete Offline
data collection: (6312) seconds.
Offline data collection
capabilities: (0x7b) SMART execute Offline immediate.
Auto Offline data collection on/off support.
Suspend Offline collection upon new
command.
Offline surface scan supported.
Self-test supported.
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: ( 106) minutes.
Conveyance self-test routine
recommended polling time: ( 12) 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 0x000f 099 099 051 Pre-fail Always - 2376
3 Spin_Up_Time 0x0007 091 091 011 Pre-fail Always - 3620
4 Start_Stop_Count 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 405
5 Reallocated_Sector_Ct 0x0033 100 100 010 Pre-fail Always - 0
7 Seek_Error_Rate 0x000f 253 253 051 Pre-fail Always - 0
8 Seek_Time_Performance 0x0025 100 100 015 Pre-fail Offline - 0
9 Power_On_Hours 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 717
10 Spin_Retry_Count 0x0033 100 100 051 Pre-fail Always - 0
11 Calibration_Retry_Count 0x0012 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 0
12 Power_Cycle_Count 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 405
13 Read_Soft_Error_Rate 0x000e 099 099 000 Old_age Always - 2375
183 Runtime_Bad_Block 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 0
184 End-to-End_Error 0x0033 100 100 000 Pre-fail Always - 0
187 Reported_Uncorrect 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 2375
188 Command_Timeout 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 0
190 Airflow_Temperature_Cel 0x0022 084 074 000 Old_age Always - 16 (Lifetime Min/Max 16/16)
194 Temperature_Celsius 0x0022 084 071 000 Old_age Always - 16 (Lifetime Min/Max 16/16)
195 Hardware_ECC_Recovered 0x001a 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 3558
196 Reallocated_Event_Count 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 0
197 Current_Pending_Sector 0x0012 098 098 000 Old_age Always - 81
198 Offline_Uncorrectable 0x0030 100 100 000 Old_age Offline - 0
199 UDMA_CRC_Error_Count 0x003e 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 1
200 Multi_Zone_Error_Rate 0x000a 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 0
201 Soft_Read_Error_Rate 0x000a 253 253 000 Old_age Always - 0
SMART Error Log Version: 1
No Errors Logged
SMART Self-test log structure revision number 1
No self-tests have been logged. [To run self-tests, use: smartctl -t]
SMART Selective self-test log data structure revision number 1
SPAN MIN_LBA MAX_LBA CURRENT_TEST_STATUS
1 0 0 Not_testing
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.
root@ubuntu-10-10:~#
Analysis
In this example, the following values are interesting for the detailed analysis.
1 Raw_Read_Error_Rate 0x000f 099 099 051 Pre-fail Always - 2376 13 Read_Soft_Error_Rate 0x000e 099 099 000 Old_age Always - 2375 187 Reported_Uncorrect 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 2375 195 Hardware_ECC_Recovered 0x001a 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 3558 197 Current_Pending_Sector 0x0012 098 098 000 Old_age Always - 81 199 UDMA_CRC_Error_Count 0x003e 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 1
The RAW_VALUE of the Current_Pending_Sector value indicates how many of the hard disks sectors can no longer be read and are waiting for re-mapping.[1] You will find detailed information about the other error codes in the ATA S.M.A.R.T. Attributes section of the Wikipedia article about SMART.[2]
SMART Tests
SMART supports several hard disk tests. You can find the details on the man page for smartctl.
Short Test
We will start a short test in this example.
root@ubuntu-10-10:~# smartctl -t short /dev/sdb smartctl 5.40 2010-03-16 r3077 [x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu] (local build) Copyright (C) 2002-10 by Bruce Allen, http://smartmontools.sourceforge.net === START OF OFFLINE IMMEDIATE AND SELF-TEST SECTION === Sending command: "Execute SMART Short self-test routine immediately in off-line mode". Drive command "Execute SMART Short self-test routine immediately in off-line mode" successful. Testing has begun. Please wait 2 minutes for test to complete. Test will complete after Wed Feb 9 15:35:31 2011 Use smartctl -X to abort test. root@ubuntu-10-10:~#
Displaying the Test Results
The test results will be displayed by the command: smartctl -l selftest /dev/sdb. The LBA address is obviously the first defective sector in this example.
root@ubuntu-10-10:~# smartctl -l selftest /dev/sdb smartctl 5.40 2010-03-16 r3077 [x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu] (local build) Copyright (C) 2002-10 by Bruce Allen, http://smartmontools.sourceforge.net === START OF READ SMART DATA SECTION === SMART Self-test log structure revision number 1 Num Test_Description Status Remaining LifeTime(hours) LBA_of_first_error # 1 Short offline Completed: read failure 20% 717 555027747 root@ubuntu-10-10:~#
Forcing Re-mapping a Defective Sector
When you write to a defective sector, the hard disk will attempt to re-map the affected sector. The original content of the sector will be lost by this procedure. You will find details about this on the Bad Block HOWTO page.[3]
The following command will display the remapping process for a sector. The Current_Pending_Sector counter will be reduced (these steps were performed according to the Bad Block HOWTO page).
root@ubuntu-10-10:~# fdisk -lu /dev/sdb Disk /dev/sdb: 500.1 GB, 500107862016 bytes 255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 60801 cylinders, total 976773168 sectors Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes Disk identifier: 0x20d1585d Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System /dev/sdb1 * 2048 206847 102400 7 HPFS/NTFS Partition 1 does not end on cylinder boundary. /dev/sdb2 206848 97863097 48828125 7 HPFS/NTFS /dev/sdb3 97868041 976768064 439450012 5 Extended /dev/sdb5 97868043 964703249 433417603+ 83 Linux /dev/sdb6 964703313 976768064 6032376 82 Linux swap / Solaris root@ubuntu-10-10:~# tune2fs -l /dev/sdb5 | grep Block Block count: 108354400 Block size: 4096 Blocks per group: 32768 root@ubuntu-10-10:~# debugfs debugfs 1.41.12 (17-May-2010) debugfs: open /dev/sdb5 debugfs: testb 57144963 Block 57144963 not in use debugfs: quit root@ubuntu-10-10:~# dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sdb5 bs=4096 count=1 seek=57144963 1+0 records in 1+0 records out 4096 bytes (4,1 kB) copied, 0,000379164 s, 10,8 MB/s root@ubuntu-10-10:~# sync root@ubuntu-10-10:~# smartctl -A /dev/sdb smartctl 5.40 2010-03-16 r3077 [x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu] (local build) Copyright (C) 2002-10 by Bruce Allen, http://smartmontools.sourceforge.net === START OF READ SMART DATA SECTION === 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 [...] 197 Current_Pending_Sector 0x0012 098 098 000 Old_age Always - 80 [...]
Another set of tests will be started and another remapping procedure will be performed.
root@ubuntu-10-10:~# smartctl -t short /dev/sdb smartctl 5.40 2010-03-16 r3077 [x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu] (local build) Copyright (C) 2002-10 by Bruce Allen, http://smartmontools.sourceforge.net === START OF OFFLINE IMMEDIATE AND SELF-TEST SECTION === Sending command: "Execute SMART Short self-test routine immediately in off-line mode". Drive command "Execute SMART Short self-test routine immediately in off-line mode" successful. Testing has begun. Please wait 2 minutes for test to complete. Test will complete after Wed Feb 9 15:47:41 2011 Use smartctl -X to abort test. root@ubuntu-10-10:~# smartctl -l selftest /dev/sdb smartctl 5.40 2010-03-16 r3077 [x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu] (local build) Copyright (C) 2002-10 by Bruce Allen, http://smartmontools.sourceforge.net === START OF READ SMART DATA SECTION === SMART Self-test log structure revision number 1 Num Test_Description Status Remaining LifeTime(hours) LBA_of_first_error # 1 Short offline Completed: read failure 20% 717 555027784 # 2 Short offline Completed: read failure 20% 717 555027747 root@ubuntu-10-10:~# debugfs debugfs 1.41.12 (17-May-2010) debugfs: open /dev/sdb5 debugfs: testb 57144967 Block 57144967 not in use debugfs: quit root@ubuntu-10-10:~# dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sdb5 bs=4096 count=1 seek=57144967 1+0 records in 1+0 records out 4096 bytes (4,1 kB) copied, 0,000374713 s, 10,9 MB/s root@ubuntu-10-10:~# smartctl -A /dev/sdb smartctl 5.40 2010-03-16 r3077 [x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu] (local build) Copyright (C) 2002-10 by Bruce Allen, http://smartmontools.sourceforge.net === START OF READ SMART DATA SECTION === 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 [...] 197 Current_Pending_Sector 0x0012 098 098 000 Old_age Always - 79 [...]
References
- ↑ 9133: S.M.A.R.T. Attribute: Current Pending Sector Count (Acronis Knowledge Base)
- ↑ S.M.A.R.T. (en.wikipedia.org)
- ↑ Bad block HOWTO for smartmontools
Related articles
SMART
SMART Attributes Monitoring Plugin
Smartctl
