Samsung SP F1 1TB problem...

philds · 9 Mar 2008 at 18:04

Bought a:

Samsung SpinPoint F1 1TB SATA-II 32MB Cache - OEM (HD103UJ)

and used it in a:

Akasa Integral P2 eSATA/USB 2.0 3.5" Hard Drive Enclosure - Blue

On my Abit IP35 Pro motherboard and it's started to produce EventID 7 errors "The device, \Device\Harddisk0\D, has a bad block." and tasks such as video conversion began to fail/get stuck although I don't get that feeling you do from a failing hard drive with chugging or freezing apps. So I suspected the drive enclosure, and I have removed it from there and given it a direct SATA connect internally and decided to run some tests:

SeaTools:
S.M.A.R.T. Passed
Short DST Failed

WD Data Lifeguard Diagnostics:
Quick Test Failed
"06-Quick Test on drive 2 did not complete! Status code = 07 (Failed read test element), Failure Checkpoint = 00 (Unknown Test) SMART self-test did not complete on drive 2!"

Are there any other programs that you would recommend I use to test this drive, i'm getting the feeling I need to replace it but want to be 100% sure.

AWPC · 10 Mar 2008 at 00:54

Did you do a full format or quick format?

I had a similar error on my 750GB Samsung then when I did a full format (which took about 2.5 hours) it has been perfect ever since. It will probably take over 3 hours to format 1TB.

philds · 10 Mar 2008 at 19:39

I had done a quick format, full format is meant to do a disk check so I shall try your suggestion, many thanks.

AWPC · 10 Mar 2008 at 20:03

99% sure it will fix it as recently I did a quick format on both a Raptor 150 + the Samsung 750 and both appeared to be faulty but when I deleted the partitions and did the full formats they worked perfectly.

philds · 10 Mar 2008 at 20:04

I wish someone would create a Quick Full Format

CrimsonAvenger · 10 Mar 2008 at 20:24

lol

philds · 15 Mar 2008 at 12:36

The full format didn't work, it got stuck at 21% with more errors in the event log:

ID: 9
Source: iaStor
The device, \Device\Ide\iaStor0, did not respond within the timeout period.

Also now it is causing my computer to be unstable, the software I would use to run tests on no longer start and freeze up. Also this morning my PC was failing to boot up until I had removed the SATA drive (the eSata enclosure was removed ages ago so forget that).

I think it's time to return it?

ByteJuggler · 15 Mar 2008 at 13:31

philds said:
The full format didn't work, it got stuck at 21% with more errors in the event log:

ID: 9
Source: iaStor
The device, \Device\Ide\iaStor0, did not respond within the timeout period.

Also now it is causing my computer to be unstable, the software I would use to run tests on no longer start and freeze up. Also this morning my PC was failing to boot up until I had removed the SATA drive (the eSata enclosure was removed ages ago so forget that).

I think it's time to return it?

Clearly the drive has problems. Return it.

ByteJuggler · 15 Mar 2008 at 13:34

AWPC said:
Did you do a full format or quick format?

I had a similar error on my 750GB Samsung then when I did a full format (which took about 2.5 hours) it has been perfect ever since. It will probably take over 3 hours to format 1TB.

This works in the case of a drive with a few bad blocks, by effectively forcing the drive to remap those to working spares. It does not however mean the drive is neccesarily in reality "perfect" afterwards, since you then still have bad blocks on the disk, albeit invisible to the operating system. The point is, if there's actually an underlying issue causing bad blocks to appear, then formatting them out obviously is only a short term fix. It is true however, that if the bad blocks are simply imperfections theat crept in during manufacture, and there is no underlying issue that will make them worse etc, then formatting the bad sectors out can leave a drive perfectly usable ("perfect") for practical intents and purposes.