Master Hard Disk: S.M.A.R.T. Command Failed

[krit86lr]

I was resuming Windows from hibernation, and I got a black screen that said

 

Master Hard Disk: S.M.A.R.T. Command Failed

Press F1 to Resume

 

 

I don't know what this means, but I think that it's really bad. I need my computer to last until August, but I think that this error has something to do with my HD failing. I am going to Google now, but if anyone has some knowledgable suggestions it will be much appreciated.

 

Thanks

Krit

[Mike Rochip]

As I'm sure you're finding out, it's not good news. If the computer still boots, you should back up as much as possible and replace your hard drive if you can.

 

DjLizard has recommended some S.M.A.R.T. monitoring tools in this thread that will detail exactly what is happening but if you're getting a warning screen I would imagine time is of the essence.

 

One of my hard drives is failing but I only found out through a warning in Belarc Advisor, not via a warning screen.

 

Sorry for your trouble and best of luck. Wish I could offer more specific and informative help.

 

Edit: The link he posted for HD Tune points to an image from the application. The application itself can befound here.

[DjLizard]

It's funny, I just wrote this little program yesterday which checks SMART status, so give it a shot and post a log from it (right-click the top pane, Save...)

 

http://DjLizard.net/SMARTass.exe

[lokoike]

It's funny, I just wrote this little program yesterday which checks SMART status, so give it a shot and post a log from it (right-click the top pane, Save...)

 

http://DjLizard.net/SMARTass.exe

 

Ha! Love the name.

 

Just tried it out on my computer, and it worked great. The only problems I noticed was that it put too many spaces before the serial number (see below), and when it saves the log to a file, it doesn't give it an extension (even though when you are saving it, it says it will save it as a .txt document).

 

 

Not too shabby for an app written in a day. Do you plan on making periodic updates to it, or was it just something you wrote for fun?

[krit86lr]

It's funny, I just wrote this little program yesterday which checks SMART status, so give it a shot and post a log from it (right-click the top pane, Save...)

 

http://DjLizard.net/SMARTass.exe

 

I like the name. Here it is.

 

 

[DjLizard]

What the hell? I put a Trim() around that stupid serial number variable... uhhh

 

Good point about the not-giving-it-an-extension, I'll fix that. Ah, I forgot to put .txt as the DefaultExt property of the dialog. There.

 

It was written in like 30 minutes, actually

 

lokoike: Can I have your log too? Also, download the new build at the same address and see if the serial number gets properly trimmed. If it doesn't, then that means those spaces aren't really spaces, but are some other character that looks like spaces (like a tab), which is like that because of your drive. I may be able to see such characters in a saved log and filter them out in future builds.

 

I was going to start a new thread about this program asking for people to send logs in, but this thread'll do

 

Anyone else who wants to run it may run it (but not in Win98/Me just yet) and attach a .log for me. These logs help me make sure the program is working well on all of the possible combinations of host controllers and hard drives.

 

krit86lr: since your SMART attributes are perfect, it was probably just a fluke.

 

http://DjLizard.net/SMARTass.exe

 

I decided to ditch the bottom pane and go back to uniwindow... so the info that would have shown up in the bottom pane (which would have been S.M.A.R.T. threshold errors) will just show up in the main pane.

[krit86lr]

Here's another one for you with the new smartass.exe

 

BTW: Thanks DjLizard. But in the last 2 weeks my computer has to reboot itself 2 or 3 times to start up. So I'm not sure if it is a fluke, but I'm not as scared anymore.

 

Do you think that a HD firmware upgrade is a good idea? (I've never done one before for my HD).

[DjLizard]

What'd you call me? Oh, oh yeah. OK.

[hazelnut]

Here's mine DJ

for_dj.lizard.txt

for_dj.lizard.txt

[DjLizard]

No problem krit. HD firmware upgrades are extremely rare. You won't need to do one of those, especially if you're experiencing a new problem.

 

hazelnut: Do you have a card reader or something on your system? It thinks you have at least 3 other drives (which is probably true) (I told it to stop looking for drives past "physical drive 3", but I may expand that)

[hazelnut]

 

 

hazelnut: Do you have a card reader or something on your system? It thinks you have at least 3 other drives (which is probably true) (I told it to stop looking for drives past "physical drive 3", but I may expand that)

 

Yes DJ, I have a card reader and an external HD but that is not plugged in, ( only do that when backing up my files on to it.)

[krit86lr]

No problem krit. HD firmware upgrades are extremely rare. You won't need to do one of those, especially if you're experiencing a new problem.

 

I hope that you don't mind me hijacking your hijack here.

 

Out of curiosity I checked all of my recovery settings for my services. Some of the settings were set to reboot my computer anywhere from 2 to 3 times. I changed those to restart service rather than reboot computer. Is there anything else that I could look into?

 

Thanks SMARTass.exe (djlizard's new nickname haha)

FYI: don't forget the CAPS...he's sensitive about that

[Eldmannen]

SMART is a function on harddisk that monitors the health of the harddisk. So you can be warned if the harddisk is not healthy, so you can back up before it crash.

 

It told you to press F1, so maybe you should do that. But maybe you should take that warning, and do some backups, and prepare for potential disk problems?

 

* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-Monitori...ting_Technology

[DjLizard]

When those services crash and begin to reboot your computer, they pop up a dialog that counts down from 60 seconds before it actually restarts (which you can cancel with Start > Run > shutdown -a). If you weren't getting that, then that wasn't the problem.

 

You'll want to disable automatic shutdown on blue screens:

Start > Run > control sysdm.cpl,,3 > Startup and Recovery > Settings > uncheck "Automatically restart"

 

Start > Run > eventvwr.msc

Clear both the Application and System logs. Use your computer as normal until something happens. If you get a BSoD, note the STOP error code, text, and any parameters in parenthesis. Then send me the latest file from C:\windows\minidump. If you happen to have any files in minidump right now, post one somewhere so I can examine it. If you don't get BSoDs but weird things happen, check event viewer, then right-click on Application and System and Save Log File As... and save both as a comma delimited file (csv) and post them somewhere so I can see them.

[krit86lr]

SMART is a function on harddisk that monitors the health of the harddisk. So you can be warned if the harddisk is not healthy, so you can back up before it crash.

 

It told you to press F1, so maybe you should do that. But maybe you should take that warning, and do some backups, and prepare for potential disk problems?

 

* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-Monitori...ting_Technology

 

I backed up my whole computer 3 days ago, so I'm good on that.

I did press F1 which is how I got into Windows again.

 

Thank you

 

When those services crash and begin to reboot your computer, they pop up a dialog that counts down from 60 seconds before it actually restarts (which you can cancel with Start > Run > shutdown -a). If you weren't getting that, then that wasn't the problem.

 

You'll want to disable automatic shutdown on blue screens:

Start > Run > control sysdm.cpl,,3 > Startup and Recovery > Settings > uncheck "Automatically restart"

 

Start > Run > eventvwr.msc

Clear both the Application and System logs. Use your computer as normal until something happens. If you get a BSoD, note the STOP error code, text, and any parameters in parenthesis. Then send me the latest file from C:\windows\minidump. If you happen to have any files in minidump right now, post one somewhere so I can examine it. If you don't get BSoDs but weird things happen, check event viewer, then right-click on Application and System and Save Log File As... and save both as a comma delimited file (csv) and post them somewhere so I can see them.

 

I will try that thanks.

 

The last few days it also says "Attribute Seek Time Performance changes from 251 to 250". Is this related by any chance. If not, I don't care about it right now.

[DjLizard]

Keep an eye on your SMART status daily with my app. You will receive an alert in the textbox that either starts with "x Warning:" (when threshold is getting close) or "! SEVERE:" (when threshold is exceeded).

 

Basically, if any attribute's Value column number is equal to or lower than its Threshold (Thrsh) column number, your hard drive is either in the process of dying or will die eventually (it could die in 1 hour or it could die in 6 months; there's no way of knowing exactly). All of your attributes are fine, so I only suspect a hibernation fluke. But you may want to monitor it daily for a while just to be sure. Check your event viewer for any "disk" or "ATAPI" events, especially ones with the red X on them.

[krit86lr]

I downloaded the Maxtor diag test which made a floppy diagnostic test. My harddrive passed all of the tests. I will use SMARTass.exe daily a keep an eye on the things that you mentioned.

 

Unfortunately, I clean my Event Viewer and minidumpt regularly so maybe I can get some stuff in there over the next day or so.

[1984]

Heres my log dj. any problems here?

 

S.M.A.R.T. is enabled on physical drive 0

Drive 0 is an IDE hard drive that supports S.M.A.R.T.

Cylinders: 16383, heads: 16, sectors per track: 63

Model: ST340016A

Firmware revision: 3.19

Serial number: 3HS8FBFY

 

Data for physical drive 0:

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

|Dec|Hex| Attribute Name | Flags |Value|Worst|Thrsh|

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

|001| 01| Raw Read Error Rate |PW OC PE ER | 69 | 65 | 43 |

x Warning: drive 0's threshold is close on attribute 003: Spin Up Time

|003| 03| Spin Up Time |PW OC | 70 | 70 | 50 |

|004| 04| Start/Stop Count | OC EC SP| 100 | 100 | 51 |

|005| 05| Reallocated Sector Count |PW OC EC SP| 100 | 100 | 15 |

x Warning: drive 0's threshold is close on attribute 007: Seek Error Rate

|007| 07| Seek Error Rate |PW OC PE ER | 53 | 51 | 50 |

|009| 09| Power On Hours Count | OC EC SP| 88 | 88 | 19 |

|010| 0A| Spin Retry Count |PW OC EC | 100 | 99 | 50 |

|012| 0C| Power Cycle Count | OC EC SP| 99 | 99 | 34 |

x Warning: drive 0's threshold is close on attribute 194: HDA Temperature

|194| C2| HDA Temperature | OC SP| 38 | 50 | 26 |

|195| C3| Hardware ECC recovered | OC ER EC | 69 | 65 | 18 |

|197| C5| Current Pending Sector | OC EC | 100 | 100 | 16 |

|198| C6| Offline Uncorrectable | EC | 100 | 100 | 62 |

|199| C7| UDMA CRC Error Count | OC PE ER EC SP| 200 | 200 | 0 |

|200| C8| Write Error Count | | 100 | 253 | 50 |

|202| CA| Data Address Mark Errors | OC EC SP| 100 | 253 | 0 |

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Legend:

PW - Pre-failure warranty attribute - OC - Online collection attribute

PE - Performance attribute - ER - Error rate attribute

EC - Error count attribute - SP - Self-preserving attribute

 

 

S.M.A.R.T. is NOT enabled on physical drive 1 and it will not be polled.

 

thanks dude.

[DjLizard]

Dear god, couldn't you have attached that so it would have retained its formatting?

 

Okay, don't worry about the warnings you see there... Seagate has very weird SMART status reporting and your drive is most likely just fine. If you want to be sure, download Seagate's HDD testing tools and test your drive out.

 

But thanks, now I know what else I need to fix.

 

I think Seagate using a different byteswapping mechanism or something, because those stats are not accurate at all. I'll have to figure out what Seagate is doing differently than everyone else.

[krit86lr]

*removed* hahaha

[1984]

Dear god, couldn't you have attached that so it would have retained its formatting?

 

 

 

 

Im lucky if i can get my pants on straight and get to work sober each day let alone figure out formatting.

 

and thanks!

[Mike Rochip]

Here is my log.

 

Thanks Dj!

Maxtor_6y120po.txt

Maxtor_6y120po.txt

[krit86lr]

Here's a log from another computer.

 

 

[DjLizard]

Thanks krit.

 

I updated SMARTass again.

[krit86lr]

I like the update. It's easier to read because the columns line up.

 

2nd machine log

 

mine (you'd better love me)