Evaluating current status of Desktop Sata drives

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ASKER CERTIFIED SOLUTION

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ASKER

I installed and ran the WinDFT app. It checked the 2nd drive but does not check the first drive. This is also mentioned in the documentation.

The 2nd drive passed but the some of the results were passed the thresholds.

ASKER

I'm thinking my probably may not be hardware but software parameter related. I checked for a Win 7 Best Practices app like I've used before on servers but can't find one for Win7. Anyone know where I can fine one that is dependable and free?

Replace the first drive.

Even if there was a relationship with your software, the drive still needs to be replaced as it fails the manufacturer's diagnostics.

I installed and ran the WinDFT app. It checked the 2nd drive but does not check the first drive.

Does the drive show as available in the listing?

If you are able to see the drive, but WinDFT is not able to scan the drive, the drive is faltering.

If you are leaning more to a Software parameter or a stability related issue, have you looked into Windows 7's Reliability Tool? I would suggest starting there.

Control Panel\All Control Panel Items\Action Center\Reliability Monitor
or
Start > Reliability

ASKER

Only the 2nd drive is selectable in WinDFT. That app does not allow selecting the 1st drive.

I'll check the Win reliability tool.

Most diagnostic utilities don't run on the drive you are running the OS from. You should therefore either run the tool from the BootCD I mentioned earlier, or connect the disk to another pc as a 2nd internal disk, and then run the windows tool from there.

But as i mentioned already, that drive has a problem. in your question it shows it's "health status" as "caution".

ASKER

Win7 reliability stats shows IE crashing four time on my today. Each time I downloaded a PDF doc from a vendor and right after it became viewable in IE, IE crashes and a solution is never provided by Microsoft.

I have started using Chrome for most browsing. Here are the details.
Description
Faulting Application Path:      C:\Program Files (x86)\Internet Explorer\iexplore.exe

Problem signature
Problem Event Name:      APPCRASH
Application Name:      IEXPLORE.EXE
Application Version:      10.0.9200.16686
Application Timestamp:      52058cf0
Fault Module Name:      KERNELBASE.dll
Fault Module Version:      6.1.7601.18229
Fault Module Timestamp:      51fb1116
Exception Code:      e06d7363
Exception Offset:      0000c41f
OS Version:      6.1.7601.2.1.0.256.1
Locale ID:      1033
Additional Information 1:      0a9e
Additional Information 2:      0a9e372d3b4ad19135b953a78882e789
Additional Information 3:      0a9e
Additional Information 4:      0a9e372d3b4ad19135b953a78882e789

Extra information about the problem
Bucket ID:      3821828369

But as i mentioned already, that drive has a problem. in your question it shows it's "health status" as "caution".

That is not exactly correct. A value of 'Caution' for the Health Status only means that a raw threshold value was exceeded. Considering those values are configurable, it could have been set to an unrealistic value to begin with for this particular setup.

It means that the drive must be changed as it will very probably fail completely very soon. It also is likely the cause of the problems he is having. Those aren't configurable values.

rindi, are you familiar with CrystalDisk?

The values are configurable.

No. But SMART uses thresholds that are hardcoded in the disk. When SMART is tripped, you need to replace the disk asap.

According to the S.M.A.R.T. output both drives are in an 'acceptable' condition. I have truncated the output of 1T disk to give clarification:

S.M.A.R.T. information consists of "attributes", each one describing some particular aspect of drive condition. Some attributes may be designated "life-critical", which implies that the corresponding parameters are more important than other ones (notated in red in the image).

The 'Threshold' is the minimum value limit for the attribute. If the normalized value falls below the threshold ['T.E.C.' (Threshold Exceeded Condition)], the disk is seen as defective and should be replaced.

In simpler terms:

The only things I could see any future issues with are -

The 'Seek Error Rate' is at 67% - Logs rate at which specified events (errors) occur. Lower value indicates more events (errors). Retries are not necessarily indicate a persistent problem, but one should proceed with caution if any of these attributes is degraded.

The 'Spin Retry Count' is at 60% - Spin retry event is logged each time the drive was unable to spin its platters up to the rated rotation speed in the due time. Spin-up attempt was aborted and retried. This typically indicates severe controller or bearing problem, but may be sometimes caused by power supply problems.

Have you also tried running the built-in, yet not as detailed, wmic check from the command-line interface? This will return a very simple answer, formated as:

OK
Error
Degraded
Unknown
PredFail
Starting
Stopping
Service
Stressed
NonRecover
No Contact
Lost Comm

C:\> wmic
wmic:root\cli> diskdrive get status

Open in new window

and

E:\> wmic
wmic:root\cli> diskdrive get status

Open in new window

SOLUTION

Gary Case

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the 60 and 67 values are the thresholds -- NOT the current values.

That is correct... I'm not sure I misinterpreted them, although, I may have not been clear with my posting about them.

The data I presented was in percentages, not the actual Threshold value (which coincidentally are the same).

On another note, I completely agree with your statement!

I'd at least try simply imaging drive #1 and restoring the image to a new drive.

Gary Case

"... The data I presented was in percentages, not the actual Threshold value (which coincidentally are the same). " ==> ??? Both the seek error rate and the spin retry rate for BOTH drives have raw values of zero.

ASKER

I'm replacing both drives.

ASKER

I staretd the replacement process by purchasing two Toshiba 2tb drives replacing the two Hitachi drives. Before purchasing them, I checked the specs of the MB because I had a problem before when I tried connecting a Sata3 drive to it. The specs show this MB is only compatible with Sata2 drives so I purchased two Toshiba MK2002TSK3 7200 rpm drives. They came with a 5 year warranty so I have confidence in them.

Yes, I could have replaced the MB to get Sata3 compatibility, but I didn't want to go through that right now.

I installed one drive, setup two partitions and installed Windows 7 Pro, ran Windows update to install the updated along with SP1 and a few of my programs to get it started.

I downloaded the WinDFT.zip app to get a report of the 1st drive and it didn't find it. I'm assuming because it's not a Hitachi, it does not detect it.

I ran the Windows reliability monitor (Control Panel\All Control Panel Items\Action Center\Reliability Monitor) and it showed no problems but does not provide a report like WinDFT does. I'd like to find a clean app that provides that info. I went to Toshiba's site, entered the s/n and p/n of my drives but it did't like them. I wanted to find their app that might provide the indepth info.

What other app is clean, won't change my settings and provide a good free report of the hard drive performance?

ASKER

I checked http://ultimatebootcd.com and it looks like a ton of freeware products. I'm not sayingnrthey are bad, but I don't want to get any spyware or apps like that on this system now that I know it's clean and appears to be running ok.