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How to cure smart hard drive. What is S.M.A.R.T.

What is S.M.A.R.T.? Why do SMART errors occur and what does it mean? Below we will describe in detail the causes and methods for eliminating such problems.

Means S.M.A.R.T. showing errors hard drive(HDD or SSD) is a signal that some kind of problem has occurred with the drive that affects the stability and operation of the computer.

In addition, such a mistake is a serious reason to think about the safety of your important data, because due to a problematic drive, you can simply lose all the information that almost impossible to restore.

What is SMART and what does it show?

S.M.A.R.T. stands for "self-monitoring, analysis and reporting technology", which means in translation "technology of self-diagnostics, analysis and reporting".

Each hard drive connected via SATA or ATA interface has a built-in S.M.A.R.T. system that allows you to perform the following functions:

Conduct analysis drive.
Fix software Problems with HDD.
Scan surface hard drive.
Conduct program correction, cleaning or replacement damaged blocks.
Give ratings vital characteristics of the disc.
Keep records about all hard disk parameters.

System S.M.A.R.T. allows the user to full information O physical state of the hard drive, a scoring method that can be used to calculate the approximate time for an HDD to fail. You can personally familiarize yourself with this system using the Victoria program or other analogues.

You can find out how to work, check and fix hard disk errors in the Victoria program in the article "".

S.M.A.R.T. errors

As a rule, in a normally working drive, the S.M.A.R.T. does not give any errors even with low scores. This is due to the fact that errors are a signal of a possible imminent disk failure.

S.M.A.R.T. errors always indicate some kind of malfunction or that some elements of the disk are practically exhausted their resources. If such messages are shown to the user, you should think about the safety of your data, since now they can disappear at any moment!

Examples of SMART errors

SMART failure predicted error

In this case, S.M.A.R.T. notifies the user of imminent disk failure. Important: if you see this message on your computer, urgently copy all important information and files to other media, because given hard disk can fail at any moment!

Error "S.M.A.R.T. status BAD"

This error indicates that some hard disk parameters are in poor condition (almost exhausted). As in the first case, one should immediately backup important data.

Error "the smart hard disk check has detected"

As in the previous two errors, the S.M.A.R.T. talking about imminent HDD failure.

Error codes and names may vary between hard drives, motherboards, or BIOS versions, however, each of them is a signal for backup your files.

How to fix SMART error?

S.M.A.R.T. errors testify to imminent hard drive failure, so the correction of errors, as a rule, does not bring the desired result and the error remains. In addition to critical errors, there are other problems that can cause messages of this kind. One of these problems is elevated media temperature.

It can be viewed in the Victoria program in the SMART tab under the item 190 "Airflow temperature" for HDD. Or under paragraph 194 Controller temperature for SDD.

If this figure is too high, measures should be taken to cooling system unit:

Check cooler performance.
Clear dust.
Put additional cooler for better ventilation.

Another way to fix SMART errors is checking the drive for errors.

This can be done by going to the folder "My computer" by clicking right mouse button by disk or its partition, select the item "Service" and running a check.

If the error was not corrected during the check, you should resort to disk defragmentation.

To do this while in properties disk, press the button "Optimize", select the desired disk and press "Optimize".

If the error persists after that, most likely the disk just ran out of space and soon it will be unreadable, and the user will only have to purchase a new HDD or SSD.

How to disable SMART check?

Disk with S.M.A.R.T. maybe fail at any time but that doesn't mean they can't continue to use it.

It should be understood that the use of such a disk should not imply the storage of any worthwhile information on it. Knowing this, one can reset smart settings that will help disguise annoying mistakes.

For this:

Step 1. Go to BIOS or UEFI(button F2 or Delete during loading) and go to the item "Advanced" and select the line "IDE Configuration" and press Enter. Use the arrow keys on your keyboard to navigate.

Step 2. On the screen that opens, you should find your drive and press Enter(hard drives signed "Hard Disc").

Step 3. Scroll down the list and select an option SMART, press Enter and choose the item "disabled".

Step 4. Exit BIOS, applying and keeping the settings.

It is worth noting that on some systems this procedure may be performed a little differently, but the shutdown principle itself remains the same.

After turning off SMART errors will stop appearing, and the system will boot normally until until the HDD finally fails. In some situations, errors can be shown in the OS itself, for this you should reject them several times, after which don't show again button.

What to do if the data has been lost?

In case of accidental formatting, deletion by viruses or loss of any important data, you should quickly return the lost information in the most effective way.

One of these methods is a data recovery program. RS Partition Recovery . This utility can quickly return remote photos, video files, audio tracks, images, documentation and any other files that disappeared from the drive for various reasons. has an advanced system of scanning and searching for deleted information, which allows you to find and recover even those files that were strangled a long time ago. More details with features and main features RS Partition Recovery can be found on the official website of the manufacturer

Modern HDD is a unique component of a computer. It is unique in that it contains service information, studying which, you can evaluate the "health" of the disk. This information contains the history of changes in many parameters monitored by the hard drive during operation. No other component of the system unit provides the owner with statistics of its work! Together with the fact that the HDD is one of the most unreliable computer components, such statistics can be very useful and help its owner avoid hassle and loss of money and time.

Information about the state of the disk is available thanks to a set of technologies called by the common name S.M.A.R.T. (Self-Monitoring, Analisys and Reporting Technology, i.e. technology of self-monitoring, analysis and reporting). This complex is quite extensive, but we will talk about those aspects of it that allow you to look at the S.M.A.R.T. attributes displayed in any hard drive testing program and understand what is happening with the disk.

I note that the following applies to drives with SATA and PATA interfaces. SAS, SCSI, and other server drives also have S.M.A.R.T., but its representation is very different from SATA/PATA. Yes, and it is usually not a person who monitors server disks, but a RAID controller, so we will not talk about them.

So, if we open S.M.A.R.T. in any of the numerous programs, we will see approximately the following picture (the screenshot shows the S.M.A.R.T. of the Hitachi Deskstar 7K1000. With HDS721010CLA332 in HDDScan 3.3):

Each row displays a separate S.M.A.R.T attribute. Attributes have more or less standardized names and a certain number, which do not depend on the model and manufacturer of the disk.

Each S.M.A.R.T. has multiple fields. Each field belongs to a specific class from the following: ID, Value, Worst, Threshold and RAW. Let's look at each of the classes.

ID(may also be called number) — identifier, attribute number in S.M.A.R.T. technology. The name of the same attribute can be given by programs in different ways, but the identifier always uniquely identifies the attribute. This is especially useful in the case of programs that translate the generally accepted attribute name from English into Russian. Sometimes it turns out such rubbish that you can understand what kind of parameter it is only by its identifier.
Value (Current)- the current value of the attribute in parrots (i.e., in values of unknown dimension). During the operation of the hard drive, it can decrease, increase and remain unchanged. By the Value indicator, one cannot judge the "health" of an attribute without comparing it with the Threshold value of the same attribute. As a rule, the smaller the Value, the worse the state of the attribute (initially, all value classes, except RAW, on the new disk have the maximum possible value, for example, 100).
Worst- the worst value that the Value value has reached in the entire life of the hard drive. It is also measured in "parrots". In the course of work, it can decrease or remain unchanged. It also cannot be used to unequivocally judge the health of an attribute, you need to compare it with Threshold.
Threshold- the value in "parrots" that the Value of the same attribute must reach in order for the attribute's state to be recognized as critical. Simply put, Threshold is a threshold: if Value is greater than Threshold, the attribute is fine; if less than or equal, with the problem attribute. It is by this criterion that utilities that read S.M.A.R.T. issue a report on the status of the disk or a separate attribute like “Good” or “Bad”. At the same time, they do not take into account that even with Value greater than Threshold, the disk can actually already be dying from the user’s point of view, or even walking dead, so when assessing the health of a disk, you should still look at a different attribute class, and namely RAW. However, it is the value of Value that falls below the Threshold that can become a legitimate reason for replacing the disk under warranty (for the guaranteeers themselves, of course) - who can speak more clearly about the health of the disk than he himself, demonstrating the current value of the attribute is worse than the critical threshold? That is, if the value of Value is greater than Threshold, the disk itself considers that the attribute is healthy, and if it is less or equal, it is sick. Obviously, if Threshold=0, the attribute state will never be recognized as critical. Threshold is a constant parameter hardcoded by the manufacturer in the disk.
RAW (Data)- the most interesting, important and necessary indicator for evaluation. In most cases, it does not contain "parrots", but real values expressed in various units of measurement, directly speaking about current state disk. Based on this indicator, the Value value is formed (but by what algorithm it is formed is already a secret of the manufacturer, covered in darkness). It is the ability to read and analyze the RAW field that makes it possible to objectively assess the state of the hard drive.

This is what we will do now - we will analyze all the most used S.M.A.R.T. attributes, see what they say and what to do if they are not in order.

Attributes of S.M.A.R.T.

Before describing attributes and valid values for their RAW field, let me clarify that attributes can have a RAW field. different type: current and accumulative. The current field contains the value of the attribute in currently, it is characterized by a periodic change (for some attributes - occasionally, for others - many times per second; another thing is that such a quick change is not displayed in S.M.A.R.T. readers). Accumulating field - contains statistics, usually it contains the number of occurrences of a particular event since the first start of the disk.

The current type is typical for attributes for which it makes no sense to summarize their previous readings. For example, the disk temperature reading is current: its purpose is to show the current temperature, not the sum of all previous temperatures. The accumulative type is characteristic of attributes for which their entire meaning is to provide information for the entire period of the "life" of the hard drive. For example, the attribute that characterizes the time of disk operation is cumulative, i.e. it contains the number of units of time worked out by the drive during its entire history.

Let's start looking at attributes and their RAW fields.

Attribute: 01 Raw Read Error Rate

All Seagate, Samsung (starting with the SpinPoint F1 family (inclusive)) and Fujitsu 2.5″ drives have huge numbers in these fields.

For other Samsung drives and all WD drives, this field is 0.

For Hitachi disks, this field is characterized by 0 or a periodic change in the field in the range from 0 to several units.

Such differences are due to the fact that all Seagate hard drives, some Samsung and Fujitsu consider the values of these parameters differently than WD, Hitachi and other Samsung. During the operation of any hard drive, errors of this kind always occur, and it overcomes them on its own, this is normal, just on disks that contain 0 or a small number in this field, the manufacturer did not consider it necessary to indicate the true number of these errors.

Thus, a non-zero parameter on WD and Samsung drives up to SpinPoint F1 (not included) and a large value of the parameter on Hitachi drives may indicate hardware problems with the drive. Be aware that utilities can display multiple values contained in the RAW field of this attribute as one, and it will look quite large, although this will not be true (see below for details).

On Seagate, Samsung (SpinPoint F1 and newer) and Fujitsu drives, this attribute can be ignored.

Attribute: 02 Throughput Performance

The parameter does not give any information to the user and does not indicate any danger in any of its values.

Attribute: 03 Spin-Up Time

The acceleration time may vary for different disks (and for disks of the same manufacturer, too) depending on the spin-up current, the mass of pancakes, the nominal speed of the spindle, etc.

By the way, Fujitsu hard drives always have one in this field if there are no problems with spinning the spindle.

It says practically nothing about the health of the disk, so when assessing the state of the hard drive, you can ignore the parameter.

Attribute: 04 Number of Spin-Up Times (Start/Stop Count)

When assessing health, ignore the attribute.

Attribute: 05 Reallocated Sector Count

Let us explain what a “reassigned sector” is in general. When a disk encounters an unreadable/poorly readable/non-writable/poorly writable sector during operation, it may consider it irreparably damaged. Especially for such cases, the manufacturer provides on each disk (on some models - in the center (logical end) of the disk, on some - at the end of each track, etc.) a reserve area. In the presence of a damaged sector, the disk marks it as unreadable and uses the sector in the spare area instead, making the appropriate marks in a special list of surface defects - G-list. Such an operation to assign a new sector to the role of the old one is called remap (remap) or reassignment, and used instead of the damaged sector - reassigned. The new sector receives the LBA logical number of the old one, and now when software accesses the sector with this number (programs don't know about any reassignments!) the request will be redirected to the reserve area.

Thus, even though the sector is out of order, the volume of the disk does not change. It is clear that it does not change for the time being, because the volume of the reserve area is not infinite. However, the spare area may well contain several thousand sectors, and it would be very irresponsible to allow it to end - the disk will need to be replaced long before that.

By the way, repairmen say that Samsung drives very often do not want to perform sector reassignment in any way.

Opinions differ on this attribute. Personally, I think that if it reaches 10, the disk must be changed - after all, this means a progressive process of degradation of the state of the surface or pancakes, or heads, or something else hardware, and there is no way to stop this process. By the way, according to people close to Hitachi, Hitachi itself considers a disk to be replaced when it already has 5 reassigned sectors. Another question is whether this information is official, and whether service centers follow this opinion. Something tells me not :)

Another thing is that service center employees may refuse to recognize the disk as faulty if the proprietary utility of the disk manufacturer writes something like “S.M.A.R.T. Status: Good” or the Value or Worst values of the attribute will be greater than Threshold (in fact, the manufacturer’s utility itself can evaluate by this criterion). And formally they will be right. But who needs a drive with a constant deterioration of its hardware components, even if such deterioration is in the nature of the hard drive, and hard drive technology tries to minimize its consequences by allocating, for example, a spare area?

Attribute: 07 Seek Error Rate

The description of the formation of this attribute almost completely coincides with the description for attribute 01 Raw Read Error Rate, except that for Hitachi hard drives the normal value of the RAW field is only 0.

Thus, ignore the attribute on Seagate, Samsung SpinPoint F1 and newer and Fujitsu 2.5″ drives, the rest Samsung models, as well as on all WD and Hitachi, a non-zero value indicates problems, for example, with a bearing, etc.

Attribute: 08 Seek Time Performance

Does not give any information to the user and does not indicate any danger in any of its values.

Attribute: 09 Power On Hours Count (Power-on Time)

Says nothing about disk health.

Attribute: 10 (0A - Hexadecimal) Spin Retry Count

Most often, he does not talk about the health of the disk.

The main reasons for increasing the parameter are poor contact between the disk and the power supply unit or the inability of the power supply unit to supply the required current to the power supply line of the disk.

Ideally, it should be equal to 0. With an attribute value of 1-2, you can ignore it. If the value is greater, first of all, you should pay close attention to the condition of the power supply, its quality, the load on it, check the contact of the hard drive with the power cable, check the power cable itself.

Surely the disk may not start immediately due to problems with it, but this happens very rarely, and this possibility should be considered as a last resort.

Attribute: 11 (0B) Calibration Retry Count (Recalibration Retries)

A non-zero, and especially a growing value of the parameter may mean problems with the disk.

Attribute: 12 (0C) Power Cycle Count

Not related to disk state.

Attribute: 183 (B7) SATA Downshift Error Count

Doesn't say anything about the health of the drive.

Attribute: 184 (B8) End-to-End Error

A non-zero value indicates disk problems.

Attribute: 187 (BB) Reported Uncorrected Sector Count (UNC Error)

A non-zero attribute value clearly indicates that the disk is in an abnormal state (combined with a non-zero attribute value of 197) or that it was previously so (combined with a null value of 197).

Attribute: 188 (BC) Command Timeout

Such errors can occur due to the poor quality of cables, contacts, used adapters, extension cords, etc., as well as due to the incompatibility of the disk with a specific SATA / PATA controller on the motherboard (or discrete). Due to errors of this kind, BSODs are possible in Windows.

A non-zero value of the attribute indicates a potential "disease" of the disk.

Attribute: 189 (BD) High Fly Writes

In order to say why such cases occur, you need to be able to analyze S.M.A.R.T. logs, which contain information specific to each manufacturer, which is not currently implemented in open source software - therefore, you can ignore the attribute.

Attribute: 190 (BE) Airflow Temperature

Doesn't say anything about the status of the disk.

Attribute: 191 (BF) G-Sensor Shock Count (Mechanical Shock)

Relevant for mobile hard drives. On Samsung drives, you can often ignore it, because they can have a very sensitive sensor, which, figuratively speaking, reacts almost to the movement of air from the wings of a fly flying in the same room as the drive.

In general, the operation of the sensor is not a sign of an impact. It can grow even from the positioning of the BMG with the disc itself, especially if it is not fixed. The main purpose of the sensor is to stop the recording operation during vibrations in order to avoid errors.

Doesn't talk about disk health.

Attribute: 192 (C0) Power Off Retract Count (Emergency Retry Count)

It does not allow to judge the state of the disk.

Attribute: 193 (C1) Load/Unload Cycle Count

Doesn't talk about disk health.

Attribute: 194 (C2) Temperature (HDA Temperature, HDD Temperature)

The attribute does not tell about the state of the disk, but allows you to control one of the the most important parameters. My opinion: when working, try not to allow the temperature of the hard drive to rise above 50 degrees, although the manufacturer usually declares a maximum temperature limit of 55-60 degrees.

Attribute: 195 (C3) Hardware ECC Recovered

Features inherent in this attribute on different discs fully correspond to those of attributes 01 and 07.

Attribute: 196 (С4) Reallocated Event Count

Indirectly speaks about disk health. The higher the value, the worse. However, one cannot unequivocally judge the health of a disk by this parameter without considering other attributes.

This attribute is directly related to attribute 05. With growth of 196, 05 also most often grows. If attribute 05 does not grow with growth of attribute 196, it means that when trying to remap, the candidate for bad blocks turned out to be a soft bad (see details below), and the disk fixed it so that the sector was deemed healthy and no remapping was necessary.

If attribute 196 is less than attribute 05, it means that during some remapping operations several bad sectors were transferred at one time.

If attribute 196 is greater than attribute 05, it means that during some reassignment operations, later corrected soft-bads were found.

Attribute: 197 (С5) Current Pending Sector Count

Bumping into a “bad” sector during operation (for example, the checksum of the sector does not match the data in it), the disk marks it as a candidate for reassignment, enters it into a special internal list and increases parameter 197. From this it follows that the disk may have bad sectors that it does not yet know about - after all, there may well be areas on the platters that the hard drive does not use for some time.

When attempting to write to a sector, the drive first checks to see if that sector is in the list of candidates. If the sector is not found there, the recording proceeds in the usual way. If it is found, this sector is tested by writing-reading. If all test operations pass normally, then the disk considers that the sector is healthy. (That is, there was a so-called “soft bad” - an erroneous sector arose not due to the fault of the disk, but for other reasons: for example, at the time of recording information, the electricity went out, and the disk interrupted the recording, parking the BMG. As a result, the data in sector will be underwritten, and the sector checksum, which depends on the data in it, will remain old at all.There will be a discrepancy between it and the data in the sector.) In this case, the disk performs the originally requested write and removes the sector from the list of candidates. In this case, the attribute 197 decreases, it is also possible to increase the attribute 196.

If the test fails, the disk performs a remapping operation, decrementing attribute 197, incrementing 196 and 05, and making marks in the G-list.

So, a non-zero value of the parameter indicates problems (however, it cannot say whether the problem is in the disk itself).

If the value is non-zero, it is necessary to start sequential reading of the entire surface in the Victoria or MHDD programs with the option remap. Then, when scanning, the disk will definitely stumble upon a bad sector and try to write to it (in the case of Victoria 3.5 and the option advanced remap- the disk will try to write the sector up to 10 times). Thus, the program will provoke a “treatment” of the sector, and as a result, the sector will either be fixed or reassigned.

In case of reading failure, both with remap, so with advanced remap, you should try to start sequential recording in the same Victoria or MHDD. Keep in mind that the write operation erases data, so be sure to make a backup before using it!

Sometimes the following manipulations can help prevent a failure to perform a remap: remove the disk electronics board and clean the contacts of the hard drive HDA connecting it to the board - they can be oxidized. Be careful when performing this procedure - because of it, you can lose your warranty!

The impossibility of remapping may be due to another reason - the disk has exhausted the reserve area, and it simply has nowhere to remap sectors.

If the value of attribute 197 is not reduced to 0 by any manipulations, you should think about replacing the disk.

Attribute: 198 (C6) Offline Uncorrectable Sector Count (Uncorrectable Sector Count)

This parameter changes only under the influence of offline testing, no program scans affect it. During self-test operations, the behavior of the attribute is the same as that of attribute 197.

A non-zero value indicates problems on the disk (just like 197, without specifying who is to blame).

Attribute: 199 (C7) UltraDMA CRC Error Count

In the vast majority of cases, errors are caused by a poor-quality data transfer cable, overclocking of the computer's PCI / PCI-E buses, or poor contact in the SATA connector on the disk or on the motherboard / controller.

Errors during transmission over the interface and, as a result, an increasing value of the attribute can cause the operating system to switch the operating mode of the channel on which the drive is located to PIO mode, which leads to a sharp drop in read / write speed when working with it and processor load up to 100% (visible in the Windows Task Manager).

In the case of Hitachi hard drives of the Deskstar 7K3000 and 5K3000 series, the growing attribute may indicate incompatibility between the disk and the SATA controller. To remedy the situation, you need to forcibly switch such a drive to SATA 3 Gb / s mode.

My opinion: if there are errors, reconnect the cable from both ends; if their number grows and it is more than 10 - throw away the cable and put a new one in its place or remove the overclock.

Attribute: 200 (C8) Write Error Rate (MultiZone Error Rate)

Attribute: 202 (CA) Data Address Mark Error

Attribute: 203 (CB) Run Out Cancel

Health effects are unknown.

Attribute: 220 (DC) Disk Shift

Health effects are unknown.

Attribute: 240 (F0) Head Flying Hours

Health effects are unknown.

Attribute: 254 (FE) Free Fall Event Count

Health effects are unknown.

Let's summarize the description of the attributes. Non-zero values:

When analyzing attributes, keep in mind that some S.M.A.R.T. several values for this parameter can be stored: for example, for the penultimate run of the disk and for the last one. Such multi-byte parameters are logically composed of multiple values of fewer bytes - for example, a parameter that stores two values for the last two runs, each with 2 bytes, would be 4 bytes long. Programs that interpret S.M.A.R.T. are often unaware of this, and show this parameter as one number rather than two, which sometimes leads to confusion and excitement for the disk owner. For example, "Raw Read Error Rate", storing the penultimate value "1" and the last value "0", will look like 65536.

It should be noted that not all programs can correctly display such attributes. Many just translate an attribute with several values into the decimal number system as one huge number. It is correct to display such content - either with a breakdown by values (then the attribute will consist of several separate numbers), or in hexadecimal number system (then the attribute will look like a single number, but its components will be easily distinguishable at a glance), or both , and another at the same time. Examples of good programs are HDDScan, CrystalDiskInfo, hard drive Sentinel.

Let's demonstrate the differences in practice. This is what the instantaneous value of attribute 01 looks like on one of my Hitachi HDS721010CLA332 in Victoria 4.46b, which does not take into account the feature of this attribute:

And this is how it looks in the “correct” HDDScan 3.3:

The advantages of HDDScan in this context are obvious, aren't they?

If we analyze S.M.A.R.T. on different disks, you may notice that the same attributes may behave differently. For example, some S.M.A.R.T. Hitachi hard drives are reset to zero after a certain period of disk inactivity; parameter 01 has features on Hitachi, Seagate, Samsung and Fujitsu drives, 03 on Fujitsu. It is also known that after flashing a disk, some parameters may be set to 0 (for example, 199). However, such a forced reset of the attribute will by no means indicate that the problems with the disk have been resolved (if any). After all, a growing critical attribute is consequence trouble, not cause.

When analyzing multiple datasets, S.M.A.R.T. it becomes obvious that the set of attributes for disks different manufacturers and even different models same manufacturer may vary. This is due to the so-called vendor-specific attributes (i.e. attributes used by a certain manufacturer to monitor their drives) and should not be cause for concern. If the monitoring software can read such attributes (for example, Victoria 4.46b), then on disks for which they are not intended, they can have "terrible" (huge) values, and they simply do not need to be paid attention to. This is how, for example, Victoria 4.46b displays the RAW values of attributes that are not intended for monitoring in Hitachi HDS721010CLA332:

Often there is a problem when programs cannot read S.M.A.R.T. disk. In the case of a working hard drive, this can be caused by several factors. For example, S.M.A.R.T. is not displayed very often. when connecting a drive in AHCI mode. In such cases, it is worth trying different programs, in particular HDD Scan, which has the ability to work in this mode, although it does not always succeed, or it is worth temporarily switching the disk to IDE compatibility mode, if possible. Further, on many motherboards, the controllers to which the hard drives are connected are not built into the chipset or the south bridge, but are implemented by separate microcircuits. In this case, the DOS version of Victoria, for example, will not see the hard disk connected to the controller, and it will need to force it by pressing the [P] key and entering the channel number with the disk. Often not read S.M.A.R.T. from USB drives, which is explained by the fact that the USB controller simply does not skip commands for reading S.M.A.R.T. Almost never read S.M.A.R.T. for disks operating as part of a RAID array. Here, too, it makes sense to try different programs, but in the case of hardware RAID controllers, this is useless.

If, after purchasing and installing a new hard drive, any programs (HDD Life, Hard Drive Inspector, etc.) show that: the disk has 2 hours left to live; its productivity is 27%; health - 19.155% (choose to taste) - then you should not panic. Understand the following. First, you need to look at the S.M.A.R.T. indicators, and not at the numbers of health and productivity that come from nowhere (however, the principle of their calculation is clear: the worst indicator is taken). Secondly, any program when evaluating S.M.A.R.T. looks at the deviation of the values of various attributes from previous readings. At the first launch of a new disk, the parameters are unstable, it takes some time to stabilize them. The program that evaluates S.M.A.R.T. sees that the attributes are changing, makes calculations, it turns out that if they change at such a pace, the drive will soon fail, and it starts signaling: “Save the data!” Some time will pass (up to a couple of months), the attributes will stabilize (if everything is really in order with the disk), the utility will collect data for statistics, and the timing of the death of the disk as S.M.A.R.T stabilizes. will be carried farther and farther into the future. Evaluation of Seagate and Samsung disks by programs is a separate conversation altogether. Due to the peculiarities of attributes 1, 7, 195, even for an absolutely healthy disk, programs usually give the conclusion that it is wrapped in a sheet and crawling to the cemetery.

Note that the following situation is possible: all S.M.A.R.T. - normal, but in fact the disk is with problems, although this is not noticeable for anything yet. This is explained by the fact that S.M.A.R.T. works only “after the fact”, i.e. attributes change only when the disk encounters problem areas during operation. And until he stumbled upon them, he does not know about them and, therefore, in S.M.A.R.T. he has nothing to record.

So S.M.A.R.T. is a useful technology, but it must be used wisely. Besides, even if S.M.A.R.T. your disk is perfect, and you are constantly checking the disk - do not rely on the fact that your disk will "live" for many more years. Winchesters tend to break down so quickly that S.M.A.R.T. it simply does not have time to display its changed state, and it also happens that there are obvious problems with the disk, but in S.M.A.R.T. - everything is fine. We can say that a good S.M.A.R.T. does not guarantee that everything is fine with the drive, but bad S.M.A.R.T. guaranteed to indicate problems. At the same time, even with a bad S.M.A.R.T. Utilities may indicate that the disk is "healthy" because critical attributes have not reached thresholds. Therefore, it is very important to analyze S.M.A.R.T. himself, without relying on the "verbal" evaluation of programs.

Although S.M.A.R.T. and works, hard drives and the concept of "reliability" are so incompatible that it is customary to consider them simply consumable. Well, like ink cartridges in a printer. Therefore, in order to avoid losing valuable data, make them periodically backup to another medium (for example, another hard drive). It is optimal to make two backup copies on two different media, not counting the hard drive with the original data. Yes, this leads to additional costs, but believe me: the cost of restoring information from a broken HDD will cost you many times - if not an order of magnitude or two - more. But the data is not always able to recover even professionals. That is, the only way to ensure reliable storage of your data is to backup them.

Finally, I will mention some programs that are well suited for the analysis of S.M.A.R.T. and testing hard drives: HDDScan (Windows, DOS, free), MHDD (DOS, free).

The latest drives are represented by intelligent devices that can analyze their condition and inform the user in a timely manner about problems. To do this, the hardware includes the original S.M.A.R.T.

Purpose of SMART technology.

The lion's share of disk drives in recent years, operates using S.M.A.R.T. The combination is deciphered as self-monitoring, analysis and reporting technology , which in Russian sounds like a mechanism for self-control, analysis and reporting. Its first developments saw the light in 1995 and since then the technology has been constantly improved.

From the moment of manufacture, the disk drive begins to read its current state, determining it using special parameters or attributes. They are located, access to which only the built-in program has. You can view the parameters with separate software, most often represented by utilities from the developers of a particular hard drive. Through them, inputs are fed into the drive, after which information about the current state of the drive will appear in the statistics log.

During the operation of the drive, the data presented within the parameters of the value is constantly changing. The parameters go from the maximum values, which guarantee high performance and efficiency, to the minimum values, associated with a high probability of drive failure.

All attributes presented within the S.M.A.R.T technology have a digital identifier. As a rule, it is common for drives of various versions, however, there are exceptions. In this regard, the number 7 stands out, demonstrating errors in the placement of heads on the disk surface. For digital ID is irrelevant. Unlike 7, the number 9, which shows the total period of direct operation of the drive over the period of use, it is supported by all types of HDD and SSD disks.

The parameter structure is represented by several fields that show the state of the disk and its partitions in a specific period. Utilities intended for reading information display the following parameters on the screen:

ID - identification number
name - attribute name
VAL - its current state
Wrst - the worst indicator for the period of operation
Thresh - the minimum threshold for performance

S.M.A.R.T indicators

There are some of the most common options. They, with rare exceptions, combine drives from most manufacturers, so:

Raw Read Error Rate - an indicator of the number of read errors
Throughput Performance - operational efficiency. A decrease indicates the need for replacement.
Spin Up Time - the period of deployment of the drive to the working state. An increase in the parameter demonstrates wear and tear or lack of nutrition
Start/Stop Count - an indicator of the number of moments of disk deployment, which is initially limited by its mechanical structure
Reallocated Sectors Count - attribute reflects the number of spare sectors. Information is redirected there in case of problems. Ideally, the number of such actions should be 0
Read Channel Margin - channel reserve. Nowadays, drives do without it
Seek Error Rate - Reflection of the mechanical condition of the drive, among other things, demonstrates excessive vibration and overheating
Seek Time Performance - the level of operational capabilities, relevant only for HDD drives
Power-on Time - a forecast of the duration of the operation of the drive based on the period of operation. The maximum values are 100 and decrease to 0 over time
Spin-Up Retry Count - the number of duplicate launch operations. Their increase indicates errors in the mechanical structure.

These and other attributes with a red background indicate that the drive is in critical condition, which suggests an imminent failure. There is no specific standard that combines parameter indicators from various manufacturers. In each case, normal values are individual, reflected in the form of a background or status, where

Good - a good indicator
Bad is a bad indicator.

Along with the attributes already mentioned, attention should be paid to such parameters as:

Recalibration Retries - number of takes during recalibration. Their increase indicates a malfunction of the mechanics.
End-to-End error - Disadvantages of exchange operations
Reported UNC Errors - problems that are fixed using hardware
G-sense error rate - the number of mechanical impacts on the disk. Fixes sloppy installation, collisions
Reallocation Event Count is a general indicator of information redirection operations. Records successful and unsuccessful transactions
Current Pending Sector Count - the number of potential drive sections to be replaced
Uncorrectable Sector Count - the number of bad sectors that cannot be recovered
UltraDMA CRC Error Count - Data redirection problems between drive and PC

S.M.A.R.T check

S.M.A.R.T parameters are checked using special utilities from manufacturers hard drives. There are also universal programs for testing and checking discs. Among them, udisks, smartctl, hddscan, CrystalDiskInfo, Victoria stand out, using which the user will be able to evaluate hard state disk. In some cases, namely when working with RAID controllers, it is almost impossible to get disk attributes.

The minimum level of diagnostics is supported at the BIOS level. If the S.M.A.R.T. diagnostic mode is enabled, then if there are critical attribute values, the BIOS will not allow the operating system to boot.

So, when testing the state of the hard disk, first of all, attention is paid to the specified S.M.A.R.T parameters. The main purpose of the technology is to predict the failure of their hard drive. With a dangerous deviation from the norm, it makes sense to transfer important information to other media.

And, most importantly, even if in S.MA.R.T. there are no errors and everything is fine, this is not a guarantee that the disk will not break, so .

Hello friends! One good man asked to see his hard drive. A disk with a capacity of 500 GB, Seagate, it is a pity to throw out such a pity. The system began to slow down terribly. Later, Windows stopped loading normally from it, the startup was long, automatic recovery at boot did not give any results. There were even knocks. They feel good if you put your palm (very powerful tool to analyze everything and everyone 🙂 🙂 🙂).

Check disk Windows tools no longer - the system does not start. If possible, a friend asked to save the data and save the drive. Today I will share my experience on this topic. Today you will learn:

How to check the SMART of a hard drive using Victoria

Usually, the most objective information about the condition can be obtained without testing the surface - it is enough to get data from the S.M.A.R.T system of the hard drive. Based on these data, you can immediately tell whether it makes sense to start correcting surface errors or not. And also evaluate the general condition of the device, how much it can still work.

In order to test the disk, it was decided to connect it to the computer via an additional cable to one of the slots on the motherboard. We restart the computer and run the Victoria 4.47 program for Windows as Administrator, analyze the S.M.A.R.T

Since 1995, computer hard drives have been produced with a built-in state self-monitoring system (SMART). After the first turn on, the drive in its microcircuits accumulates information about the number of hours worked, accumulated errors, temperature conditions, the speed at which the pancake rotates, the number of bad sectors, read errors / records. Modern hard drives are even equipped with their own accelerometer - to accumulate information about shocks, sharp shocks. This information is presented in the form of a small table, on which we see in graphical representation the general state of our disk. The first thing to do when diagnosing is to check S.M.A.R.T.. Let's run the program:

In order to assess the general condition of the disk, you must first select desired disk from the list on the left (the disk number is usually on the case, I have the desired disk SN5VM3HMX9). Run the program and go to the SMART tab:

Click on the button to get the data. GET SMART(get smart):

Pay attention to the column health(health), per column Name(attribute name). By tradition, the program developer marked the names of vital disk parameters in green font. Also, according to pseudographic scales, the general state in the column is visually assessed. health. Green is good, yellow is bad. Red is very bad. Scroll down below:

The program gave a good “smart” to this disk. But it's not. I would say that the program returned S.M.A.R.T, and this is already good, because in advanced cases it may not be read at all. SMART was read from this disk for 23 seconds - this is a very long time. Let's figure out why. First you need to understand what all these characteristics mean, especially those highlighted in green.

Parameter ID1 RaW read error rate . The frequency of errors when reading data from a disk, the origin of which is due to the disk hardware. For all Seagate and Samsung drives, this is the number of internal data corrections carried out before being output to the interface, therefore, one can react calmly to frighteningly huge numbers.
Parameter ID3 Spin Up Time. Time to spin up a pack of disks from rest to operating speed. It grows with the wear of the mechanics (increased friction in the bearing, etc.), and may also indicate poor-quality power (for example, a voltage drop when the disk starts).
Parameter ID4 Start/Stop Count - The total number of spindle start-stop cycles. Drives from some manufacturers (for example, Seagate) have a power-saving mode activation counter. The raw value field stores the total number of disk starts/stops.
Parameter ID 5 Reallocated Sectors Count - the most important parameter for us. The number of sector remapping operations. When a disk detects a read/write error, it marks the sector as "remapped" and transfers the data to a dedicated spare area. This is why bad blocks cannot be seen on modern hard drives - they are all hidden in remapped sectors. This process is called remapping, and the reassigned sector - remap. The higher the value, the worse the surface condition of the discs. Field raw value contains the total number of remapped sectors. An increase in the value of this attribute may indicate a deterioration in the state of the disk pancake surface.
Parameter ID 7 Seek Error Rate - Frequency of errors when positioning the block of magnetic heads. The more of them, the worse the condition of the mechanics and / or the surface of the hard drive. Also, the value of the parameter can be affected by overheating and external vibrations ( for example, from neighboring disks in the basket).
Parameter ID 9 Power On Hours (POH) . The number of hours (minutes, seconds - depending on the manufacturer) spent in the on state. As a threshold value for it, the passport time between failures (MTBF - mean time between failure) is selected.
Parameter ID 10 Pin — Up Retry Count . The number of retries to spin up disks to operating speed if the first attempt was unsuccessful. If the value of the attribute increases, then there is a high probability of problems with the mechanical part.

Parameter ID 12 Device Power Cycle Count . The number of complete disk on/off cycles.
Parameter ID 184 End-to-End error . This attribute is part of the HP SMART IV technology, which means that the data parity between the host and the hard disk does not match after the data buffer cache is passed through.
Parameter ID 187 Reported UNC Errors. Errors that could not be recovered using hardware error recovery methods.
Parameter ID 188 command timeout. Contains the number of operations that were canceled due to exceeding the maximum allowable response timeout. Such errors may occur due to poor quality cables, contacts, used adapters, extension cords, etc., incompatibility of the drive with a specific SATA / PATA controller on motherboard, etc. Due to errors of this kind, BSODs are possible in Windows.
A non-zero value of the attribute indicates a potential "disease" of the disk.
Parameter ID 189 High Fly Writes. Contains the number of recorded cases of recording at a head "flight" height higher than the calculated one, most likely due to external influences, such as vibration. In order to say why such cases occur, one must be able to analyze the S.M.A.R.T. logs, which contain information specific to each manufacturer;
Parameter ID 190Air temperature inside the hard drive case. For Seagate drives, it is calculated using the formula (100 - HDA temperature). For Western Digital discs - (125 - HDA).
Parameter ID 195 hardware ecc recovered. WITH Contains the number of errors that have been corrected by the drive's hardware ECC.

I noticed that after connecting this disk to the computer, the system began to boot for a long time, and work much more slowly. Typical symptoms for a "broken life" hard drive.

The health parameter is already “average”, there are a lot of errors, it worked for a long time;
The health parameter is “average”, there are few errors, the mechanics are not worn out;

Parameter

A large number of errors, health, critical. The magnetic heads may already be worn out, they do not work well;

The parameter is also at a critical level, there are many errors;

The parameter is at a critical level, there are many errors.

The surface of this disc does not contain much bad sectors, but something caused crashes. Maybe the mechanics of magnetic heads are slowly dying. Let's try to run tests and see how S.M.A.R.T changes. after testing We start scanning from under DOC, version 3.5.

How to cure a hard drive with Victoria version 3.5?

We have already said that today the most important parameter for us in S.M.A.R.T is the number of reassigned sectors. When the sector becomes bad (Bad blok) Victoria program finds this sector on the disk, calculates its coordinates and marks it as bad. This sector is no longer accessed - the system no longer sees it. And there are no brakes. And the relevant information is recorded in SMART. The operation of the program is based on this principle.

But the number of reserve addresses is not infinite, so at the moment when they are completely used up, the disk will no longer be cured - you will need to have time to copy important information from it while it is possible. In our case, the number of sectors has not yet been used up. After running the program looks like this:

First you need to select the disk that we will check. To do this, press the key on the keyboard P (English alphabet):

Our disk hangs on the third channel, respectively, we enter the number “ 3 » and press « Enter". After that, the program will understand which disk you have chosen, and it will be possible to work with it. At the bottom of the screen there is a list of commands. If you press F9 we will call the same S.M.AR.T.:

Some indicators differ from the previous ones, but the attribute ID7 looks the same. Graphic display health is also different, but you can figure it out - where there are few green squares, things are bad there. Go ahead. Since the SMART of this drive has told us that it is not reliable, use it to Windows installation I won't. And from this disk I already copied in advance necessary information so as not to lose it in the process. Let's try to cure the disk as much as possible. Press the F4 key, call the scan settings window:

The third line from the top is the scan mode. Linear reading is the fastest in terms of time. Scanning occurs sequentially - starting with the first sector and ending with the last. The choice of the mode is carried out by pressing the arrows "right" and "left" on the keyboard. The fourth line is the choice of the hard disk treatment method. In this case, I chose to erase information from damaged blocks from 256 sectors at once. Zeros will be written to these sectors and the sector will no longer be faulty.

Attention! In the program, all operations with bad blocks that lead to data loss are indicated in the menu in red. The data of these sectors will be irretrievably lost. This should be done if the data from the disk was copied in advance and it is required to assess the degree of damage to the blocks. Be careful!!

To start the test, click CTRL+ENTER:

The "treatment" lasted about an hour, most of the sectors could not be erased. The defects remain the same. If you have time, you can try to erase the disk completely by choosing a different scan mode:

This mode is similar low-level formatting. All information will be destroyed, bad sectors (which can be erased will also be erased). Some types of errors can be corrected. True, the process can take a long time. In some cases, this mode helped me restore disk health for a while. So to speak, the last resort.

If it does not freeze in the process, then most likely the disk can still work .. Anything has happened! 🙂 . This time I won't do it - too long. Let's try to make a remap - that's what this program is intended for. You need to select " Linear reading" and " advanced remap»

The program has two modes - classic and alternative ( advanced) . The classic is also used in operating systems, when scanning the surface. And we will use the "proprietary". Click Ctrl+Enter:

The whole process took no more than 15 minutes. However, sometimes the check needs to be re-run immediately. If the sectors are really reassigned, then the program will not find any more defects. Anything happens! :-). When the drive is erased, the scan is faster. The deed is done, I pressed " X" on the keyboard to exit the program. Then I connected the drive and booted through Windows. We need to see what has changed in SMART.

Can Victoria cure SMART?

This time the computer booted normally, without freezes. In the disk manager, our disk looks like it has not been initialized and not formatted (like from a store 🙂). Again we get the SMART of our disk:

This time SMART got it in 1 second. There is a difference, that's good. Let's analyze now our vital SMART attributes:

Parameter ID1 decreased from 241 million to 98 million parrots. It's not bad;
Parameter ID5 increased from 99 to 144. This is how it should be. We reassigned bad sectors;
Parameter ID7 has not changed, the program unfortunately does not treat magnetic heads. 😥 It remains to periodically check this attribute, or wait until Windows itself swears at bad SMART;
Parameter ID187 worsened, more errors accumulated in the course of treatment.

It is unlikely that such a disk can be actively used in the future, for example, to install Windows. It can be used by briefly plugging it in, maybe to store a bit of data on it. Although, who knows...

The Victoria program (as we saw today) in some cases is able to improve only some SMART attributes, while others worsen. But, not cure, because S.M.A.R.T. this is not a defect, but a means of monitoring the general condition of the hard drive. Victoria is unable to reset the counters. Yes, and you don't need it. But, you can restore performance and save data. That is why this good and desired program. That's all for today, bye!!

Name of the threat

Executable file name:

Threat type:

Affected OS:

Win32 (Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows Seven, Windows 8)

Smart HDD infection method

The Smart HDD copies its file(s) to your hard drive. Typical filename .exe. It then creates an autoload key in the registry with the name and value .exe. You can also find it in the list of processes named .exe or .

If you have additional questions regarding Smart HDD, please fill in and we will contact you shortly.

Download Removal Tool

Download this program and remove Smart HDD and .exe (download will start automatically):

* SpyHunter was developed by US company EnigmaSoftware and is able to remove Smart HDD-related issues in automatic mode. The program has been tested on Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7 and Windows 8.

Functions

The program is able to protect files and settings from malicious code.

The program can fix browser problems and protects browser settings.

Removal is guaranteed - if SpyHunter fails, free support is provided.

24/7 anti-virus support is included in the package.

Download Smart HDD Removal Tool from Russian company Security Stronghold

If you are not sure which files to delete, use our program Smart HDD Removal Tool.. Smart HDD Removal Tool will find and completely remove all problems related to Smart HDD virus. Fast, easy-to-use Smart HDD Removal Tool will protect your PC from Smart HDD threat that harms your computer and violates your privacy. Smart HDD Removal Tool scans your hard drives and registry and destroys any manifestation of Smart HDD. Ordinary anti-virus software is powerless against malicious programs such as Smart HDD. Download this simplified removal tool specially designed to solve problems with Smart HDD and .exe (download will start automatically):

Functions

Deletes all files created by Smart HDD.

Removes all registry entries created by Smart HDD.

The program can fix problems with the browser.

Immunizes the system.

Removal is guaranteed - if the Utility fails, free support is provided.

24/7 anti-virus support via the GoToAssist system is included in the package.

Our support team is ready to solve your problem with Smart HDD and remove Smart HDD right now!

leave detailed description your problem with Smart HDD in section . Our support team will contact you and provide you step by step solution problems with Smart HDD. Please describe your problem as precisely as possible. This will help us provide you with the most efficient Smart HDD removal method.

How to remove Smart HDD manually

This problem can be solved manually by deleting registry keys and files related to Smart HDD, removing it from startup list and de-registering all related DLL files. In addition, missing .dll files must be restored from the OS distribution if they were damaged.

To get rid of you need:

1. End the following processes and delete the corresponding files:

Warning: you need to delete only files whose checksums are in the list of malicious ones. Your system may have required files with the same names. We recommend using for a safe solution to the problem.

2. Delete the following folders:

3. Delete the following registry keys and/or values:

Warning: If registry key values are provided, you must remove only the specified values and leave the keys themselves intact. We recommend using for a safe solution to the problem.

4. Reset browser settings

Sometimes it can affect your browser settings, such as changing search and home page. We recommend that you use free feature"Reset browser settings" in "Tools" in the program to reset all browser settings at once. Please note that before this you need to delete all files, folders and registry keys belonging to the Smart HDD. To reset browser settings manually, use this instruction:

For Internet Explorer

If you are using Windows XP, click Start, and Open. Enter the following in the field Open without quotes and click Enter: "inetcpl.cpl".

If you are using Windows 7 or Windows Vista, click Start. Enter the following in the field Search without quotes and click Enter: "inetcpl.cpl".

Select tab Additionally

Under Reset Internet Explorer browser settings, click Reset. And press Reset again in the window that opens.

Select checkbox Delete personal settings to delete history, restore search and home page.

After Internet Explorer has finished resetting, click close in the dialog box.

Warning: Reset browser settings v Tools

For Google Chrome

Find a folder Google installations Chrome at: C:\Users\"username"\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\Application\User Data.

In the folder User Data, find the file Default and rename it to Default Backup.

Launch Google Chrome and it will be created new file Default.

Google Chrome settings reset

Warning: In case that doesn't work, use the free option. Reset browser settings v Tools in the Spyhunter Remediation Tool.

For Mozilla Firefox

Open Firefox

Select from the menu Help > Troubleshooting Information.

click button Reset Firefox.

After Firefox finishes, it will show a window and create a folder on the desktop. Click Complete.

Warning: This is how you lose your passwords! We recommend using the free option Reset browser settings v Tools in the Spyhunter Remediation Tool.