Maxtor drive errors fixed by low-level format???

[Rich Wales]

I recently started getting hard errors on an 80GB Maxtor drive.

After copying off my data from the drive (most of the data was,
thankfully, recoverable), I put the drive in a spare computer
and ran Maxtor's "PowerMax" utility on it.

PowerMax said the drive had failed and gave an error code
ending in "S57". My understanding, from other sources on the
net, is that a Maxtor "S57" error code means that the drive
can't map out a sector that has developed an error because it
has already used up all spare sectors. (Can anyone confirm
this, or set me straight if this is not correct?)

The drive's one-year warranty has expired, BTW -- I confirmed
this via Maxtor's web site -- so I had nothing to lose by
playing with the drive and trying to revive it if possible.

I ran PowerMax's "low-level format" on the drive. PowerMax
claimed that the low-level format was successful.

I then started running PowerMax's "burn-in test" on the drive.
It's been running for about the past two days now, with no
errors being reported.

My questions:

What, in fact, does the PowerMax low-level format do? Under
what circumstances can a low-level format cause "hard errors"
to go away?

Does the PowerMax low-level format cause a Maxtor drive to
re-evaluate whether sectors previously marked as bad (and
remapped to spares) are in fact recoverable? Does it make
sense for a low-level formatting utility to try to do this?

Is the PowerMax burn-in test really an adequate test of
whether a Maxtor drive is truly healthy -- especially if
the drive was previously reporting hard errors, but isn't
reporting hard errors any more following a low-level format?

Is there any way to find out how many sectors on a Maxtor
drive are currently being remapped to spares, and/or how
many spare sectors remain on the drive? (I imagine this
sort of info could provide advance warning that a drive may
be going bad, before it actually does experience hard errors.)

Rich Wales richw@richw.org http://www.richw.org

[Charles Howse]

Previously Rich Wales <richw@richw.org> wrote: I recently started getting hard errors on an 80GB Maxtor drive.
After copying off my data from the drive (most of the data was, thankfully, recoverable), I put the drive in a spare computer and ran Maxtor's "PowerMax" utility on it.
PowerMax said the drive had failed and gave an error code ending in "S57". My understanding, from other sources on the net, is that a Maxtor "S57" error code means that the drive can't map out a sector that has developed an error because it has already used up all spare sectors. (Can anyone confirm this, or set me straight if this is not correct?)
The drive's one-year warranty has expired, BTW -- I confirmed this via Maxtor's web site -- so I had nothing to lose by playing with the drive and trying to revive it if possible.
I ran PowerMax's "low-level format" on the drive. PowerMax claimed that the low-level format was successful.
I then started running PowerMax's "burn-in test" on the drive. It's been running for about the past two days now, with no errors being reported.
My questions:
What, in fact, does the PowerMax low-level format do? Under what circumstances can a low-level format cause "hard errors" to go away?

It either writes the sectors or does some vendor specific
operation. In both cases the drive will remember the sectors
had problems and do the write to a spare sector which is
henceforth used instead of the defect sector. I have ''removed''
defective sectors by just overwriting a whole drive (Maxtor
RMA'd it anyways, because I got "drive defect" from power-
max before. The blanking was the last thing I did before
sending the drive to Maxtor, afterwards the errors were seemingly
gone.)
Does the PowerMax low-level format cause a Maxtor drive to re-evaluate whether sectors previously marked as bad (and remapped to spares) are in fact recoverable? Does it make sense for a low-level formatting utility to try to do this?

Depends. If it was, e.g., mechanical shock that caused a
mis-write, just doing a direct overwrite would cure the
problem. I think that the type of error is taken into account.
Is the PowerMax burn-in test really an adequate test of whether a Maxtor drive is truly healthy -- especially if the drive was previously reporting hard errors, but isn't reporting hard errors any more following a low-level format?

From my experience, no. Maxtor just does repeated long SMART
self-tests. Personally I find the SMART thresholds on Maxtor
drives rather optimistic. I had one drive with several
hundred defective sectors, that had <1MB/s effective remaining
read speed and a SMART status of "good", even after a long
self-test.
Is there any way to find out how many sectors on a Maxtor drive are currently being remapped to spares, and/or how many spare sectors remain on the drive? (I imagine this sort of info could provide advance warning that a drive may be going bad, before it actually does experience hard errors.)

I found the "reallocated sector count" to be a good indicator of
problems. You can read it with any good SMART utility, e.g.
the smartmontools (free, commandline). If it starts to increase,
there is something wrong. If it is stable, then the drive is o.k..
If it is, say, >50 I would also get suspicous.

Arno

[scott]

IDE drives have a defect list (WD calls it a GROWN list). These are
mapped by the low level format program, and are invisible to the
operating system. So you could have a drive with 5% bad sectors, but
after a low level format it would report 0 errors. The bad areas are
not visible to the OS.

richw@richw.org (Rich Wales) wrote:
I recently started getting hard errors on an 80GB Maxtor drive.After copying off my data from the drive (most of the data was,thankfully, recoverable), I put the drive in a spare computerand ran Maxtor's "PowerMax" utility on it.PowerMax said the drive had failed and gave an error codeending in "S57". My understanding, from other sources on thenet, is that a Maxtor "S57" error code means that the drivecan't map out a sector that has developed an error because ithas already used up all spare sectors. (Can anyone confirmthis, or set me straight if this is not correct?)The drive's one-year warranty has expired, BTW -- I confirmedthis via Maxtor's web site -- so I had nothing to lose byplaying with the drive and trying to revive it if possible.I ran PowerMax's "low-level format" on the drive. PowerMaxclaimed that the low-level format was successful.I then started running PowerMax's "burn-in test" on the drive.It's been running for about the past two days now, with noerrors being reported.My questions:What, in fact, does the PowerMax low-level format do? Underwhat circumstances can a low-level format cause "hard errors"to go away?Does the PowerMax low-level format cause a Maxtor drive tore-evaluate whether sectors previously marked as bad (andremapped to spares) are in fact recoverable? Does it makesense for a low-level formatting utility to try to do this?Is the PowerMax burn-in test really an adequate test ofwhether a Maxtor drive is truly healthy -- especially ifthe drive was previously reporting hard errors, but isn'treporting hard errors any more following a low-level format?Is there any way to find out how many sectors on a Maxtordrive are currently being remapped to spares, and/or howmany spare sectors remain on the drive? (I imagine thissort of info could provide advance warning that a drive maybe going bad, before it actually does experience hard errors.)Rich Wales richw@richw.org http://www.richw.org