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Libra
Premium Member
join:2003-08-06
USA

Libra

Premium Member

Re: System Event Error NTFS Id 134 - bad hard drive?


error scan

health scan - one warning
Here are my results. I have one warning in the health test.

Is my hard drive okay?

Sincerely, Libra

norwegian
Premium Member
join:2005-02-15
Outback

norwegian

Premium Member


It does look like that Reallocated count is high for a reasonable new HDD. 3 or 4 reallocated isn't a concern but 1846 suggests it would be worth looking at an RMA for the HDD.

Koitsu is the expert on reading these figures and may enlighten you to more info.
Libra
Premium Member
join:2003-08-06
USA

Libra

Premium Member

Thank you. I'll wait for Koitsu.

My warranty is ending about the first week of February.

Sincerely, Libra

koitsu
MVM
join:2002-07-16
Mountain View, CA
Humax BGW320-500

1 edit

koitsu to Libra

MVM

to Libra
This is interesting.

First off, Seagate tends to vendor-encode a lot of their attributes (see 0x01, 0x07, 0xBE, 0xC3, etc.), so reading them literally is always tricky. I'm not familiar with this exact model of Seagate disk, but I find it's behaviour questionable. I should, however, be fair: I have a lot more familiarity with the behaviour of WD drive firmwares; Seagate does things quite differently in a lot of regards, and I don't have as much experience with their drives.

Attribute 0xC4 is supposed to track the number of times any LBA remapping occurs (whether successful or failed). For successful remaps, 0x05 should be incremented. For unsuccessful remaps, I'm used to seeing 0xC6 increment as well.

So, basically, attribute 0xC4 by itself does not really shed light on what transpired with this drive regarding actual remaps. It may be that previously during the drive's lifetime there were numerous LBAs which were considered "suspect" and marked unreadable (which increments 0xC5), then upon later analysis determined them to be usable/fine (thus no remaps occurred, and therefore 0xC5 gets decremented). In the latter case, it's very possible the drive could be experiencing this issue repeatedly across the same set of LBAs.

HD Tune Pro does not have support for reading SMART GP logs (including the SMART error log) so I can't tell if anything is there; smartmontools can do this.

My guess is that the drive has marked, in the past, some LBAs as "suspect" and then upon further analysis determined that they were fine. When an LBA gets marked "suspect", it becomes unreadable (i.e. returns an I/O error to the controller, thus the OS). In certain situations this could cause complexities at the filesystem level. I can tell that the drive historically has had some complexities in reading data off the platters (attribute 0x01 shows that, but you have to go off of the normalised/adjusted values and not the literal), but that doesn't act as proof of my theory.

The drive also has a shock sensor installed in it, and I see that during its lifetime it's incremented 3 times (or possibly 2, as I've seen this attribute come out of the factory set to 1). This drive is 2.5" and installed in a laptop, which makes the likelihood of this sensor incrementing fairly high (placing the laptop on a desk firmly while the system is powered on, for example, can do it).

Has this laptop experienced any physical malevolence, such as being dropped, tilted to let fall flat on a surface (desk, etc.), or been shaken while powered on?

Have you taken the time to run CHKDSK /R C: (assuming the drive in question is used for the C: partition)? If not, please do so. When the system tells you to reboot, do it. During the reboot you'll see a blue screen where the drive is checked for errors, as well as read every LBA associated with the filesystem metadata. Note that /R implies /F, so issues should get repaired (hopefully).

If you've tried this already, then my general advice would be to replace the hard disk just as a precaution. Whoever the vendor of your laptop is, make it their problem -- they can do an RMA/replacement for you.
Libra
Premium Member
join:2003-08-06
USA

Libra

Premium Member

Thank you koitsu. The laptop has never been dropped. While running it has been moved about twice.

I think I have run chkdsk in the past through right click on computer properties>tools. I'll do it through a command prompt in a few minutes.

I don't know if this could have anything to do with the problem, but Microsoft was changing things regarding file permissions (giving permission to everyone) on files that have to do with root certificates and deleting a lot of files and I noticed this ntfs error at that point. When I spoke to a second level tech and asked him to fix it he said if I wasn't having a problem I shouldn't look at the error, it's only for techs to troubleshoot.

I'll let you know how the chkdsk goes. Thank you again.

Sincerely, Libra
Libra

Libra to koitsu

Premium Member

to koitsu
I went into admin account and opened an elevated command prompt and typed in CHKDSK /R C: . It asked if I wanted to schedule it next time it reboots, I typed in "y". Nothing happened so I exited and restarted the computer. It said Chkdsk will check volume C. Then it said "The Volume is Clean".

I didn't see it check anything and it took about 30 seconds.

Did I do something wrong? or is this good news?

Sincerely, Libra

koitsu
MVM
join:2002-07-16
Mountain View, CA
Humax BGW320-500

koitsu to Libra

MVM

to Libra
said by Libra:

I don't know if this could have anything to do with the problem, but Microsoft was changing things regarding file permissions (giving permission to everyone) on files that have to do with root certificates and deleting a lot of files and I noticed this ntfs error at that point. When I spoke to a second level tech and asked him to fix it he said if I wasn't having a problem I shouldn't look at the error, it's only for techs to troubleshoot.

If you've already engaged Microsoft support directly for this issue, why did you not bring these issues (NTFS errors) to their attention, especially if you think they may have caused it? If you're getting support from the OS vendor, you need to continue to drive that to full completion. No offence intended, but what you've now done is create multiple "support"-type situations -- you've got people on a forum struggling to figure out how to assist you, while you've got Microsoft also helping you (?!) at the same time. The likelihood of efforts being doubled or conflicting is very very high. This does not make me happy and makes me very unlikely to assist in the future.
said by Libra:

I went into admin account and opened an elevated command prompt and typed in CHKDSK /R C: . It asked if I wanted to schedule it next time it reboots, I typed in "y". Nothing happened so I exited and restarted the computer. It said Chkdsk will check volume C. Then it said "The Volume is Clean". I didn't see it check anything and it took about 30 seconds. Did I do something wrong? or is this good news?

You didn't do anything wrong. The filesystem insists it's in good condition. Please continue to drive these issues with Microsoft support exclusively. Thanks.
Libra
Premium Member
join:2003-08-06
USA

1 edit

Libra

Premium Member

I apologize. What happened with Microsoft is I called them to fix a problem. They charged me $99. A first level tech made those changes and said I needed a second level tech. I spoke with the second level tech the following day and he didn't fix the problem I called about and I did tell him and showed him the nfts error and asked him to fix it. He didn't fix it and said if I'm not experiencing any problems to ignore it. He said they look at the event viewer to diagnose problems. So he didn't do anything about this ntfs error although the prior tech caused it. They gave me a credit for the $99.

I did not initially contact Microsoft about the ntfs error. I asked them to fix it the next day and he didn't. Should I call them back to fix it now? (I went into the hospital a day or two after contacting Microsoft, I'm not really feeling that well, but maybe I'll call them.)
They're not really helping me and showed no interest in helping me.

I apologize again - I came to this forum after I read somewhere the ntfs warning could mean a failiing hard drive.

I ran the checkdisk again from tools (checking both items) and it went through 5 stages and said the volume is clean. I guess that means my drive is okay?

EDIT: I found I saw that ntfs warning when I rebooted the computer. The last time I saw it was 1/15 when I ran the HDtune test. So with reboots today I haven't seen the warning at all!

Sincerely, Libra