Is there hope for this drive?

Is there hope for this drive?

[Helge Hafting]

I recently got a couple of used IBM Ultrastar drives.
They worked at first, but one of them suddenly stopped responding to
read/write requests.

"scsiinfo -i /dev/sdc" still provides info about it, but
"scsiinfo -a /dev/sdc" provides no more information because every operation
except the basic inquiry fails:
"Unable to read Rigid Disk Geometry Page 04h" and so on.

Partitioning and low-level formatting with scsiformat is impossible.

I wonder if there is anything more I could try before throwing away the drive.
It is strange to be able to "contact" the drive but not use it.  It spins up
at boot as it should.  Any ideas?

Helge Hafting

Re: Is there hope for this drive?

[Matthias Andree]

Helge Hafting <helge.hafting@broadpark.no> writes:

> I recently got a couple of used IBM Ultrastar drives.
> They worked at first, but one of them suddenly stopped responding to
> read/write requests.
>
> "scsiinfo -i /dev/sdc" still provides info about it, but
> "scsiinfo -a /dev/sdc" provides no more information because every operation
> except the basic inquiry fails:
> "Unable to read Rigid Disk Geometry Page 04h" and so on.
>
> Partitioning and low-level formatting with scsiformat is impossible.

Some drives bootstrap (parts of) their firmware and settings from the
disk (and don't low-level format that area, for obvious reasons). 

You could still try schily's "sformat" but if that doesn't help either,
ditch the drive. I wouldn't use it for anything but /tmp or /var/cache
or perhaps as 3rd or 4th drive in a RAID1 (1:1 mirror).

HD Drives don't last eternally.

-- 
Matthias Andree

Encrypted mail welcome: my GnuPG key ID is 0x052E7D95 (PGP/MIME preferred)