250GB Seagate 5400.4 Hard Drive Review

Has anybody sent any data?

 

I would...but Asus does not give me back my laptop...I noticed the parking issue on Vista so...I want to send the info...

 

Nope, nothing good or bad.

 

My average head parks per hour has gone down to 6.3 and it keeps on dropping...

 

Here is a log from a failing smart drive. I have zeroed out the drive twice and I still get occasional repeatitive head parking. I believe this is what caused this drive to fail since it started doing it ever since the OS was upgraded from NT4 to a more modern OS. It does the excessive head parking in Linux too. There may be a firmware issue here with overly aggessive monitoring of these drives because I have consulted with some people who have experienced similar problems which they resolved by changing some S.M.A.R.T. parameters. At least one person I know did this two years ago and the drive is still performing without errors. I believe the two values in question were the tolerance and spin down rate or something like that. I was also told that tCal type functions will also prompt these kind of parking problems. Any help here on what to do with mine would be appreciated.



C:\Program Files\smartmontools\bin>smartctl.exe -a /dev/hda
smartctl version 5.38 [i686-mingw32-2003-sp2] Copyright (C) 2002-8 Bruce Allen


=== START OF INFORMATION SECTION ===
Model Family: Western Digital Caviar family
Device Model: WDC WD300BB-32AUA1
Serial Number: WD-WMA6W2030490
Firmware Version: 18.20D18
User Capacity: 30,020,272,128 bytes
Device is: In smartctl database [for details use: -P show]
ATA Version is: 5
ATA Standard is: Exact ATA specification draft version not indicated
Local Time is: Tue Nov 25 16:36:44 2008 EST
SMART support is: Available - device has SMART capability.
Enabled status cached by OS, trying SMART RETURN STATUS cmd.
SMART support is: Enabled

=== START OF READ SMART DATA SECTION ===
SMART overall-health self-assessment test result: PASSED
See vendor-specific Attribute list for marginal Attributes.

General SMART Values:
Offline data collection status: (0x02) Offline data collection activity
was completed without error.
Auto Offline Data Collection: Disabled.
Self-test execution status: ( 0) The previous self-test routine completed

without error or no self-test has ever
been run.
Total time to complete Offline
data collection: (1530) seconds.
Offline data collection
capabilities: (0x1b) SMART execute Offline immediate.
Auto Offline data collection on/off supp
ort.
Suspend Offline collection upon new
command.
Offline surface scan supported.
Self-test supported.
No Conveyance Self-test supported.
No Selective Self-test supported.
SMART capabilities: (0x0003) Saves SMART data before entering
power-saving mode.
Supports SMART auto save timer.
Error logging capability: (0x01) Error logging supported.
No General Purpose Logging support.
Short self-test routine
recommended polling time: ( 2) minutes.
Extended self-test routine
recommended polling time: ( 24) minutes.

SMART Attributes Data Structure revision number: 16
Vendor Specific SMART Attributes with Thresholds:
ID# ATTRIBUTE_NAME FLAG VALUE WORST THRESH TYPE UPDATED WHEN_
FAILED RAW_VALUE
1 Raw_Read_Error_Rate 0x000b 200 001 051 Pre-fail Always In_th
e_past 0
3 Spin_Up_Time 0x0007 124 101 021 Pre-fail Always -
2633
4 Start_Stop_Count 0x0032 093 093 040 Old_age Always -
7987
5 Reallocated_Sector_Ct 0x0032 153 153 112 Old_age Always -
186
7 Seek_Error_Rate 0x000b 199 189 051 Pre-fail Always -
7
9 Power_On_Hours 0x0032 073 073 000 Old_age Always -
20139
10 Spin_Retry_Count 0x0013 100 098 051 Pre-fail Always -
2
11 Calibration_Retry_Count 0x0013 100 100 051 Pre-fail Always -
0
12 Power_Cycle_Count 0x0032 097 097 000 Old_age Always -
3475
196 Reallocated_Event_Count 0x0032 128 128 000 Old_age Always -
72
197 Current_Pending_Sector 0x0012 200 181 000 Old_age Always -
0
198 Offline_Uncorrectable 0x0012 200 198 000 Old_age Always -
0
199 UDMA_CRC_Error_Count 0x000a 200 200 000 Old_age Always -
496
200 Multi_Zone_Error_Rate 0x0009 200 001 051 Pre-fail Offline In_th
e_past 0

SMART Error Log Version: 1
ATA Error Count: 75 (device log contains only the most recent five errors)
CR = Command Register [HEX]
FR = Features Register [HEX]
SC = Sector Count Register [HEX]
SN = Sector Number Register [HEX]
CL = Cylinder Low Register [HEX]
CH = Cylinder High Register [HEX]
DH = Device/Head Register [HEX]
DC = Device Command Register [HEX]
ER = Error register [HEX]
ST = Status register [HEX]
Powered_Up_Time is measured from power on, and printed as
DDd+hh:mm:SS.sss where DD=days, hh=hours, mm=minutes,
SS=sec, and sss=millisec. It "wraps" after 49.710 days.

Error 75 occurred at disk power-on lifetime: 427 hours (17 days + 19 hours)
When the command that caused the error occurred, the device was active or idle
.

After command completion occurred, registers were:
ER ST SC SN CL CH DH
-- -- -- -- -- -- --
40 51 9b 75 8d 24 e0 Error: UNC at LBA = 0x00248d75 = 2395509

Commands leading to the command that caused the error were:
CR FR SC SN CL CH DH DC Powered_Up_Time Command/Feature_Name
-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- ---------------- --------------------
20 00 9b 07 8d 24 e0 00 18:06:12.450 READ SECTOR(S)
30 00 08 a7 83 19 e0 00 18:06:12.450 WRITE SECTOR(S)
30 00 08 1f 42 18 e0 00 18:06:12.450 WRITE SECTOR(S)
20 00 00 07 8c 24 e0 00 18:06:08.000 READ SECTOR(S)
20 00 08 4f d5 60 e0 00 18:06:08.000 READ SECTOR(S)

Error 74 occurred at disk power-on lifetime: 427 hours (17 days + 19 hours)
When the command that caused the error occurred, the device was active or idle
.

After command completion occurred, registers were:
ER ST SC SN CL CH DH
-- -- -- -- -- -- --
40 51 48 32 c0 50 e0 Error: UNC at LBA = 0x0050c032 = 5292082

Commands leading to the command that caused the error were:
CR FR SC SN CL CH DH DC Powered_Up_Time Command/Feature_Name
-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- ---------------- --------------------
20 00 48 2f c0 50 e0 00 18:02:37.150 READ SECTOR(S)
30 00 80 af 43 5e e0 00 18:02:37.150 WRITE SECTOR(S)
c6 00 00 32 c0 50 a0 08 18:02:37.150 SET MULTIPLE MODE
20 00 48 2f c0 50 e0 00 18:02:33.000 READ SECTOR(S)
20 00 50 c7 c0 50 e0 00 18:02:33.000 READ SECTOR(S)

Error 73 occurred at disk power-on lifetime: 427 hours (17 days + 19 hours)
When the command that caused the error occurred, the device was active or idle
.

After command completion occurred, registers were:
ER ST SC SN CL CH DH
-- -- -- -- -- -- --
40 51 48 32 c0 50 e0 Error: UNC at LBA = 0x0050c032 = 5292082

Commands leading to the command that caused the error were:
CR FR SC SN CL CH DH DC Powered_Up_Time Command/Feature_Name
-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- ---------------- --------------------
20 00 48 2f c0 50 e0 00 18:02:33.000 READ SECTOR(S)
20 00 50 c7 c0 50 e0 00 18:02:33.000 READ SECTOR(S)
30 00 78 17 07 61 e0 00 18:02:33.000 WRITE SECTOR(S)
30 00 18 f7 06 61 e0 00 18:02:33.000 WRITE SECTOR(S)
20 00 50 17 c1 50 e0 00 18:02:33.000 READ SECTOR(S)

Error 72 occurred at disk power-on lifetime: 427 hours (17 days + 19 hours)
When the command that caused the error occurred, the device was active or idle
.

After command completion occurred, registers were:
ER ST SC SN CL CH DH
-- -- -- -- -- -- --
40 51 2d a3 c6 02 e0 Error: UNC at LBA = 0x0002c6a3 = 181923

Commands leading to the command that caused the error were:
CR FR SC SN CL CH DH DC Powered_Up_Time Command/Feature_Name
-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- ---------------- --------------------
20 00 2d 97 c6 02 e0 00 17:59:23.300 READ SECTOR(S)
20 00 0f af 60 17 e0 00 17:59:23.250 READ SECTOR(S)
20 00 34 77 17 2a e0 00 17:59:23.200 READ SECTOR(S)
20 00 0e 07 ac 04 e0 00 17:59:23.200 READ SECTOR(S)
20 00 11 b7 85 01 e0 00 17:59:23.200 READ SECTOR(S)

Error 71 occurred at disk power-on lifetime: 426 hours (17 days + 18 hours)
When the command that caused the error occurred, the device was active or idle
.

After command completion occurred, registers were:
ER ST SC SN CL CH DH
-- -- -- -- -- -- --
40 51 03 57 c6 22 e0 Error: UNC at LBA = 0x0022c657 = 2278999

Commands leading to the command that caused the error were:
CR FR SC SN CL CH DH DC Powered_Up_Time Command/Feature_Name
-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- ---------------- --------------------
20 00 03 57 c6 22 e0 00 17:30:37.900 READ SECTOR(S)
20 00 03 97 e9 0d e0 00 17:30:37.850 READ SECTOR(S)
20 00 08 f7 c3 0c e0 00 17:30:37.850 READ SECTOR(S)
20 00 08 ef c3 0c e0 00 17:30:37.850 READ SECTOR(S)
20 00 04 b7 df 03 e0 00 17:30:37.800 READ SECTOR(S)

SMART Self-test log structure revision number 1
Num Test_Description Status Remaining LifeTime(hours) LBA
_of_first_error
# 1 Short offline Completed without error 00% 448 -
# 2 Extended offline Completed without error 00% 439 -
# 3 Short offline Completed without error 00% 948 -
# 4 Short captive Completed without error 00% 223 -
# 5 Short offline Completed without error 00% 780 -
# 6 Short captive Completed without error 00% 780 -
# 7 Short captive Completed without error 00% 779 -
# 8 Short offline Completed without error 00% 723 -

Device does not support Selective Self Tests/Logging

C:\Program Files\smartmontools\bin>

 

I would just like to point out that the recent ASUS F8Va-B1 model also has this HDD. I purchased this notebook a few weeks ago and had it returned because of the execessive head parking noise and other issues. At first I did not know what was causing the ding sound (audio clip). It was not until I discovered the exact same problem on my new replacement that I did more research and confirmed it as the HDD parking its heads.

People who have reviewed and commented on the F8Va model did not even comment on this HDD model. Had I known earlier about this HDD's issue I would have held back in buying that notebook.

So in conclusion, should I bother requesting a notebook replacement (not just b/c of HDD issue but also other issues regarding the motherboard as well) from the dealer, or should I get ASUS to exchange the HDD with another model? This is my first laptop so if the HDD does fail on me, I would be potentially losing alot of important data.