How can I check that my Hard disk is not faulty ?

Usjes

New member
Hi,
I have been experiencing regular crashes which lock up my laptop since 2016. When it happens the LED indicating hard-disk access starts to click ever more rapidly until it ultimately ends up lit permanently and then the laptop becomes un-responsive to keystrokes and mouse clicks and the only remedy is to pull the power cable and power cycle the laptop. I'm running Ubuntu and every time it happens I can see that the Cpu usage spikes to ~100% but that specifically it is waiting for disk access. eg From the top command:
%Cpu(s): 0.3 us, 0.9 sy, 0.0 ni, 0.2 id, 98.6 wa, 0.0 hi, 0.1 si, 0.0 st
It will stay like this indefinitely (well at least for 10hours) unless I unplug the power cable.
It has been suggested that a faulty hard-disk may be the culprit and I'm trying to figure out how to I confirm this or rule it out. When I run the Linux 'Disks' utility the 'Assessment' field reports:
Disk is OK, 6 bad sectors (38° C / 100° F)
Its a 250Gb disk so I'm assuming 100's of millions of sectors, so I guess 6 bad ones is okay and shouldn't cause any noticeable problems and that is why it reports 'Disk is OK' ? Or might these 6 bad sectors be the cause of the problem ?
I have also run the smartctl command and I have pasted the full output below. I'm not sure how to interpret this though. Again it looks like the overall summary is that the disk is fine: SMART overall-health self-assessment test result: PASSED. Despite some error messages showing in the log.
So, can anyone tell me is there any definitive way of assessing whether or not this disk is still usable. If the disk really is on its last legs and that is the source of my crashes is it really plausible that it has been limping along without failing completely for ~8years.
For reference the machine itself is an old Dell Lattitude E6410 with 4GB of RAM and I'm running Ubuntu 18.04 LTS. It has been crashing like this persistently for years at the rate of about once every couple of days.

Anyone able to definitively state whether or not the disk is ok or suggest a method to determine this ?
Thanks,
Usjes.


sudo smartctl /dev/sda -a
smartctl 7.1 2019-12-30 r5022 [x86_64-linux-5.4.0-136-generic] (local build)
Copyright (C) 2002-19, Bruce Allen, Christian Franke, www.smartmontools.org

=== START OF INFORMATION SECTION ===
Model Family: Seagate Momentus 7200.4
Device Model: ST9250410AS
Serial Number: 5VG7WJ8R
LU WWN Device Id: 5 000c50 02a94928f
Firmware Version: D005SDM1
User Capacity: 250,059,350,016 bytes [250 GB]
Sector Size: 512 bytes logical/physical
Rotation Rate: 7200 rpm
Device is: In smartctl database [for details use: -P show]
ATA Version is: ATA8-ACS T13/1699-D revision 4
SATA Version is: SATA 2.6, 3.0 Gb/s
Local Time is: Sat Jan 14 15:26:43 2023 GMT
SMART support is: Available - device has SMART capability.
SMART support is: Enabled

=== START OF READ SMART DATA SECTION ===
SMART overall-health self-assessment test result: PASSED

General SMART Values:
Offline data collection status: (0x82) Offline data collection activity
was completed without error.
Auto Offline Data Collection: Enabled.
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: ( 0) seconds.
Offline data collection
capabilities: (0x7b) SMART execute Offline immediate.
Auto Offline data collection on/off support.
Suspend Offline collection upon new
command.
Offline surface scan supported.
Self-test supported.
Conveyance Self-test supported.
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.
General Purpose Logging supported.
Short self-test routine
recommended polling time: ( 2) minutes.
Extended self-test routine
recommended polling time: ( 53) minutes.
Conveyance self-test routine
recommended polling time: ( 3) minutes.
SCT capabilities: (0x103f) SCT Status supported.
SCT Error Recovery Control supported.
SCT Feature Control supported.
SCT Data Table supported.

SMART Attributes Data Structure revision number: 10
Vendor Specific SMART Attributes with Thresholds:
ID# ATTRIBUTE_NAME FLAG VALUE WORST THRESH TYPE UPDATED WHEN_FAILED RAW_VALUE
1 Raw_Read_Error_Rate 0x000f 117 087 006 Pre-fail Always - 139074299
3 Spin_Up_Time 0x0003 100 099 085 Pre-fail Always - 0
4 Start_Stop_Count 0x0032 096 096 020 Old_age Always - 4236
5 Reallocated_Sector_Ct 0x0033 100 100 036 Pre-fail Always - 0
7 Seek_Error_Rate 0x000f 083 060 030 Pre-fail Always - 13564005736
9 Power_On_Hours 0x0032 082 055 000 Old_age Always - 16067
10 Spin_Retry_Count 0x0013 100 100 097 Pre-fail Always - 0
12 Power_Cycle_Count 0x0032 097 037 020 Old_age Always - 3971
184 End-to-End_Error 0x0032 100 100 099 Old_age Always - 0
187 Reported_Uncorrect 0x0032 001 001 000 Old_age Always - 6824
188 Command_Timeout 0x0032 100 098 000 Old_age Always - 131138
189 High_Fly_Writes 0x003a 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 0
190 Airflow_Temperature_Cel 0x0022 062 053 045 Old_age Always - 38 (Min/Max 21/39)
191 G-Sense_Error_Rate 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 216
192 Power-Off_Retract_Count 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 544
193 Load_Cycle_Count 0x0032 001 001 000 Old_age Always - 560869
194 Temperature_Celsius 0x0022 038 047 000 Old_age Always - 38 (0 12 0 0 0)
195 Hardware_ECC_Recovered 0x001a 048 030 000 Old_age Always - 139074299
197 Current_Pending_Sector 0x0012 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 0
198 Offline_Uncorrectable 0x0010 100 100 000 Old_age Offline - 0
199 UDMA_CRC_Error_Count 0x003e 200 200 000 Old_age Always - 0
240 Head_Flying_Hours 0x0000 100 253 000 Old_age Offline - 54980 (19 253 0)
241 Total_LBAs_Written 0x0000 100 253 000 Old_age Offline - 3783033231
242 Total_LBAs_Read 0x0000 100 253 000 Old_age Offline - 2793996618
254 Free_Fall_Sensor 0x0032 001 001 000 Old_age Always - 93

SMART Error Log Version: 1
ATA Error Count: 4855 (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 4855 occurred at disk power-on lifetime: 12198 hours (508 days + 6 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 00 f9 4a 06 00 Error: UNC at LBA = 0x00064af9 = 412409

Commands leading to the command that caused the error were:
CR FR SC SN CL CH DH DC Powered_Up_Time Command/Feature_Name
-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- ---------------- --------------------
60 00 20 20 ad 0b 49 00 00:20:36.620 READ FPDMA QUEUED
61 00 08 68 76 0b 49 00 00:20:36.619 WRITE FPDMA QUEUED
61 00 08 b0 85 0a 49 00 00:20:36.618 WRITE FPDMA QUEUED
61 00 08 f8 6a 0a 49 00 00:20:36.615 WRITE FPDMA QUEUED
61 00 20 e0 ac db 4f 00 00:20:36.614 WRITE FPDMA QUEUED

Error 4854 occurred at disk power-on lifetime: 12198 hours (508 days + 6 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 00 f9 4a 06 00 Error: UNC at LBA = 0x00064af9 = 412409

Commands leading to the command that caused the error were:
CR FR SC SN CL CH DH DC Powered_Up_Time Command/Feature_Name
-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- ---------------- --------------------
60 00 20 e0 6a 0a 49 00 00:20:34.055 READ FPDMA QUEUED
61 00 08 10 23 0a 49 00 00:20:34.054 WRITE FPDMA QUEUED
61 00 08 d8 e6 08 49 00 00:20:34.054 WRITE FPDMA QUEUED
61 00 08 a0 9a 07 49 00 00:20:34.053 WRITE FPDMA QUEUED
61 00 08 38 4a 07 49 00 00:20:34.052 WRITE FPDMA QUEUED

Error 4853 occurred at disk power-on lifetime: 12198 hours (508 days + 6 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 00 f9 4a 06 00 Error: UNC at LBA = 0x00064af9 = 412409

Commands leading to the command that caused the error were:
CR FR SC SN CL CH DH DC Powered_Up_Time Command/Feature_Name
-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- ---------------- --------------------
60 00 20 80 67 04 49 00 00:20:28.898 READ FPDMA QUEUED
61 00 08 88 e4 03 49 00 00:20:28.898 WRITE FPDMA QUEUED
61 00 08 d8 cd 5b 40 00 00:20:28.896 WRITE FPDMA QUEUED
61 00 08 20 58 5e 40 00 00:20:28.895 WRITE FPDMA QUEUED
61 00 08 e0 cd 5b 40 00 00:20:28.895 WRITE FPDMA QUEUED

Error 4852 occurred at disk power-on lifetime: 12198 hours (508 days + 6 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 00 f9 4a 06 00 Error: UNC at LBA = 0x00064af9 = 412409

Commands leading to the command that caused the error were:
CR FR SC SN CL CH DH DC Powered_Up_Time Command/Feature_Name
-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- ---------------- --------------------
60 00 08 08 03 0e 49 00 00:20:26.327 READ FPDMA QUEUED
61 00 08 73 34 af 47 00 00:20:26.260 WRITE FPDMA QUEUED
61 00 08 6b 34 af 47 00 00:20:26.260 WRITE FPDMA QUEUED
61 00 08 63 34 af 47 00 00:20:26.259 WRITE FPDMA QUEUED
61 00 10 30 b8 98 48 00 00:20:26.259 WRITE FPDMA QUEUED

Error 4851 occurred at disk power-on lifetime: 12198 hours (508 days + 6 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 00 f9 4a 06 00 Error: WP at LBA = 0x00064af9 = 412409

Commands leading to the command that caused the error were:
CR FR SC SN CL CH DH DC Powered_Up_Time Command/Feature_Name
-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- ---------------- --------------------
61 00 08 30 42 98 48 00 00:20:21.243 WRITE FPDMA QUEUED
61 00 05 98 49 24 40 00 00:20:21.243 WRITE FPDMA QUEUED
61 00 08 38 e6 5f 40 00 00:20:21.243 WRITE FPDMA QUEUED
61 00 08 e8 01 41 45 00 00:20:21.242 WRITE FPDMA QUEUED
61 00 01 00 34 af 47 00 00:20:21.242 WRITE FPDMA QUEUED

SMART Self-test log structure revision number 1
Num Test_Description Status Remaining LifeTime(hours) LBA_of_first_error
# 1 Extended offline Completed without error 00% 37799 -
# 2 Short offline Completed: read failure 90% 12195 412409
# 3 Short offline Completed without error 00% 1 -
# 4 Short offline Completed without error 00% 0 -
# 5 Short offline Completed without error 00% 0 -
1 of 1 failed self-tests are outdated by newer successful extended offline self-test # 1

SMART Selective self-test log data structure revision number 1
SPAN MIN_LBA MAX_LBA CURRENT_TEST_STATUS
1 0 0 Not_testing
2 0 0 Not_testing
3 0 0 Not_testing
4 0 0 Not_testing
5 0 0 Not_testing
Selective self-test flags (0x0):
After scanning selected spans, do NOT read-scan remainder of disk.
If Selective self-test is pending on power-up, resume after 0 minute delay.
 

pclab

Moderator
For the price that a 240GB SSD costs now, I think you should swap the HDD for a SSD. It will make your laptop work a lot better, and yes, most probably your drive is bad, even if that log only shows 6 bad sectors (which I doubt).
 

Usjes

New member
> I think you should swap the HDD for a SSD. It will make your laptop work a lot better
Well there's a bold statement :) , yes, if the disk is the problem then replacing it will result in much improved performance however if it is not then I'll still have a problematic laptop along with a spare SSD I have no use for.
> and yes, most probably your drive is bad
Well there's an answer to a question I didn't ask :)
My question was how do I definitively determine if the disk is bad or not, does any know ? Anyone ?
 
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