Problem on Logical Drives

[nitrojunkie]

Hello,

I have a VAIO with 2x128 GB Samsung SSDs.

I've just installed the sentinel and it found problems on two logical drives:
1) One has "218 errors reported during write to the device" with 20% health, 100% performance.
2) The other has "223 errors reported during write to the device" with 20% health, 100% performance.

On the other hand, c:[Windows] Physical Discs seem OK (I'm not sure, I guess they are OK. There is no warning OR something like that for them).

Should I be worried?

Can I fix by reformatting and reinstalling the system from a recovery disc?

Thanks

[hdsentinel]

Dear Nitrojunkie,

Thanks for your message and the details.
Also thanks for the report you sent, this way it is possible to check the complete status of the SSDs and verify the actual situation.

First of all, I can confirm that no, at the moment, you do not need to worry.

In this case, the problems and the low health caused by that the SSDs have some bad blocks. But this does not mean that the SSD is bad or will fail quickly.

Yes, I can confirm SSDs can have bad sectors as well, exactly as hard disks. After writing to a specific sector if the following verify confirms that the data is not written / not correctly readable, the SSD automatically writes the data again to a spare sector and re-directs all further reads and writes to that sector. This way the original sector (memory cell in this case) will be never used again and will never cause problems.

This is exactly what hard disks do - just on SSDs the whole process is much quicker and there are no noticeable signs, for example no "clicking" or other weird noises, no retries / substantial delays and so.

Manufacturers prepared for this and until the spare area become full, the SSD may work, even perfectly - if all such sectors verified and detected.

Personally I recommend some testing to verify if the SSDs have further problem(s) or if the status is really stable.

I'd try to use Disk menu -> Surface test -> Read test.
A warning message may appear that the drive can't be locked for exclusive use (because of the current Windows running) but you can still continue the test.

And if the test shows no damaged (yellow) or bad (red) blocks, you can be sure that all previous problems found and fixed by the SSD.
This way you may even clear the error counter of both SSDs to
- remove the displayed problems from the text description
- restore the health to 100%
- e notified only about possible newer issues.

For this, please open the S.M.A.R.T. page of the first SSD and locate the attribute
183 Runtime Bad Block (Total). In the Offset column, click on the 0 between then + and - and specify the error count with negative sign, for example
-218

Then repeat this with the other SSD, just specify
-223
to clear the error counters.
Soon the health will jump back.


Ps. thanks for increasing the attention of this specific model and issue. It is very important to investigate how SSDs work after long term and how their status reported, how new problems detected and generally how the overall status of the SSD degraded. This helps to improve the error-reporting of particular devices.
In the past days I examined this and similar models with more details (that's why the delayed answer, sorry) and I can confirm that in this case the very low health 20% may be too serious, the health should be so low only when more problems detected which may really indicate that the SSD is not stable and data corruption / data loss may occur soon. So I can confirm that the health calculation based on this problem reviewed and will be adjusted.
Anyway, if you clear the error counters, the health should be 100% again - until there may be a new problem.

For more information, please check http://www.hdsentinel.com/faq_repair_ha ... _drive.php
which contains general information about how to clear error counter by the Offset column.

[nitrojunkie]

Hi,

Thank you so much for the detailed analysis and reply.

I followed your recommendations and ran the Surface Test-> Read Test. It found nothing ("0" damaged blocks, "0" bad blocks).

I also followed the explanation of offsetting. Thank you...


As a side note let me share something else with you...

I've found out this very informative website and very helpful software of yours during a search for answers to the booting problems that my laptop has been recently facing.

When I turn on the power, my laptop is giving a warning saying that ...

"Checking file system on C:
One of the disks needs to be checked for consistency.
CHKDSK is veryfing files"

When I let it run, it reboots the system and runs again (in an endless loop). I can break this loop by only hitting a key to cancel CHKDSK... then windows can launch as usual.

How can I completely get rid of this situation? I'm planning to run your software in portable version as explained here:

viewtopic.php?f=9&t=10219&p=13650&hilit=portable#p13650

(at least I'm going to try because most of the stuff mentioned here is very complicated for me)

Can I fix this situation by doing so?

Rgrds

[hdsentinel]

Many times the logical drive(s) may become damaged even if the physical drive(s) are working perfectly.
Sudden power loss / reset may cause file system corruption and then chkdsk runs on next startup.
But usually after a chkdsk-cycle, the file system verified (maybe repaired if required) and then things run normal. I wonder why then chkdsk starts again and again.

> How can I completely get rid of this situation?

Please try the following:

1) click on the Windows (start) symbol and in the "search for programs and files" section, enter cmd
2) on the displayed cmd.exe, right click and select "Run as administrator"
3) in the new console window, enter
chkntfs /x c:

This should disable the automatic chkdsk on next restart of the system, so hopefully then there will be no such issues.

Maybe this helps....

[nitrojunkie]

Hi,

Thank you so much. It really helped and it doesn't start to CHKDSK any more.

I am also frequently getting error messages from IRST (Intel Rapid Storage Technology): "One of disks failed".
Then, I click "reset disk to normal" and it returns back to normal. And then it fails again.

[hdsentinel]

The issue may be related to the current Intel RST driver version.
From the original report, as I saw, the driver was version 9.6 (released in 2010). You can verify on the Information page in Hard Disk Sentinel, see the "Disk Controller" line.

While it should be fine, some compatibility issues may happen, especially with newer SSDs released since that.
So I'd recommend to install driver 10.5 from the Driver Zone page ( www.hdsentinel.com/driverzone.php ) which designed to offer better drivers. Or you can download directly from http://www.hdsentinel.com/driver/stor_a ... 026_pc.zip
(there may be newer drivers for this chipset, but the newest is not always the best).

Hopefully after the update, there will be no more errors.

But if you will still get the errors, then when you next time see a such error message from Intel Rapid Storage Technology, I'd recommend to use Report menu -> Send test report to developer option in Hard Disk Sentinel as soon as possible. This will help to check that situation and it may give additional ideas what could happen, what may have triggered that.