Re: [smartmontools-support] devices under Windows

[Christian F. <Chr...@t-...>]

D. Hugh Redelmeier wrote:
> I've installed smartmontools 5.43 on my Windows Vista 32-bit system.
>
> When I run smartctl (with admin priviledges), it doesn't seem to see
> devices the way that I think it should.
>
> - "smartctl --scan" sees no device
>
>    ==> why does it not list the hard drive?

Because its device type (-d option) could not be auto-detected in this case.
This often happens if the SATA driver supports RAID.


> - "smartctl /dev/sda" sees no device
>
>    ==> why does smartctl not see the hard drive?
>
>      C:\Program Files\smartmontools\bin>smartctl -a /dev/sda
> ...
>      /dev/sda: Unable to detect device type
>

Please provide the outputs from the following commands (as attachments):

smartctl -r ioctl,2 -i /dev/sda
smartctl -r ioctl,2 -d ata -i /dev/sda


>
>    ==> why does smartctl say that "Device does not suport SMART"?
>
>      C:\Program Files\smartmontools\bin>smartctl -a c:
> ...
>      Vendor:               Hitachi
>      Product:              HDT725025VLA
> ...
>      Device does not support SMART
>      Request Sense failed, [Input/output error]

This is the SCSI result emulated by Windows SCSI layer.


> The hardware is an AMD Athlon 64 X2 with an nVidia MCP61 SATA
> controller (standard part of the chipset).  So it should be pretty
> standard.

Which driver is used?

RAID capable drivers do not provide a (documented) ATA pass-through 
functionality in most cases, even if RAID is not used.
Installing a non-RAID variant of the driver or the generic AHCI driver 
(msahci.sys) may help.

Thanks,
Christian