Re: [smartmontools-support]Strange IDNF errors and an invalid SMART checksum

[Bruce A. <ba...@gr...>]

Tobias,

I'm referring to:
http://www.hitachigst.com/tech/techlib.nsf/techdocs/53989D390D44D88F86256D1F0058368D
which are the OEM specs for your disk.

> SMART Error Log Version: 1

> Error 98 occurred at disk power-on lifetime: 1415 hours (58 days + 23
> 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
>   -- -- -- -- -- -- --
>   10 59 01 e0 00 d6 e6  Error: IDNF at LBA = 0x06d600e0 = 114688224

This means that the specified sector, in this case Logical Block Address
114688224, was not found.   According to the specs for your disk, the
total number of sectors  is 117,210,240 (see page 25 of URL above).  So
the failure to find block 114,688,224 can mean one of only two things, I
think:

(1) drive is faulty, or
(2) drive is has been set (using a software command) with a protected area
which you can't read.  This is done using the Read Native Max and Set Max
Address commands. There are documented in the manual above. There is
probably some standard utility for doing the 'Set Max Address' command.  
A few seconds of Google searching turned up this:
http://www.win.tue.nl/~aeb/linux/setmax.c

> The strange thing is that those IDNF at LBA errors appear to be in a
> space which isn't user-addressable.

According to the manual, it could/should be user addressable.

> My hard drive comes with a hidden Predesktop Area "partition" installed
> by the manufacturer - this area contains Win XP recovery data as well
> as some system tools and its default is to be invisible to operating
> systems (you can define this in the machine's BIOS).

That's the 'protected area'.  You're running into trouble, I think,
because of this.

> Here are the available hard drive sectors (hdparm's output):
> 
> LBA    user addressable sectors:  110833010 (Predesktop Area enabled)
> LBA    user addressable sectors:  117210244 (Predesktop Area disabled)
> 
> The IDNF at LBA errors are at 114688224

Exactly.  This may be because your disk partitioning utilities are writing
a partition table using ALL 117210244 sectors not the 110833010 that are
available.

> Are those errors a concern?

Yes.  There is some utility in your toolset (fdisk, cfdisk, mkfs?) that
appears to be trying to use more than 110833010 sectors.

> What about the invalid checksum of the Self-Test Log Structure?

It's the SELECTIVE Self-Test Log.  I wouldn't worry about it -- the disk
is ATA-6 not ATA-7, so the support for selective self-tests is not obeying
the ATA specs, which only introduced selective self-tests with ATA-7.

> Is there a way to correct those errors? I'm scared..

I think it's OK.

> The hard drive was in a perfect condition before I tried to configure
> my partitions with the SUSE installer. :/ There hasn't been any error
> before.

Use fdisk -lu to understand if the partition table extends beyond
110833010 sectors.  If so, fix it.  If not, try to understand what utility
is ignoring this limit and trying to read/write beyond it.

> Could you please CC me as I'm currently not subscribed to this list?

Likewise please continue to cc the list so that there is a record of this
in the mail archive.

Bruce