Re: [smartmontools-support] Short Test Never Completes

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

Hi Kevin,

This sounds like a bug in the drive firmware, or in the Linux driver.  Is 
there any way you can boot the system from an older Live CD (say Knoppix 
or similar) and run the self-test from there to see if it completes?  If 
not, the bug is in the drive firmware.  If so, then it might be in the 
kernel or driver.

Cheers,
 	Bruce

On Thu, 13 Nov 2008, Kevin Colbert wrote:

>
> So I bought 3 new Seagate drives recently and installed them on CentOS 5.2.  The drive specs are here http://www.seagate.com/www/en-us/products/servers/sv35_series/sv35.3/  (I have the 1TB model)
>
> I have tried running the short test but it seems as though smartctl keeps looping through the test for an hour or so and never completes.  If you run a smartctl -d ata -l selftest /dev/sd{a, b and c} you can see the test make progress all the way down to 10% remaining but then it jumps right back up to 90% again and starts over.  I've had to -X every test after waiting and waiting for as much as an hour.
>
> The commands I've used are as follows:
>
> smartctl -d ata -s on -o on -S on /dev/sd{a, b and c}
> smartctl -d ata -t short /dev/sd{a, b and c}
>
> I have also tried the -T permissive and -T verypermissive flags with no change in the results.
>
> When I do a smatctl -d ata -a /dev/sd{a, b and c} to show drive information, the drive is not in the database.  I have tried to update to the latest smartmontools but RPMForge yum repository only goes up to version 5.36.  I had 3 other samsung drives in this same machine and they were able to run these tests fine using the -F samsung2 flag.  So I know it's not my onboard sata controller(http://www.asus.com/products.aspx?l1=3&l2=11&l3=761&l4=0&model=2413&modelmenu=1), I think it's just these drives...they seem very new.
>
> So what could be my problem?
>
> Do I have to use version 5.38 and install this manually (don't use yum)?
> Are there parameters I need to add with the -P flag?
> Does the drive I'm testing have to be idle to complete a test? Like not mounted?
>
> I don't get it...any help would be greatly appreciated.
>
> _________________________________________________________________
> See how Windows® connects the people, information, and fun that are part of your life
> http://clk.atdmt.com/MRT/go/119463819/direct/01/