Re: [smartmontools-support] I'd like to fix read failure issue on Mac OS X

[<ro...@sp...>]

Replies are inline.

>
> 2014/12/18 13:03, Robert S <ro...@sp...> wrote:
>
>> Been mostly lurking in this conversation, but I can think of several
>> possible reasons the sector size could be different:
>>
>> 1) The drive is using HPA or DCO to hide some sectors. I've never
>> encountered DCO in the wild, but I have seen HPA twice. You can use
>> hdparm to check for both. For HPA, hdparm -N /dev/<disk id> and for DCO,
>> hdparm --dco-identify /dev/<disk id> . I'd check this first as it the
>> most likely to be correct. The rest of the reasons below are *probably*
>> not the cause of your issue.
>
> The result of "hdparm -N" is the following:
>
> /dev/sdb:
>  max sectors   = 976773168/1(976773168?), HPA setting seems invalid (buggy
> kernel device driver?)
>
> And the result of "hdparm --dco-identify" is the following:
>
> /dev/sdb:
> DCO Revision: 0x0002
> The following features can be selectively disabled via DCO:
> 	Transfer modes:
> 		 mdma0 mdma1 mdma2
> 		 udma0 udma1 udma2 udma3 udma4 udma5 udma6
> 	Real max sectors: 976773168
> 	ATA command/feature sets:
> 		 SMART self_test error_log security PUIS AAM HPA 48_bit
> 		 FUA selective_test
> 		 WRITE_UNC_EXT
> 	SATA command/feature sets:
> 		 NCQ NZ_buffer_offsets interface_power_management SSP
>
> So, my hdd seems to using DCO.  Please let me know next step.

DCO is fine. HPA error message is weird though. However, the sector size
is consistent. So this is a dead end.

>
>> 2) The drive is an AF drive and the tools you are using are pre-AF drive
>> tools. Most tools were updated years ago, so this is probably not the
>> correct answer unless you are using really old tools.
>
> AF means Advanced Format?  Same meaning as AFT=Advanced Format Technology?

Yes, and from the info you gave below, this is not an AF drive. So this is
a dead end.

>
>> 3) You have mentioned this is an external drive, but didn't say which
>> one.
> [SNIP]
>
> Information about my hdd is the following:
>
> $ smartctl -i /dev/disk5
> smartctl 6.3 2014-07-26 r3976 [x86_64-apple-darwin13.4.0] (local build)
> Copyright (C) 2002-14, Bruce Allen, Christian Franke,
> www.smartmontools.org
>
> === START OF INFORMATION SECTION ===
> Model Family:     Hitachi Travelstar 5K500.B
> Device Model:     Hitachi HTS545050B9A300
> Serial Number:    091227PBG406Q7K6SKNV
> LU WWN Device Id: 5 000cca 597ed5937
> Firmware Version: PB4OC64G
> User Capacity:    500,107,862,016 bytes [500 GB]
> Sector Size:      512 bytes logical/physical
> Rotation Rate:    5400 rpm
> Form Factor:      2.5 inches
> Device is:        In smartctl database [for details use: -P show]
> ATA Version is:   ATA8-ACS T13/1699-D revision 6
> SATA Version is:  SATA 2.6, 3.0 Gb/s
> Local Time is:    Thu Dec 18 14:27:12 2014 JST
> SMART support is: Available - device has SMART capability.
> SMART support is: Enabled
>

Not a Seagate, so this idea is a dead end, although it's possible the
enclosure or Hitachi has some quirks I have not encountered yet.

>
>> 4) The GPT specification explicitly requires its EFI GPT (0xEE)
>> partition in the protective MBR to have CHS values that aren't
>> technically legal.
>
> Here's result of "fdisk -lu".  Is this related with your comment?
>
> Disk /dev/sdb: 465.8 GiB, 500107862016 bytes, 976773168 sectors
> Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
> Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
> I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
> Disklabel type: gpt
> Disk identifier: 7CC20A1E-BC90-49FF-90E9-7384F28833E8
>
> Device      Start       End   Sectors   Size Type
> /dev/sdb1      40    409639    409600   200M EFI System
> /dev/sdb2  409640 976510983 976101344 465.5G Apple HFS/HFS+
>
> Disk /dev/loop0: 425.6 MiB, 446214144 bytes, 871512 sectors
> Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
> Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
> I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes

At this point, I would suspect hard drive firmware bug. smartmontools only
reads what the firmware has. It does very little on it's own. So if it's
giving you an impossible sector, that is because that is what the drive's
firmware is telling it.