Diagnosing and Erasing Hard Drives

Introducción

If you are evaluating a hard drive, this guide will show you how to do basic tests to detect common problems. While these tests are not perfect, most issues get detected.

Common drive problems include:

High hours (Wear and tear)
Reallocated sectors
Pending reallocated sectors
Hidden problems

Most failures are sudden and without warning. If these problems are caught early, the drive can be replaced before it fails. SMART plays a major role in this since the data can be used to do this.

Note: Some hard drives have known problems (Ex: Seagate 7.01/7200.11), while others fail due to lower quality standards (Ex: WD Blue/Green).

While Parted Magic can be redistributed legally per the GPL, I will not point to these downloads.
These tests are not 100% accurate. Some problems can (and do) slip past these tests.

While WD, HGST and Seagate offer diagnostic tools, they do not work on drives with serious problems or excessive bad sectors.
Before attempting a sector remap, backup your data.
DO NOT REPAIR drives with SMART errors.

Qué necesitas

Paso 1 Mounting the hard drive for testing

Diagnosing and Erasing Hard Drives, Mounting the hard drive for testing: paso 1, imagen 1 de 3

Diagnosing and Erasing Hard Drives, Mounting the hard drive for testing: paso 1, imagen 2 de 3

Diagnosing and Erasing Hard Drives, Mounting the hard drive for testing: paso 1, imagen 3 de 3

If the hard drive is not installed in a PC, a USB drive adapter can be used.
If the hard drive is not installed and you do not have a USB adapter, it can be plugged into a motherboard.

Traducir

Paso 2 (Ubuntu) Check the POH/POC

Diagnosing and Erasing Hard Drives, (Ubuntu) Check the POH/POC: paso 2, imagen 1 de 3

Diagnosing and Erasing Hard Drives, (Ubuntu) Check the POH/POC: paso 2, imagen 2 de 3

Diagnosing and Erasing Hard Drives, (Ubuntu) Check the POH/POC: paso 2, imagen 3 de 3

While high hours are not an indication of failure, these drives are more likely to fail.
GSmartControl can be used in Ubuntu if you cannot read the output from Disks.
Boot your system into a live Ubuntu session. Locate the Disks application and select the hard disk you want to test.
From the drop-down menu, select SMART Data and Self Tests. This will pull up the SMART data.
Locate the following SMART attributes: Power On Hours and Power Cycle Count.

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Paso 3 (Ubuntu) Check the reallocated sectors and test the drive

Diagnosing and Erasing Hard Drives, (Ubuntu) Check the reallocated sectors and test the drive: paso 3, imagen 1 de 3

Diagnosing and Erasing Hard Drives, (Ubuntu) Check the reallocated sectors and test the drive: paso 3, imagen 2 de 3

Diagnosing and Erasing Hard Drives, (Ubuntu) Check the reallocated sectors and test the drive: paso 3, imagen 3 de 3

If this attribute is highlighted, consider a replacement drive. Use SMART Extended for accuracy.
If your drive has run out of spare sectors, the drive capacity will drop.
Locate the following SMART attributes: Reallocated sector count; Current pending sector count.
To run a SMART Extended Self-Test, left click Start Self-Test. Select Extended from the drop-down menu.

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Paso 4 (Parted Magic) Check the POH/POC

Diagnosing and Erasing Hard Drives, (Parted Magic) Check the POH/POC: paso 4, imagen 1 de 3

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Diagnosing and Erasing Hard Drives, (Parted Magic) Check the POH/POC: paso 4, imagen 3 de 3

While high hours are not an indication of failure, these drives are more likely to fail.
Select Disks from the desktop to open GSmartControl.
Select the hard disk you want to test. Click Attributes to read the SMART data.
Locate the following attributes: Power On Time and Power Cycle Count.

Traducir

Paso 5 (Parted Magic) Check the reallocated sectors and test the drive

Diagnosing and Erasing Hard Drives, (Parted Magic) Check the reallocated sectors and test the drive: paso 5, imagen 1 de 3

Diagnosing and Erasing Hard Drives, (Parted Magic) Check the reallocated sectors and test the drive: paso 5, imagen 2 de 3

Diagnosing and Erasing Hard Drives, (Parted Magic) Check the reallocated sectors and test the drive: paso 5, imagen 3 de 3

If this attribute is highlighted, consider a replacement drive. Use SMART Extended for accuracy.
In the Attributes tab, locate the following SMART attributes: Reallocated Sector Count; Reallocation Event Count; Current Pending Sector Count.
To test the drive, select Perform Tests. Click Test type: and select Extended Self-Test.

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Paso 6 (Parted Magic) Check the error log

Diagnosing and Erasing Hard Drives, (Parted Magic) Check the error log: paso 6, imagen 1 de 3

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Diagnosing and Erasing Hard Drives, (Parted Magic) Check the error log: paso 6, imagen 3 de 3

Use the error log and SMART data in conjunction to diagnose drive problems.
Check the error log for drive errors. To do this, click the Error log tab.
In the Error log, review the available errors. Read these logs if any are found.

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Paso 7 (Parted Magic) Erasing hard drives

Diagnosing and Erasing Hard Drives, (Parted Magic) Erasing hard drives: paso 7, imagen 1 de 3

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Diagnosing and Erasing Hard Drives, (Parted Magic) Erasing hard drives: paso 7, imagen 3 de 3

Your erasure options are limited to the ATA Security Set supported by your drive.
If your drive has ATA Secure Erase implementation problems, choose External. Use ATA Secure Erase on newer drives if possible. Only use Secure Erase on SSD's.
Drives without ATA Secure Erase will need to be erased externally. Select a tool in External. For security, select Nwipe with DoD Short. This will erase the drive 3 times and blank it.