HDD issues and repair topic

inqb8tr

Yesterday I have copied footage from cards on a hard drive, and while watching clips, i noticed some kind of glitches and drops appearing. I realized that it happens only with footage copied to one particular hard drive - 1-2 months old 2TB seagate ST2000DM001. When I copied files from same cards onto another hdd everything was ok. When I copied files (with drops) from seagate to another drive, and played them from the healthy drive - footage was damaged, video glitches like half frame drop, something like that, in movist it is like bright green blocks, in other players and Premiere they are just transparent half frame drops, similar to damaged beta tape, if anyone remembers that. Some files don't have glitches but when I copy them on the same drive but to another folder, they get damaged. This happens with MTS files and also after transcoding to Prores422 HQ. Luckily I always backup new jobs immediately, but I have some other projects on that drive.

Is that hdd dying? I didn't know that dying hdd can damage video files internally.

goanna

I have some other projects on that drive

Valuable projects? Hard drive recovery specialists can do stuff we ordinary mortals cannot.

Power-down that drive and at least get a repair quote

inqb8tr

@goanna

Yes, but I found out that I have it backed up. Just have to transcode to prores again and relink. But hdd still works, I was curious if someone has similar experience with damaged high bitrate video files, is it a sign of sure hdd failure that is just waiting to happen. I'll run those low level tests to check the drive, but Iprobably won't be able to use it ever again for any work, who knows when will it happen again..

Vitaliy_Kiselev

I expected to see photo of old and ill hard drive looking at the title :-)

Mark_the_Harp

Dunno about the video files, but get a copy of HDTunePro or similar and if you have anything like this, worry! Current pending sectors are sectors that the hard drive will mark as not good, and it will move the data to new sectors and then "hide" the offending ones. You need to keep a regular eye on a HDD with something like this software, to see what it's up to. But the one in my attached image is an HDD that suddenly produced a whole bunch of corrupted stuff. Sometime it can be the fault of HDD cables rather than the drive itself, so you need to do a bit of digging.

goanna

@inqb8tr

That's good news. I guess you still need to put that drive through tests while the warranty is still valid. Dunno about this video file thing - just that there's a condition in-between data integrity and loss they call "marginal" where a drive can attempt error-correction routines, not unlike a TV set when reception is poor. I'd just make sure the drive's OK before committing any valuable data to it again.

Mark_the_Harp

@gonna - we posted more or less simultaneously, but the current pending sector (image above) shows data which is marked for error-correction (by moving it to a working sector and then marking the corrupt sector as hidden so it's not available any more for data). Which is why you need to keep an eye on any pending sectors, because even one or two pending sectors are bad news.

This particular drive which produced my test image is working OK (ish) and has some gash data on it, but a similar one went bad and ended up having a write speed of 2bps (ie it would be quicker to chisel the data onto a stone tablet at that speed).

So yes, @inqb8tr, do some tests, and keep the printout to send back with the HDD if you RMA it because if you do a secure erase on the data, you need something to prove the HDD was faulty. During the erase process, the HDD will probably reallocate all the pending sectors, and it won't look faulty to anyone who tests it afterwards unless you have the documentation to prove it was.

kujina

@inqb8tr download Seatools (diagnostic tool by seagate) http://knowledge.seagate.com/articles/en_US/FAQ/201271en and burn it to a cd and run the long test.

inqb8tr

Thanks. I just got new wd drive and right now copying everything from the seagate. When it finishes I'll run the test.

@Mark_the_Harp - good advice, to keep the printout to send back with the HDD.

inqb8tr

The Seatools Long test failed. Good news.

Howdy, Stranger!

Categories

Tags in Topic

Top Posters