Bad sectors or not?

[Greg Jones_4]

Hi,

we replaced a Maxtor 160GB (Model 6Y160P0) disk in a NAS 1000s and afterwards did a QuickRestore of 2003. At the end, the event log was full of errors. The most recent of them said that it could not relocate the bad sectors, or something close to that.

Unsure about it, I removed all volume from this disk and created a plan ntfs volume. I then did a full scan for bad sector using Windows disk tool and nothing! Not a single error.

I've since found out that the new drive has firware YAR41BW0 while the others drives in the server, same brand & model, have YAR41VW0.

I've searched both Maxtor (now seagate) and HP website and cannot find any firmware for these. Anyone know where I can get the latest?

Also, I used a Maxtor utility to do a low level format of the new drive and according to this tool, it passed.

Any suggestions?

Greg.

[e4services]

I would suggest that the errors are not in the target, but the source.
The firmware on most HDs today are NOT flashable but design, though as an OEM HP use to write there own frimware for drives so, say, a Seagate drive said "HP" in its ID, and sometimes changed somethings in the way they interated with RAID controllers, but other than that you do not want to be flashing firmware on a functioning drive.

[Marc Carney]

See if you can get a utility that will interrogate the SMART counters for the drives. These are values that are often stored in the CPU memory of the hard drives. Most hard drives are designed to degrade slightly to a threshold figure before becoming officially 'failed'. Then, if you have no data of importance on the drive, flash with latest firmware if there is one available, so you know it's as good as you can get it. And then thoroughly test the drive with some software tools (and maybe a stress test tool) and check for and hint of failure before putting it back into service.

If this helps then please reward with points!