With progress things change. Think about all the stuff the Manufactures like to stuff into the servo tracks. Man, sometimes there 32 tracks large.
Regards, Tim "The Beave" Lider E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] MSN: [EMAIL PROTECTED] -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of DHSinclair Sent: Thursday, January 17, 2008 12:57 PM To: hardware@hardwaregroup.com Subject: Re: [H] I'm losin' it... Tim, Thanks for your explanation. Your explanation is truly scary, but, does explain many of the subtle hd errors we now see. Suspect there is logic to the madness, though I do not see it yet. I suppose I need to go back to school again. Modern hd's are just so much PFM any more! Thanks. It was so easy with the BK8-A2A, 5-platter removable, 80MB drive! LOL! Best, Duncan At 12:02 01/17/2008 -0800, you wrote: >Servo tracks are not red only. Parts of them are changed on a constant >basis, such as the growing bad sector list, etc. The servo tracks are >written normally like regular data on the media surface. The permanent >components of the servo are sometimes written to the Processor or CMOS of >the hard drive. > >Servo tracks are spread across all sides of the hard drive so the sides can >sync with each other for optimum performance. Hard Drives are quite >complicated when you look at the actual components and whats actually >written to the media surface. > >Regards, > >Tim "The Beave" Lider >E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] >MSN: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > >-----Original Message----- >From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] >[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of DHSinclair >Sent: Thursday, January 17, 2008 11:25 AM >To: hardware@hardwaregroup.com >Subject: Re: [H] I'm losin' it... > >Tim, >I agree with your experience. But, I am confused a bit. You mention >"...Track 0 (Servo Tracks) are being destroyed for some reason or >another...." Sounds appropriate. > >But, I always thought that a drive's Servo Tracks are recorded at Mfg. AND >that the head used to process the Servo Track was always READ Only. The >Servo head can never, ever Write (erase) the Servo tracks. I always thought >that the servo tracks were laser burned/encoded to make them as permanent >as possible. Perhaps I am still a bit too old-school! > >Do you mean that the Servo Read head could be getting flakey? I do recall >that if the Servo Read head ever crashed, the whole drive was >toast! Really do like your 3 rules! LOL! >Just wondering...... :) >Best, >Duncan > >At 10:53 01/17/2008 -0800, you wrote: > >Most SMART errors are letting you know the drive will fail. There is an > >ANSI standard for the Errors you receive. I forget where I used to get the > >codes. Now a days I just get the drive duplicated as soon as possible. > > > >IMO, most SMART problems are due to the Track 0 (Servo Tracks) are being > >destroyed for some reason or another. You are unable to repair those > >sectors, it has valuable servo information about your unique hard drive. >On > >the other hand it could be a CC error in the Upper area as well that's > >creating the error. I would still duplicate it and get it replaced. > > > >Rule 1: Back the data up > >Rule 2: See rule one > >Rule 3: No Backup, cry and look for ways to get it back. > > > >Regards, > > > >Tim "The Beave" Lider > >E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > >MSN: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > > >-----Original Message----- > >From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > >[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Joe User > >Sent: Thursday, January 17, 2008 10:31 AM > >To: The Hardware List > >Subject: [H] I'm losin' it... > > > >Hello, > > > >I think I am losing it. I have a Maxtor drive that *may* be going out > >on me. I came in to see my WinXP Pro SP2 machine with a powered > >monitor but all black screen (It should have been on power save). > >System was (i think) not responding. So I reboot and then come back > >later to the same thing. So I go through the event viewer and see > >this: > > > > > > > >Event Type: Warning > >Event Source: Disk > >Event Category: None > >Event ID: 52 > >Date: 1/17/2008 > >Time: 2:24:02 AM > >User: N/A > >Computer: VENUS > >Description: > >The driver has detected that device \Device\Harddisk0\DR0 has predicted >that > >it will fail. > >Immediately back up your data and replace your hard disk drive. A failure > >may be imminent. > > > >For more information, see Help and Support Center at > >http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/events.asp. > >Data: > >0000: 0e 00 03 00 01 00 5e 00 ......^. > >0008: 00 00 00 00 34 00 04 80 ....4..? > >0010: 02 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ........ > >0018: 00 00 00 00 00 11 2d 00 ......-. > >0020: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ........ > >0028: 00 00 00 ... > > > > > >So I already know that SMART isn't *always* smart but I start > >xcopy'ing everything nonetheless. I grab my famous PROGRAMS DISCS and > >start loading Partition Magic and Drive Image. I pick another drive in > >this same system (there are 4 physical drives - 2 on Promise 100 > >card) and xcopy both partition on the drive over to this new(ish) one. > >I have to do this because the original and possibly failing drive is a > >30gb split in half with a FAT32 Win98 install on C: (First half of > >drive) and a NTFS WinXP Pro install on E: (Second half of the drive) > >AND the new one is a 20GB. Size isn't the same so Drive Image won't do > >a copy disk to disk for me. No worries, I think, I partition the 20GB > >in FAT32 the first 40% and NTFS the last 60%. I copy the data over > >(again). I make sure boot.ini (on first partition) and ntdetect.com > >and all that are there on that 98 partition and all that. They are > >exactly the same. So I pull the system swpa the drive and put the 20GB > >in the (failing?) 30gb spot and jumper them etc. I mark the 20GB drive > >active with 98 disk AND do a fixmbr and fixboot with XP and still the > >drive will only boot to 98. If I mark the NTFS/XP partition it just > >sits blinking cursor - no boot menu - no nothing. WTF am I missing > >here? > > > > > >Is there a program that can query SMART error messages? I would really > >like to know what is wrong with the drive because it's still just chugging > >along here. Thank god the bios allows me to boot from scsi devices. > > > > > >-- > >Regards, > > joeuser - Still looking for the 'any' key...