Second opinion on this GSmartControl report please

[sorcerer]

This report flagged 'Current Pending Sector' and 'Offline Uncorrectable' in red, but the scan finished 100% without error. Is it something to worry about or not do you think?

EDIT: Sorry, rushing and forgot to include all info - It's a Packard Bell laptop running Vista Home Basic. Machine is running slowly but doing hardware diagnostics first, which is why I'm asking this question. Of course, when I move on I could find that malware is the cause of the slowness or something else, but I just wanted to check this now at this early stage.

Thanks

smartctl 5.43 2012-06-30 r3573 [i686-linux-3.10.4-pmagic] (local build)
Copyright (C) 2002-12 by Bruce Allen, http://smartmontools.sourceforge.net

=== START OF INFORMATION SECTION ===
Model Family: Seagate Momentus 5400.3
Device Model: ST960813AS
Serial Number: 5LY1KLFK
Firmware Version: 3.ALB
User Capacity: 60,011,642,880 bytes [60.0 GB]
Sector Size: 512 bytes logical/physical
Device is: In smartctl database [for details use: -P show]
ATA Version is: 7
ATA Standard is: Exact ATA specification draft version not indicated
Local Time is: Sat Apr 12 19:25:43 2014 UTC
SMART support is: Available - device has SMART capability.
SMART support is: Enabled

=== START OF READ SMART DATA SECTION ===
SMART overall-health self-assessment test result: PASSED

General SMART Values:
Offline data collection status: (0x82) Offline data collection activity
was completed without error.
Auto Offline Data Collection: Enabled.
Self-test execution status: ( 0) The previous self-test routine completed
without error or no self-test has ever
been run.
Total time to complete Offline
data collection: ( 426) seconds.
Offline data collection
capabilities: (0x5b) SMART execute Offline immediate.
Auto Offline data collection on/off support.
Suspend Offline collection upon new
command.
Offline surface scan supported.
Self-test supported.
No Conveyance Self-test supported.
Selective Self-test supported.
SMART capabilities: (0x0003) Saves SMART data before entering
power-saving mode.
Supports SMART auto save timer.
Error logging capability: (0x01) Error logging supported.
No General Purpose Logging support.
Short self-test routine
recommended polling time: ( 1) minutes.
Extended self-test routine
recommended polling time: ( 84) minutes.
SCT capabilities: (0x0001) SCT Status supported.

SMART Attributes Data Structure revision number: 10
Vendor Specific SMART Attributes with Thresholds:
ID# ATTRIBUTE_NAME FLAG VALUE WORST THRESH TYPE UPDATED WHEN_FAILED RAW_VALUE
1 Raw_Read_Error_Rate 0x000f 100 253 006 Pre-fail Always - 0
3 Spin_Up_Time 0x0003 099 099 000 Pre-fail Always - 0
4 Start_Stop_Count 0x0032 096 096 020 Old_age Always - 4259
5 Reallocated_Sector_Ct 0x0033 100 100 036 Pre-fail Always - 0
7 Seek_Error_Rate 0x000f 085 060 030 Pre-fail Always - 352009088
9 Power_On_Hours 0x0032 093 093 000 Old_age Always - 6488
10 Spin_Retry_Count 0x0013 100 100 034 Pre-fail Always - 0
12 Power_Cycle_Count 0x0032 097 097 020 Old_age Always - 3946
187 Reported_Uncorrect 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 0
189 High_Fly_Writes 0x003a 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 0
190 Airflow_Temperature_Cel 0x0022 054 049 045 Old_age Always - 46 (Min/Max 39/48)
192 Power-Off_Retract_Count 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 847
193 Load_Cycle_Count 0x0032 001 001 000 Old_age Always - 207288
194 Temperature_Celsius 0x0022 046 051 000 Old_age Always - 46 (0 14 0 0 0)
195 Hardware_ECC_Recovered 0x001a 073 064 000 Old_age Always - 118574903
197 Current_Pending_Sector 0x0012 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 1
198 Offline_Uncorrectable 0x0010 100 100 000 Old_age Offline - 1
199 UDMA_CRC_Error_Count 0x003e 200 200 000 Old_age Always - 0
200 Multi_Zone_Error_Rate 0x0000 100 253 000 Old_age Offline - 0
202 Data_Address_Mark_Errs 0x0032 100 253 000 Old_age Always - 0

SMART Error Log Version: 1
No Errors Logged

SMART Self-test log structure revision number 1
Num Test_Description Status Remaining LifeTime(hours) LBA_of_first_error
# 1 Extended offline Completed without error 00% 6488 -

SMART Selective self-test log data structure revision number 1
SPAN MIN_LBA MAX_LBA CURRENT_TEST_STATUS
1 0 0 Not_testing
2 0 0 Not_testing
3 0 0 Not_testing
4 0 0 Not_testing
5 0 0 Not_testing
Selective self-test flags (0x0):
After scanning selected spans, do NOT read-scan remainder of disk.
If Selective self-test is pending on power-up, resume after 0 minute delay

 

[ohio_grad_06]

I'm a fan of gsmart. Usually if gsmart says things are going Sith I recommend to replace.

 

[sorcerer]

I'm a fan of gsmart. Usually if gsmart says things are going Sith I recommend to replace.

Ok, thanks very much.

 

[colonydata]

I'm a fan of gsmart. Usually if gsmart says things are going Sith I recommend to replace.

if it's going sith then help me obi wan kenobi your my only hope!

 

[FremontPC]

You might cross check it with Crystal Disk Info, but I've found Uncorrectables to be more trouble than the disk is worth. The system keeps trying to use the bad sector and can't read from it. Generally, the fix is to image the drive, then zero it. That should get it to show up as Reallocated, then you could keep an eye on it and be ready with a replacement.

You could also use MHDD or the like to map the drive and find out if you've got a bunch of slow sectors cropping up as confirmation.

Really not worth the time you would have to charge given that the customer could end up with a questionable product.

 

[ohio_grad_06]

Lol sorry just got back on. I would probably recommend just getting a replacement drive, clone the old drive to the newer one, and be done, that way you know you are working with a good drive and not have your customer come back complaining how you don't know what you're doing. Just saying.

 

[Krynn72]

You might cross check it with Crystal Disk Info, but I've found Uncorrectables to be more trouble than the disk is worth. The system keeps trying to use the bad sector and can't read from it. Generally, the fix is to image the drive, then zero it. That should get it to show up as Reallocated, then you could keep an eye on it and be ready with a replacement.

Sometimes we find a hard drive with a single odd Uncorrectable, and we just call the customer saying we can mark it, or replace the drive and let them decide (we use MHDD to test and find any errors, and HDAT2 to mark them). If it has more than one UNC, or a lot of slow sectors as well, then we don't even give them an option and tell them it needs replacing, because then its clearly not just a fluke thing.

In this case, I say just run it through MHDD, see what it says. Its the best of both worlds, very little left to guesswork after the scan is done, and you're not replacing a drive which doesn't need replacing. For a drive that size, it will probably take like 20-30 mins.

 

[Markverhyden]

if it's going sith then help me obi wan kenobi your my only hope!

LOL!!!! Good one.

 

[PCX]

This happens quite often. You need to check the number of bad sectors before testing the drive. If ther are too many bad sectors then there is no need to test (stress) the hard drive further. Also, just because a hard drive passes the SMART test, it does not mean you should not replace the drive, this is why I suggest checking the number of bad sectors first.

 

[SilverLeaf]

Luke from Recovery Force (lcoughey) made a suggestion in another thread a while back, and the more I think about it, the more inclined I am to agree. Basically, he stated that if the drive is suspect, go ahead and do a sector-by-sector image (ddrescue), rather than wasting time with the onboard self-tests. Essentially, this will backup and test the drive at the same time without putting unnecessary stress on the drive caused by running the self-tests first. If the drive has bad sectors, it will show on the report generated by ddrescue.....and you already have an image to push to a new drive if you decide to replace it. If ddrescue doesn't complain about bad sectors during the image, then you can be fairly confident in the drive's health as ddrescue checks every sector during the image process.

 

[trevm999]

Luke from Recovery Force (lcoughey) made a suggestion in another thread a while back, and the more I think about it, the more inclined I am to agree. Basically, he stated that if the drive is suspect, go ahead and do a sector-by-sector image (ddrescue), rather than wasting time with the onboard self-tests. Essentially, this will backup and test the drive at the same time without putting unnecessary stress on the drive caused by running the self-tests first. If the drive has bad sectors, it will show on the report generated by ddrescue.....and you already have an image to push to a new drive if you decide to replace it. If ddrescue doesn't complain about bad sectors during the image, then you can be fairly confident in the drive's health as ddrescue checks every sector during the image process.

Yep, that post sold me on it. Also it gives you an insight on the read speeds of the drive so you might catch something is amiss even if there are no bad sectors. Too bad it doesn't keep a detailed log of the speeds (or if someone knows that it actually does do that let me know!) I need to check out MHDD sometime, sounds like a good second opinion tool.

 

[Ccomp5950]

The drive has a single uncorrectable incident. However it's a laptop drive and might have just been dropped and came back up fine.

If the drive was my personal one and isn't acting up and isn't mission critical I wouldn't even bother replacing it, the extended read test came out fine that you ran.

Drives tend to fail at a bathtub curve rate though so you have that. When they start to go to **** they go downhill fast.

I would tell the customer... "The drive has experienced a problem reading/writing to a portion of it in the past, this could be a hickup from dropping it or being rough with it at one point, I've run a full read test on it and it's passed that but when drives fail they fail quickly, I always recommend backups of your data but if the data is mission critical and would shut you down your business for more then a day to lose it I recommend we replace this drive."

Then get the new drive and copy your image onto it. You did image the drive didn't you?

 

[sorcerer]

Then get the new drive and copy your image onto it. You did image the drive didn't you?

Oh yes, I always image the drive first but I use either Acronis True Image or Macrium Reflect. Interesting post earlier from SilverLeaf regarding imaging with ddrescue, but I've never used that before and no doubt it'll have a huge learning curve with it before I can use it confidently.

I'd just like to take this opportunity to say thanks to both yourself and everyone else for all your comments, which, as always, are very helpful,