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Seagate HD and G5 with Leopard

xtempo

xtempo

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Jan 2, 2014
462
119
I have used Smart Utility demo and it shows failing for the Hard Drive. it shows about 8 sectors are bad.

Also I don't have any OS discs but I plan to get some later on this year or next.

I have run or at least tried erasing or repairing but now I can't do anything as it shows that it cannot be unmounted.

It does show that 698.64 in about this mac.

Any ideas? do I have a bad HD? should I return it?
 
If its new and you can return it, you should. I wouldn't risk it with a drive that can be replaced for free.
 
It will likely still last many years. Just because a sector is showing as bad, doesn't mean the whole drive will die within a week. Most drives have one or two bad sectors, but are invisibly removed from the pool of usable sectors by the drive's firmware. I've used hard drives with bad sectors for years after they been detected without a problem.
 
xtempo:

on your question in the other thread, you do not need to buy SMART Utility, because the buy-version has no additional feature (such as removing bad sectors). The demo just stops working after 5 launches or 28 days, whatever comes later!

Tech Tool Pro is able to reassign bad sectors (that is, replace them with reserve sectors), but it is not for free, maybe you can find a free download somewhere...

You can try, if the bad sectors get reassigned, if you save erase the drive, i.e. format the drive with disk utility and choose "write zeros 7 times". It takes a while, you can also first try, if they "disappear", when you write zeros only one time, first.

You say, the capacity is showing right now? Did you google or look in Seagates own help Forum, if that special drive model has this as a known issue or is in their list of drives with bad firmware?

The chance to get a bad drive is statistically 0,003% per user, but if this is a model related problem (look Seagates support page), you might want to replace it, if it doesn't cost you anything. Even, if drives can last with bad sectors without going worse over time. (I have two myself, but they were used already, so I kept them, but I do use them only for the OS in my PowerMac G4 and keep the personal files that are worth something to me on a second drive, just in case.) - on the other hand, you will not know, if a replacement will last, too. But chances are good, that you do not get a bad one two times ;)

Although there is no clear indicator, if one manufacturer is better, if you look at xlr8yourmac.com in the HDD-database, you find that Hitachi and WD drives get the best reviews, while Maxtor/Seagate reviews seem to talk about these drives having caused problems from time to time, when upgraded in a PowerMac G5. But that was some years ago. (Hitachi is no more, but you can also look for Toshiba). That said, you could still do well with a/your Seagate.
 
I suppose I might have to keep it since Microcenter is in another state and I don't need to go up that way.

I will look at Tech Tool Pro. Does Smart Utlility do anything else besides showing wether the drive Passes or fails?

I will check xlr8yourmac. thanks for the link.
 
That Utility is just a human readable output of what every Hard Drive saves as data bout itself. Read more about S.M.A.R.T on Wikipedia. It is very interesting and describes, why interpreting smart parameters can be difficult, because manufacturers set the thresholds to their liking and telling hardware problems by SMART only is problematic anyway, though it gives you a good hint.

This utility, as I said will show you the info the Hard Drive has collected (about) itself (while Disk Tool Pro is an actual testing suite). In SMART Utility, if you click on "more info" or what it is called, you will get a full set of parameters (do a screenshot of it, so you do not have to restart it every time and save some starts of the trial version).
It also reports, if a drive has problems being loaded or if it is abnormally slow. Read more about, what each attribute means under the wikipedia article. (They even have some examples in that article, Seagate drives are known for coming with a high Raw Read Error Rate right from the factory and it does not say something about the drive, but that the way the SMART parameters were set, may not be adequate. The english article does not have that Seagate info, I found that in the german version)
english: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S.M.A.R.T.#History_and_predecessors

A Google study (they do studies about their drives in their servers) revealed that in 64% of the cases a SMART parameter gave early warning of the drive failing. http://research.google.com/archive/disk_failures.pdf

Also, Seagate has an own SMART Diagnostics Tool. In the case of WD I know, that it will show drives as perfect, that other Utilities will show as failing. Here is a comparison, while the text is in German, you can compare the English pictures in post #1 and #5 http://www.macuser.de/forum/thema/535019-Defekte-Sektoren-oder-doch-nicht-Smart-Utility-vs-DiskTools
 
Sorry, did you read it by yourself first? This is only the window that shows the model and specs.

I meant that more info, that is under that as "show all", Sorry! It is written in red in your case.
 
Last edited:
sorry I didn't realize I was on the wrong one. I thought later that it seemed wrong so here should be it:
 
As the wikipedia article (at least the german one) said, this drive shows the typical Seagate very high "seek error rate" already from the beginning, which, while it is common in these drives, gives no real information, but looking at the "value" "worst" and "threshold" you see that it is still good. You have to read it like that: the parameter got as worse as 60 and 30 would be the line, which Seagate determines as a problem. If your count falls under the 30 (like 29 for value "worst") it would say that it is considered un-normal by Seagate.

The "high fly writes" say the write-head moved out of its supposed range 4 times. threshold says it is ok, as long as you do not get a "0" in the "worst" column. What that helps, is not understandable for me.

The bad sectors say they have been reallocated. So they have been replaced by the reserve sectors that every drive has. The threshold says you are good as long the category with the name "worst" does not meet or is under 36.

So, this drive should be ok.

You said microcenter is too far off, do they not accept shipping items to them? I mean you will probably be fine with the article, but since this already has 8 bad sectors when bought, I would go the save route. You could also call them and email them your screenshot and ask what they think of it.
You can btw. choose the screenshot app to just take a picture of the window, that would make you more private and you won't tell the guys something about you and they will treat you more as someone anonymous they expect to insist on his customer rights (yes, I know I am over exaggerating psychology here) - if you are emailing, if you phone they might judge from your voice.

If you do not want to open SMART Utility again (to save another opening) you can also use preview app to watch the screenshot and then draw a frame of the interesting part with the preview app and hit "copy" and the "new from scratch" (or what it is called) and save it.
 
thanks for the info. I see if I can contact MC tell them what the problem is and ask if I can mail or something.

They should have a program that shows the HD as having bad sectors shouldn't they?
 
got Mac Tuneup today and ran it on the seagate HD.
this is what it shows:



I am wondering why one shows its good and the other one shows it has bad sectors.
 
After running this test, do the SMART tools still see bad sectors, when you click on "update smart info" or on "run longtime test"?

Maybe the sectors have been reassigned to reserve sectors and therefore they are not seen as defective anymore (by a tool that searches for actural bad sectors), because, they (their addresses) have been replaced by working ones. SMART will tell you, even, if there have been bad sectors and they have been repaired.
 
still shows failing. I'd return it but I lost my receipt for it.
 
Ok

But why would there be a difference between the two programs? I thought the scan was the same with both programs so then why would one not show its failing
 
Let me put it in an example which is not accurate, but:
imagine your hard drive has 100 sectors (it is actually over 100.000) these make up 1TB together.
But there is also 10 e3xtra sectors, where you can not write to.
Now 8 of the 100 sectors get defective, the drive now tells itself, "don't try to write anything here any longer, use the new 8 from the 10 extra sectors, that were not accessable before". 8 of the 10 sectors that before could not be used are now "active" and the 8 bad sectors from the 100 "visible" sectors are no longer seen instead.

S.M.A.R.T now records: "I have once replaced my bad sectors!" which is why it says "reallocated bad sectors" (locus = Latin for place. re = again, so it means something like puting a new place to it).
S.M.A.R.T is not a test suite, it is kind of a recording protocoll. Like someone sitting in your car and writing down a note, everytime you push the pedal or put the light on).

The Test suite (in your second post) really searches the drive for bad sectors. It does not know what is where. It just looks up every sector and trys to write/read to it. Because the bad sectors have gotten a new addresss by the hard drive itself, before, the Test suite only sees the newly assigned "places" of the sectors.

You did not read the wikipedia article about S.M.A.R.T, right? ;)


SMART Utility reads the diagnose of the HDD itself.
MacTuneUp is a real test suite, it creates its information on its own, by testing.
 
That makes sense. I just thought all programs scan the same way.
 
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