Score:0

Gnome Disks' false report?

gs flag

I have a 3.5" HDD connected to my laptop via a SATA-USB adapter (JMicron). Gnome Disks "Assessment" section says:

Disk is OK, one bad sector

And the "SMART Data & Self-Tests" window looks like this:

Main "SMART Data & Self-Tests" window

With the strange "Updated: 52 years, 9 months and 23 days ago" field.

Refreshing and starting self-tests also not functioning:

Refresh error

Self-Test error

However, smartctl -a doesn't show any bad sectors (if I'm correct):

smartctl 7.3 2022-02-28 r5338 [x86_64-linux-5.19.15-201.fc36.x86_64] (local build)
Copyright (C) 2002-22, Bruce Allen, Christian Franke, www.smartmontools.org

=== START OF INFORMATION SECTION ===
Model Family:     SAMSUNG SpinPoint F3
Device Model:     SAMSUNG HD103SJ
Firmware Version: 1AJ10001
User Capacity:    1,000,204,886,016 bytes [1.00 TB]
Sector Size:      512 bytes logical/physical
Rotation Rate:    7200 rpm
Form Factor:      3.5 inches
Device is:        In smartctl database 7.3/5319
ATA Version is:   ATA8-ACS T13/1699-D revision 6
SATA Version is:  SATA 2.6, 3.0 Gb/s
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:  (0x00) Offline data collection activity
                    was never started.
                    Auto Offline Data Collection: Disabled.
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:        ( 9240) 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.
                    General Purpose Logging supported.
Short self-test routine 
recommended polling time:    (   2) minutes.
Extended self-test routine
recommended polling time:    ( 154) minutes.
SCT capabilities:          (0x003f) SCT Status supported.
                    SCT Error Recovery Control supported.
                    SCT Feature Control supported.
                    SCT Data Table supported.

SMART Attributes Data Structure revision number: 16
Vendor Specific SMART Attributes with Thresholds:
ID# ATTRIBUTE_NAME          FLAG     VALUE WORST THRESH TYPE      UPDATED  WHEN_FAILED RAW_VALUE
  1 Raw_Read_Error_Rate     0x002f   100   100   051    Pre-fail  Always       -       48
  2 Throughput_Performance  0x0026   056   056   000    Old_age   Always       -       8387
  3 Spin_Up_Time            0x0023   071   069   025    Pre-fail  Always       -       9027
  4 Start_Stop_Count        0x0032   088   088   000    Old_age   Always       -       12587
  5 Reallocated_Sector_Ct   0x0033   252   252   010    Pre-fail  Always       -       0
  7 Seek_Error_Rate         0x002e   252   252   051    Old_age   Always       -       0
  8 Seek_Time_Performance   0x0024   252   252   015    Old_age   Offline      -       0
  9 Power_On_Hours          0x0032   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       11581
 10 Spin_Retry_Count        0x0032   252   252   051    Old_age   Always       -       0
 11 Calibration_Retry_Count 0x0032   252   252   000    Old_age   Always       -       0
 12 Power_Cycle_Count       0x0032   089   089   000    Old_age   Always       -       11952
191 G-Sense_Error_Rate      0x0022   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       107
192 Power-Off_Retract_Count 0x0022   252   252   000    Old_age   Always       -       0
194 Temperature_Celsius     0x0002   063   053   000    Old_age   Always       -       37 (Min/Max 16/47)
195 Hardware_ECC_Recovered  0x003a   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       0
196 Reallocated_Event_Count 0x0032   252   252   000    Old_age   Always       -       0
197 Current_Pending_Sector  0x0032   252   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       0
198 Offline_Uncorrectable   0x0030   252   252   000    Old_age   Offline      -       0
199 UDMA_CRC_Error_Count    0x0036   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       21
200 Multi_Zone_Error_Rate   0x002a   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       1423
223 Load_Retry_Count        0x0032   252   252   000    Old_age   Always       -       0
225 Load_Cycle_Count        0x0032   099   099   000    Old_age   Always       -       12629

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%     11581         -
# 2  Short offline       Completed without error       00%     11560         -
# 3  Extended offline    Completed without error       00%     11530         -
# 4  Extended offline    Completed without error       00%     11442         -
# 5  Extended offline    Aborted by host               90%     11440         -
# 6  Short offline       Completed without error       00%     11440         -
# 7  Short offline       Completed without error       00%       133         -
# 8  Short offline       Completed without error       00%       133         -
# 9  Short offline       Aborted by host               60%       133         -
#10  Short offline       Aborted by host               90%       133         -

SMART Selective self-test log data structure revision number 0
Note: revision number not 1 implies that no selective self-test has ever been run
 SPAN  MIN_LBA  MAX_LBA  CURRENT_TEST_STATUS
    1        0        0  Completed [00% left] (0-65535)
    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.

What's going on? Could someone please explain this?

uz flag
Jos
"Updated: 52 years, 9 months and 23 days ago"... So 1 January 1970. As in, date zero for Unix systems. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unix_time
Score:0
ao flag

You should run the following SMART Tests first:

sudo smartctl --test=long /dev/sdX

And then you can run

sudo smartctl --log=selftest
sudo smartctl --log=error

This output should give you more insights.

But please understand SMART tests are self tests performed by the disk firmware itself. What if the firmware is designed to show false positives? While GNOME disks utility is showing you the real data?

There is another program which also helps detect bad blocks

sudo badblocks -v /dev/sdX > bad-sectors.txt

The above command shall write the information about bad-blocks to the file (or stdout if you remopve the redirection) while it will give status information in stderr. Just be aware that this command takes a considerable amount of time to run.

I had also faced a similar problem. Bad blocks gave me the following output, while GNOME disks utility still kept saying 1 bad sector

Checking blocks 0 to 500107607 Checking for bad blocks (read-only test): done
Pass completed, 0 bad blocks found. (0/0/0 errors)

I sit in a Tesla and translated this thread with Ai:

mangohost

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