622 with external Segate HDD issues

[Smith P.]

Glad you got it right.

But, really - admit: you're missed with the bad sectors solution .

 

[bookworm370]

Ok, Uncle. But I was pretty sure that on a SMART drive that a sector that reports an error is marked by the drive firmware as unavailable. A format just forces the SMART firmware to recognize the fact because something writes to it that will accept a write ECC error code.

On the old IDE drives you did have to run a sector marking tools. I was unaware that was still the case on Sata and SMART technology. That's one of the main reasons why no one ever hears of having to do a 'low level' format like you used to have to do on ESDI or IDE drives.

One of the reasons is that I have some really good ops folks and I've never heard of them using MHDD to recover a drive. Unless they use something behind the scenes but then again, if we get a drive error EMC generally is there before we know it and replaces the da__m thing anyway.

 

[Smith P.]

Tell me about ST-506 disks ...

Remember - I mentioned it would take an hour for explain details. Anyway, that free program did nice work for some big companies here and cut expenses with those Deathstar HDD in desktops and especially in notebooks (Ontrack/DataRescue probably wasn't happy with it ). As to the server's SCSI disks, that wasn't the issue - better FW and RAIDs with hot-swap disks really simplified the hurdles.

As to SATA/IDE disk - FW will reassign bad sector only after certain number of attempts to access it, so if OS do own marks (FAT, NTFS, HPFS, etc) the threshold will be never reached.

 

[MikeD-C05]

GEEK talk anyone?

 

[KAB]

Geekosterone levels are high around here.

 

[Smith P.]

For you guys: just follow the MHDD advise what you reading and skip geek's discussion.

 

[bookworm370]

Remember all, us Geeks do have the secret evil plot to take over the world! Wait, we have!!!

BTW, Colonel, what's the story, did anything fix your drive or did you decide to chuck and buy a new one?

 

[LT Colonel]

Well, I've tried every option. Disk management format did not work, a day and a half low level format and that didn't work. I really hate i even attempted to do this.

Does anyone know if you can take an off the shelf WD External Hard Drive and use it with a 622? So much for DishNet's recommended solution!

LTC

 

[Smith P.]

W have hundred posts what share the disk models using successfully as EHD for Dish DVR. Check those threads.

 

[glen242]

Seagate, in my opinion, is still crap after 20 years! Had problems with Seagate HD in the '80s, was called sticon or something like that. The head(s) would stick to the platter and the drive was done. Seagate would never acknowledge the problem. Went to WD after that. Had very good luck with them.

Fast forward 20-25 years. Dish endorsed the Seagate EHDs. I figured, after all these years, Seagate finally got it right. Bought a Seagate Freeagent drive to use as an EHD. Lasted less then three months in interment use - drive was unplugged when not in use. By this time, I had transfered quite a few programs. Could not retrieve anything from the drive. Used Linux programs and the drive was not recognized. Used U**** something program, same results. I THREW the Seagate against the wall!

I am using 2 WD Mybook HDs now, and have been for over 6 months. Same operating perameters as with the Seagate (Seacrate as they were called), without a problem.

I believe Seagate is still crap, and will never purchase another.

 

[BuddyBoy]

FWIW: I believe the way most people map out bad sectors is with a vendor supplied tool, such as SeaTools from Seagate, which you can download from their web site. When you do a "long test", and the tool detects read failures, you are offered the option to rescan the drive and map the bad sectors out. The tool uses the ATA command "READ VERIFY SECTORS" over the entire drive to identify the bad sectors and then map them out. I'm not completely sure which ATA command is used to remap the bad sectors - I believe a write to the same sector that just failed a READ VERIFY SECTORS will cause a spare sector to be allocated, but I'm not 100% positive on this. ATA doesn't have a REASSIGN BLOCKS command like SCSI. I am unaware of any utility that does this that can run from within the host OS. Typically these tools are supplied on a floppy or CD with some version of DOS so you can boot from the media and then run the tool.

These days "formatting" your drive just means writing the file system's data structures to the disk, which wouldn't do anything about remapping bad sectors.

BTW, I have to snicker whenever I hear anyone brag about their "IT" experience. No one I know with an EE or CS degree from a decent school (including myself) is in "IT". IT grunts typically know less than the people they're supposed to support. The only reason we need them is that developers at my company get paid way too much to spend their time doing the mundane tasks that the IT grunts perform.

 

[allargon]

These days "formatting" your drive just means writing the file system's data structures to the disk, which wouldn't do anything about remapping bad sectors.

BTW, I have to snicker whenever I hear anyone brag about their "IT" experience. No one I know with an EE or CS degree from a decent school (including myself) is in "IT". IT grunts typically know less than the people they're supposed to support. The only reason we need them is that developers at my company get paid way too much to spend their time doing the mundane tasks that the IT grunts perform.

My experience is that "IT grunt system administrators" make more money than most equivalent database administrators and developers/engineers/programmers. Only the architect level programmers/developers tend to make more.

 

[BuddyBoy]

My experience is that "IT grunt system administrators" make more money than most equivalent database administrators and developers/engineers/programmers. Only the architect level programmers/developers tend to make more.

Senior developers where I work make about $200k/yr in cash compensation if you include profit sharing bonuses, which everyone in the company receives. IT support folks make about 60% of that. We use the Radford salary surveys just like every other company in the valley does, and we benchmark our compensation against Google, Yahoo, Oracle, Salesforce.com, and all the other big companies that participate in the Radford surveys whom we consider competitors for our employees. As a manager I have access to all of the survey numbers, including all the positions above mine, so I'm pretty confident about those figures.

 

[Smith P.]

Can we return to the topic ?

622 with external Segate HDD issues

[Why not continue offtopic discussion in dedicated new thread ?]

 

[glen242]

Can we return to the topic ?

622 with external Segate HDD issues

[Why not continue offtopic discussion in dedicated new thread ?]

Because some are into the 'My organ , salary, education, is greater than yours', and they want everyone to know what fine, superior fellows they are.

Just my humble opinion.

 

[tnsprin]

I didn't see anyone mention the Biggest problem with using these Seagate drives with a VIP receiver. The receiver doesn't know how to wake them up completely. So the recommendation is to use the Seagate tools from a PC to turnoff the power saving features before using them.

Not sure about it causing a reboot, but I've certainly seen some strange behavior when the receiver is using the drive and it powers down. Some functions work, e.g. sometimes you can watch something from it, but then when you try to write to it, you get failures. Othertimes it will show a directory, but refuses to play. And sometimes it just shows space but refuses all other actions.