New Spinpoint Failing Long and Short DST

[osaddict]

I've just installed a new Samsung Spinpoint 1TB SATA drive in to my PC. It arrive last night and just installed today.

I decided to do some diagnostic tests on the drive before using it to make sure it was ok... to my horror and dismay its failed both long and short DST tests in Seagate Tools for Windows (note, Windows not dos)

It passed a short generic and a long generic is running now, and has been for ages.

So... should I be ripping this out and asking eBuyer (eek!) for a refund or what?

[Thrax]

Yes.

[osaddict]

I thought as much : /

Thanks Thrax.

What exactly does DST stand for and how does it differ from long and shot generic tests?

[Thrax]

Drive self-test. It basically means that even the drive knows it's broken.

[osaddict]

oh dear, back to eBuyer I go :( bugger!

[osaddict]

Hmm, I looked at Samsung's website: http://www.samsung.com/global/business/hdd/support/utilities/ES_Tool.html

And tried the EStool they mention - I did ALL the tests, 5 hours later, it passed every single one.

Someone mentioned the firmware on the Samsung drives may be why it's failing those tests, as it's not written in it to actually do those tests or something?! - Could that make sense?

[Leonardo]

If Samsung's diagnostic/test software shows the drive to be fit, then it probably is. Seagate Tools is good software, but it's my assumption that the manufacturer's in-house software is more accurate than an outside party's.

If it's working well, I see no need to return it, given your results with Samsung's diagnostics.

[Thrax]

As a final pass, you could try Hitachi DFT, but a sector scan is a sector scan and a SMART test is a SMART test. They're industry-standardized.

[Leonardo]

As a final pass, you could try Hitachi DFT, but a sector scan is a sector scan and a SMART test is a SMART test. They're industry-standardized.Thanks for educating me.

Why would the one diagnostic software give him a pass while the other alerted to drive errors? Just a matter of the drive working properly, but only part of the time?

[osaddict]

Well, it did pass the SMART test on the Samsung tools. I'm creating a cd of the Hitachi Tools now, we shall see.

[osaddict]

Right, well the Hitachi thing didn't pick up any of my drives! - I was given an option to run in mode 1 or 2 - SCSI and ATA support or just ATA. I plumped for 2, just ATA on the first go, as I don't have any SCSI equipment on this PC (to my knowledge?!). This didn't detect the drive, and prompted for a serial number, which I attempted to enter, but it was too long - me thinks that serial number detection may be limited to Hitachi Drives. I tried using option 1 too (SCSI and ATA) and the same thing happened.

I then tried Sea Tools again, only via Dos this time rather than the Windows version - so on boot. This firstly on a CD caused an interupt divide by zero error, secondly I tried it on a usb stick formatted as a floppy boot and it didn't run at all.

So, still not able to try other diagnostic tools to test it. It seems odd that Sea Tools didn't work - the CD version I have used at work a bunch of times and it works flawlessly, didn't want to run as CD or Floppy version on my pc :/

Still reluctant to actually use this new drive, but tricky to warrant an RMA when it passes the manufacturers tools absolutly fine!

A google about Sea Tools and Spinpoints doesn't reveal much either - with Spinpoints being so popular if there was a known problem I thought there would be something on it.

Now, if only I knew someone with a fairly new Spinpoint I could ask to try lol.