Samsung Internal Drives

[dbc00per]

I have a Samsung HD103SJ hard disk that's been giving me issues. The last week or so, Windows chkdsk started running upon boot (every 2-3 cold boots?) finding issues and "fixing" them.

Here's what I've done so far:

1. Ran HD Tune and it reported drive health as 0% horrible (whatever) - I looked at the SMART report it generated but I didn't save those values
2. Downloaded and ran the latest DOS version of SeaTools
1. Short test failed
2. Long test failed w/o an error code but found several bad sectors (8 total)
3. SeaTools wouldn't do anything more w/ the drive b/c it was a Samsung
3. Downloaded and ran ESTOOL (v3.01, © 2007)--thanks to the guy who posted about Hiren's Boot CD
1. Test on ESTOOL w/ surface scan failed, found 9 bad sectors, only 3 of which were the same LBA ID as what SeaTools found
2. ESTOOL recommended erasing the HDD then re-running surface scan
4. Backed up my data
5. Ran Low-level Format on drive via ESTOOL, completed successfully
6. Re-ran ESTOOL (w/ surface scan) on the drive, resulted in service code SJ25, test OK
7. Re-ran DOS SeaTools tests on the drive
1. Short test passed successfully
2. Long test failed w/ time out (but didn't note what sectors/LBA IDs had problems), the help advice window said "bad sectors found" -- the test ran ~3:15 so I assume it went all the way through
8. I ran some SMART inspection tool from Hiren's Boot CD and the parameters that HD Tune flagged w/ problems were still there

Is my drive "fixed" (I kinda doubt it)? I'm reluctant to go through the trouble of installing Windows and such only to discover a short time later that the underlying issues are still present.

Additionally, does SeaTools for DOS ever give a status code for Samsung drives?

Thanks.

Edit: I purchased the drive on 1/15/2011

[Cantbecanit]

There is a FW update for that drive, sadly thx to Samsung it's a mare to do, I have one myself and I've not managed to make the FW fix succesfully yet, there are googleable threads about it, mine is used to store so I don't think it will play up, but using it with an O/S leads to trouble iirc.

[yaph]

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Cantbecanit wrote:

There is a FW update for that drive, sadly thx to Samsung it's a mare to do, I have one myself and I've not managed to make the FW fix succesfully yet, there are googleable threads about it, mine is used to store so I don't think it will play up, but using it with an O/S leads to trouble iirc.

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My drive currently has firmware version 1AJ10001. When I look around for the Samsung firmware updates, my understanding is that my drive is already running the latest/a sufficiently recent firmware version.

Btw, I'm dbc00per, I just had to create a new forum screen name for my Seagate account (to do the RMA).

Overclock.net forum post regarding Samsung F3 firmware

[Cantbecanit]

If you've low level formatted it in ESTools and it's still failing tests I would recommend an rma tbh.