I’ve been working on some embedded projects. I’ve uploaded some USB code and example projects the other day, as well as some ws2812 code. I wrote some demos for the ws2812 code this morning, and in the afternoon I started working on some code to generate alphanumerical serial numbers based on the microcontroller’s serial number. Basically, some code I’ve written in the past, cleaning it up and preparing it for release. The serial number generation code worked fine, but I discovered by USB code still got some bugs. I thought I’d tested it the other day and found it working when I released it. So, I was debugging some code, fixed some bugs, and then my hard disk died without warning. There have been no SMART warnings, nothing. It just died out of the blue. The previous hard disk that failed at least gave prior warning it was about to fail.

I’ve bought this hard disk in November 2017, and the web shop where I bought it only gives 24 months of warranty. So I thought I was out of luck, and I went to the Mediamarkt to buy a replacement. As this was the second hard disk to fail on me in this laptop, I thought an SSD might be more reliable. In the past I’ve been reluctant to get an SSD because of the limited write cycles. But I guess SSDs have proven themselves it is not an issue. So, I bought an SSD at Mediamarkt. When I asked about the warranty, they told me it was 2 years from them, and a third year from the manufacturer. This gave me the idea to check at Seagate, and it seems there is still warranty on that hard disk. So I could get a replacement. (but I already got an SSD now)

But still… the data is gone. Not more then a day of work on the current code, but there was still some more old code I was planning to go through and see what is worth for release.

I wonder if it is actually the disk that died or the controller. The symptoms, it is not responsive on the SATA bus. The dmesg is telling it failed to reset, and gives up after three attempts. So I suspect the controller died. When I still assumed it was out of warranty, I went to look on eBay for replacements for the board. There are some broken (as-in SMART errors/bad sectors) disks to salvage the PCB from, for US$ 30 delivered. I was considering trying to revive the disks with a replacement PCB before I discovered there is still warranty on the disk. But now I can get a new disk. So now I have to make a choice. The data ain’t that interesting I guess… but neither is a new hard disk as I already replaced it.

« »