[smartmontools-support] Drive is dead, but SMART overall-health self-assessment is PASSED?!?
Franc Zabkar
fzabkar at internode.on.net
Thu Sep 17 01:34:46 CEST 2026
Sigh, it's too late to tell you now, but you should use the inductor as
the voltage test point, not the IC.
The usual reason for "SATAFIRM S11" failures is corruption in the Flash
Translation Layer (FTL). Alternatively, there could be a problem with
the Vcc/Vccq NAND power supplies, but that would be rare.
There is a "DIY data recovery tool for Phison SSDs":
https://www.hddoracle.com/viewtopic.php?p=25370#p25370
There are also data destructive methods for recovering SSD functionality.
-Franc
On 17-Sep-26 9:26 AM, David Niklas via Smartmontools-support wrote:
> Hello,
> I'd love to indulge you, but I'm afraid I'm never going to find out. I
> decided to poke at it to see if maybe one of the voltage rails was dead
> and that was why the drive died. In doing so, I accidentally shorted two
> of the 0.25mm pitch pins of one of the buck regulators. Now the regulator
> is dead.
>
> Thanks,
> David
>
> On Wed, 16 Sep 2026 17:50:07 -0300
> "Thane K. Sherrington" <thane at computerconnectionltd.com> wrote:
>> What does smartctl -x /dev/sdb generate?
>>
>>
>> On 2026-09-16 4:12 p.m., David Niklas via Smartmontools-support wrote:
>>> Hello,
>>> I had an SSD die on my recently. It was very sudden. No warning at
>>> all. My data is backed up.
>>>
>>> It's a Patriot Burst 960GB drive. It had about 70% health remaining
>>> and it is about 5 years old. "Spinning rust" really looks like a good
>>> option when your other choice is "non-spinning money-eater".
>>>
>>> The partition table and MBR are not accessible. I only managed to get
>>> a full SMART log out of the drive once. The smart log is just wrong.
>>> E.G. the drive has not been power cycled 16056564 times. Likewise,
>>> the value doesn't increment when unplugged/plugged. I tried running a
>>> long self-test, but, as mentioned above, I couldn't view the results.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> But why does the drive say, "SMART overall-health self-assessment test
>>> result: PASSED" ?!?! Shouldn't it say, "Failed"?
>>>
>>> Thanks!
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Attached below is the SMART log:
>>> # smartctl -a /dev/sdb
>>> smartctl 7.4 2023-08-01 r5530 [x86_64-linux-6.12.XX] (local build)
>>> Copyright (C) 2002-23, Bruce Allen, Christian Franke,
>>> www.smartmontools.org
>>>
>>> === START OF INFORMATION SECTION ===
>>> Device Model: SATAFIRM S11
>>> Serial Number: XXX
>>> LU WWN Device Id: 0 000000 000000000
>>> Firmware Version: SBFMJ1W3
>>> User Capacity: 960,197,124,096 bytes [960 GB]
>>> Sector Size: 512 bytes logical/physical
>>> Rotation Rate: Solid State Device
>>> Form Factor: 2.5 inches
>>> TRIM Command: Available
>>> Device is: Not in smartctl database 7.3/5528
>>> ATA Version is: ACS-4 (minor revision not indicated)
>>> SATA Version is: SATA 3.2, 6.0 Gb/s (current: 1.5 Gb/s)
>>> Local Time is: Tue Sep 15 23:14:06 2026 EDT
>>> SMART support is: Available - device has SMART capability.
>>> SMART support is: Disabled
>>>
>>> SMART Disabled. Use option -s with argument 'on' to enable it.
>>> (override with '-T permissive' option)
>>>
>>>
>>> # smartctl -s on -a /dev/sdb
>>> smartctl 7.4 2023-08-01 r5530 [x86_64-linux-6.12.XX] (local build)
>>> Copyright (C) 2002-23, Bruce Allen, Christian Franke,
>>> www.smartmontools.org
>>>
>>> === START OF INFORMATION SECTION ===
>>> Device Model: SATAFIRM S11
>>> Serial Number: XXX
>>> LU WWN Device Id: 0 000000 000000000
>>> Firmware Version: SBFMJ1W3
>>> User Capacity: 960,197,124,096 bytes [960 GB]
>>> Sector Size: 512 bytes logical/physical
>>> Rotation Rate: Solid State Device
>>> Form Factor: 2.5 inches
>>> TRIM Command: Available
>>> Device is: Not in smartctl database 7.3/5528
>>> ATA Version is: ACS-4 (minor revision not indicated)
>>> SATA Version is: SATA 3.2, 6.0 Gb/s (current: 1.5 Gb/s)
>>> Local Time is: Tue Sep 15 23:14:10 2026 EDT
>>> SMART support is: Available - device has SMART capability.
>>> SMART support is: Disabled
>>>
>>> === START OF ENABLE/DISABLE COMMANDS SECTION ===
>>> SMART 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: (65535) seconds.
>>> Offline data collection
>>> capabilities: (0x79) SMART execute Offline
>>> immediate. No Auto Offline data collection support.
>>> Suspend Offline collection
>>> upon new command.
>>> Offline surface scan
>>> supported. Self-test supported.
>>> 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: ( 30) minutes.
>>> Conveyance self-test routine
>>> recommended polling time: ( 6) minutes.
>>>
>>> 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 0x000b 100
>>> 100 050 Pre-fail Always - 0 9 Power_On_Hours
>>> 0x0012 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 271978
>>> 12 Power_Cycle_Count 0x0012 100 100 000 Old_age
>>> Always - 16056564 168 Unknown_Attribute 0x0012
>>> 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 0 170
>>> Unknown_Attribute 0x0003 018 018 010 Pre-fail Always
>>> - 360777253178 173 Unknown_Attribute 0x0012 100
>>> 100 000 Old_age Always - 281474976710655 192
>>> Power-Off_Retract_Count 0x0012 100 100 000 Old_age Always
>>> - 0 194 Temperature_Celsius 0x0023 067 067 000
>>> Pre-fail Always - 33 (Min/Max 0/33) 218
>>> Unknown_Attribute 0x000b 100 100 050 Pre-fail Always
>>> - 0 231 Unknown_SSD_Attribute 0x0013 100 100 000
>>> Pre-fail Always - 0 241 Total_LBAs_Written 0x0012
>>> 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 34226040839
>>>
>>> SMART Error Log Version: 1
>>> No Errors Logged
>>>
>>> SMART Self-test log structure revision number 0
>>> Warning: ATA Specification requires self-test log structure revision
>>> number = 1 No self-tests have been logged. [To run self-tests, use:
>>> smartctl -t]
>>>
>>> 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 Not_testing
>>> 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.
>>>
>>> The above only provides legacy SMART information - try 'smartctl -x'
>>> for more
>>>
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> Smartmontools-support mailing list
>>> Smartmontools-support at listi.jpberlin.de
>>> https://listi.jpberlin.de/mailman/listinfo/smartmontools-support
>>
> _______________________________________________
> Smartmontools-support mailing list
> Smartmontools-support at listi.jpberlin.de
> https://listi.jpberlin.de/mailman/listinfo/smartmontools-support
More information about the Smartmontools-support
mailing list