smartctl reports extremely high (bogus) values

[Lars Volker]

Binary package hint: smartmontools

For the disk in my Lenovo T400, smartctl seems to report wrong values. In the attached logfile produced with "-d ata -a /dev/sda" the value for the lifespan in hours is 56006373544470. I have not seen this in the past and it might as well be a faulty drive.

I also noticed the "Not in smartctl database" line and installed version smartctl 5.40 2010-07-12 r3124 from http://packages.debian.org/sid/amd64/smartmontools/download. The result is contained in the attached smart-new file.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 10.04
Package: smartmontools 5.38-3ubuntu3
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.32-27.49-generic 2.6.32.26+drm33.12
Uname: Linux 2.6.32-27-generic x86_64
NonfreeKernelModules: fglrx
Architecture: amd64
Date: Fri Dec 31 14:51:44 2010
InstallationMedia: Xubuntu 10.04 "Lucid Lynx" - Alpha amd64 (20100415)
ProcEnviron:
 LANG=de_DE.utf8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
SourcePackage: smartmontools

[Christian Franke (christian-franke)]

This is not an Ubuntu specific issue. SMART attributes and especially the raw values are not standardized at all.

The Power_On_Hours value 56006373544470 = 0x32f000001216 suggests that the raw bytes encode two values. This looks somewhat similar to the format used by Sandforce based SSDs: 32-bit hours count (lower 4 bytes) + 24-bit milliseconds count (using reserved byte).

If 0x1216 = 4630 hours is a reasonable value for this drive please whether
  -v 9,msec24hour32
produces reasonable output (this requires smartmontools >= 5.40 ... r3133).

An ST9250827AS with older(?) firmware "3.AHC" produced normal Power_On_Hours values.