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I have a 1Tb external hdd, connected via USB2 to a laptop. I bought it second-hand, and started doing lots of checks to check for problems.

I've removed all partitions, and created an ext4 partition. Sure enough, problems started popping up. I've tried to use f3write to fill it and see what happens. The command failed because of IO errors. I then tries to use badblocks, but after 24h it still didn't finish, and it reported a lot of bad sectors. Tried repartirioning to ext, ext2. It even failed to create the partition this time. dmesg kept reporting errors no matter what I did related to the HDD.

I called the seller and he started telling me that he used the HDD in a router, so it was pretty static, so these shouldn't be any vibration-related damage. The guy told me he is willing to meet up and reimburse me, it seemed pretty surprised that there were problem, and suggested I should try again, and that he's sure everything is ok.

So i gave it another chance overnight, formatted the drive to vfat this time (as it was initially) and used f3write again. No errors this time, and f3read works wonderfully. dmesg is clear of errors, and the hdd reads everything correctly. The only thing that changed seems to be the filesystem.

Anybody encountered something like this? Is this a broken HDD or a broken firmware? Is there any chance I could format it as anything else except vfat, as I'd like to be able to actually use unix-style permissions?

Is there anything special that vfat does and ext4 might not do it identically? (I'm thinking maybe the drive reports the wrong sector size/count, or someting along thse lines)

EDIT:

The formatting & test writing was done on Kubuntu & Ubuntu server 18.04. I used Gnome Disks initially, then on Ubuntu Server I've used cfdisk to erase partitions, mkfs.ext4/vfat for fs creation, badblocks for testing, f3write/read for r/w testing.

SMART did report 120 reallocated sectors, now it's at 420. Smart self-tests failed with "Completed: servo/seek failure", and self-assesment said it passed.

The hdd in the enclosure seems to be SAMSUNG SpinPoint F2 EG.

One thing to note, smartctl has to be called with -d sat, otherwise it won't recognise the disk. By default seems to detect it as usbsunplus

Quamis
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    To start with, which version of Linux have you installed  (Ubuntu server, Ubuntu desktop, Kubuntu, Lubuntu, Xubuntu, Ubuntu MATE, et al.) , and which release number? Are you using virtualization, and if so, which package? Please click [edit] and add that vital information to your question so all the facts we need are in the question. Please do not use Add Comment. – K7AAY Mar 11 '20 at 18:26
  • I have used several file systems in external drives, and all of them work, if the drive is healthy, and the file system is created in a correct way. I suggest that you test the drive according to this link: S.M.A.R.T. information of HDD and SSD – sudodus Mar 11 '20 at 19:29
  • I've added more details – Quamis Mar 11 '20 at 20:34
  • Am I understanding correctly that the number of reallocated sectors has increased rapidly(?) from 120 to 420? That may indicate a problem. I must admit that I don't understand how to interpret the result, when it also states 'Passed'. – sudodus Mar 11 '20 at 20:41
  • @sudodus yes, it seems to have increased, but after switching to vfat, when no other errors occured, they stayed constant. As if using ext4 overloaded somehow the drive, or it used the drive in an undefined state. – Quamis Mar 11 '20 at 20:57
  • I am sorry for necro, but have you ever found a hint on why this was happening? I seem to have the same situation with a 500gb usb drive. I can partition it to vfat just fine. But ext4 fails when trying to write the superblocks - and I have no idea why – JodliDev Aug 14 '22 at 10:43
  • @JodliDev: I've replaced the internal hdd in the enclosure with an older hdd I had around and it worked correctly for some time. I suspect there was something with the firmware of the hdd enclosure. The drive started reporting errors about 1 year ago(but all data seemed to be intact) and I replaced it with a new external hdd in order to avoid more headaches. The hdd operates in a pretty harsh enviroments for electronics (a sunny room, with open windows, so in summer it might reach 40degs, in winter it might freeze, so I expect these hdd's to fail often – Quamis Aug 16 '22 at 10:53
  • Thank you for your response :) My guess was that it has something to do with the firmware as well. But in the end I formated it to exfat which seemd to have worked and fits my need as well. so I will probably never know for sure :D – JodliDev Aug 18 '22 at 08:32

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