m15 R1, failing hard drive (end to end error)

Question

Hi everyone,

Today I faced an issue, I was trying to watch a movie after turning on my laptop and it was struggling to load properly. I brushed it off as the hard drive being under stress during startup (and I think my AV was running in the background) , but I decided to take a look at my S.M.A.R.T parameters.

To my surprise I saw that the end-to-end Error and ultra dma CRC error counts have gone from 0 to 1. I don't know when they became 1,I don't check SMART regularly, many months back, my system failed to detect the drive, but it was fixed after a restart.
Now support assist & seatools don't indicate an error (running all tests short & long) but searching up the end-to-end error on the web, having an end-to-end error means that the Hard drive PCB is about to fail.

Should I be asking for my hard drive to be replaced ? My laptop is still under warranty and data loss is my biggest fear.
I have already ordered an external HDD so I can backup the entire drive contents.

crimsom · Answer

Hi @Mo_yi

Support for Alienware m15 R1 Storage says fast or ultrafast M.2 2280 PCIe Gen3 x4 NVMe cards can be used. Slow SATA should not be your OS(C:) boot drive. Clone the existing SATA boot drive to a NVMe boot drive using Macrium Software | Reflect Free Edition and use GPT partition format so that the BIOS boot list option UEFI can be enabled to provide a modern drive system configuration. There will be a dramatic increase in Alienware m15 R1 performance.

As part of your disaster Recovery Plan, creating a boot drive copy in the cloud should be considered just in case it becomes unrecoverable.

Please share an update on progress, so that other users derive benefit from your experience. Thank you.

ejn63 · Answer

You will need to run the Dell diagnostics before you can call for replacement. F12 a few times at powerup will get you to the diagnostic tools.

If you see an error such as 2000-0142, record it along with the validation code and contact Dell support.

If the drive passes the diagnostic, Dell won't replace it, but as with any hard drive there are two types: those that have failed, and those that will fail, so keep backups current at all times. This is particularly true if the drive is a Seagate, which have both high failure rates and a reputation for being very difficult to recover data from when they do fail.

Mo_yi · Answer

Hi, that's not the case. The SSHD is my secondary D drive. My C drive is my ssd.

crimsom · Answer

Hi @Mo_yi  thank you for sharing update. Your opening post text did not reveal that information. Seemingly the OS(C:) boot drive is a fast 256GB M.2 2280 Samsung PM981 Phoenix PCIe Gen3 x4, NVMe 1.2 Solid State Drive [Here]. The Data drive is a slow SATA 5400 RPM 1TB Seagate FireCuda 2.5-inch ST1000LX015-1U7172 Solid State Hybrid Drive [Below average Benchmark].

crimsom · Answer

Hi @Mo_yi mobile laptops should have sold-state drives and not mechanical hard disk drives that can be damaged when laptop gets a thump and/or bounced around in transit. There are other SATA options for the 2.5-inch bay. For example: Dual-Slot M.2 Drive to SATA Adapter for 2.5-inch Drive Bay.

Dual-Slot M.2 Drive to SATA Adapter for 2.5-inch Drive Bay

Mo_yi · Answer

Thank you for the suggestion. However, the current arrangement which is in my laptop (256GB SSD + 1TB SSHD) is what was available from Alienware. I am not planning to modify my laptop until the end of the warranty period so that I don't accidentally void it.

Mo_yi · Answer

Hi !
Thanks for the tip. I did the drive tests through ePSA. Also did the short and long test on Support assist, they passed.

But I am still quite concerned about this variable change. Sources on the internet do point towards drive failure once you see this. My old Dell laptop (which had a very similar SSHD for 5 years) and all my other externals do not have this error show up on them.

A51-06 · Answer

Have you tried moving some of the DATA from the SSHD to an external HDD? and then you can store unimportant files as a test incase the drive stops working? I would also recommend downloading SpeedFan as it has a S.M.A.R.T Tab aswell as a short r+w test and a long r+w test. Plus a Fitness and Preformance Bar.

Mo_yi · Answer

Thanks, that is what I am going to do. I have ordered an external HDD and Will move data and do a full backup once I have it.

I am using Hdsentinel which does this alongside logging, seems to be a decent one. For the tests I use a mixture of what is there on seatools and support assist

Alienware

m15 R1, failing hard drive (end to end error)

Was this post helpful?