Samsung ES-TOOL

[Ben]

Anyone here have any experience with the Samsung ES-TOOL?

As I mentioned in another thread, I had a Samsung drive die, so I figured I would fire this up and test all my drives. So far, I'm 2/2 with getting errors when running the "Drive Diagnostic" test.

The error is: AJ41 - Ram Error but the rest of the tests pass just fine. I've gotten this error on 2 different drives, so I'm a little concerned. I've done some Googling and it appears that this was an error with the software in previous version:

http://forums.overclockers.com.au/showpost.php?p=12608357&postcount=176

For the record, I'm using the latest version from Samsung's site 3.01v. I've verified this in the software itself, so I'm one step ahead of the "bad" version of 3.01g that that thread references.

Does anyone here have any Samsung drives they would feel comfortable testing that version with? Or do you think the software is (still) buggy? Should I issue an RMA on these drives (these ARE under warranty, miraculously).

If the software IS buggy, does anyone know how to get in touch with Samsung?

Thanks!

 

[Ben]

We'll I've ran all 4 drives and all 4 returned the same AJ41 error. One of those disks was manufactured in April of 2011. I also ran a full surface scan on one of the disks and no error was returned. At this point I'm thinking that the software is at fault and not the drives.

 

[Rob Williams]

I have no experience with Samsung hard drives or that tool at all, but I can say that sometimes software can be hit or miss. But in my experience, usually if the software states there is a problem, there usually is in fact a problem. But at the same time, I have no experience with that software in particular; I've only used Western Digital's and Seagate's own tools in the past.

Given that all four drives returned the same error though, I'd reckon that the software is buggy, or there could be an ATA problem. Are you able to haul out one of the drives and hook it up to another machine and run the software there?

 

[Kougar]

Sorry Ben, Samsung and Toshiba are the only two manufacturers I've never bought a drive from, else I'd test this for ya.

 

[Ben]

Rob got it!

I tested in my older rig, the Frankenbuild, pieced together with all kinds of junk and all tests passed.

So I'm guessing its just a compatibility issue with the software and the new Intel chipset I was using to test the drives with.

Whew!

Thanks all!

 

[Rob Williams]

Ahh, nice, good to hear

Hopefully there will be a new version of the software released to correct the problem sooner than later.