As posted by datestardi from you know where...
"""I wouldn't assume that an M.C. error is meaningless and ignorable without official notice from Samsung. The maintenance cylinder is the single most important part of the disk surface (even more important than track 0), containing information that may be critical for proper drive operation in both common (every-day) situations and less common (future) situations - like low/high temperatures conditions, high vibration/off-track conditions, sector reallocation, etc.
(If the M.C. errors are being caused by a bug in HUTIL and the drives are actually error-free, I assume Samsung will soon officially make that known if they haven't already.)
My guess (and it's only a guess, assuming that HUTIL is correct) is that Samsung may use the "maintenance cylinder" for the location of spare sectors and/or to track the location of faulty sectors. The M.C. error may be preventing the drive from locating spare sectors and/or "reallocating" faulty sectors to spare sectors when the drive's own diagnostics indicate that data sectors are faulty (e.g. because they have ECC errors).
This may be why many (most?) people with M.C. errors also have ECC errors in the simple and full surface scans of data sectors. (My understanding is: New drives shouldn't have any ECC scan errors. Data sectors with ECC errors should have been reallocated to spare sectors at the factory during the burn-in test just prior to shipment, but perhaps this is not happening because of the M.C. error. Sectors which are reallocated at the factory do not show up as "reallocated" sectors when a SMART utility is run; new drives almost always shows zero reallocated sectors in SMART, the zero meaning no sectors have been reallocated since leaving the factory, even though the new drive may have many factory reallocated sectors.)
Another possibility (guess) for the F1 is that the drives' spare sector areas are being fully filled (or mostly filled) with data from reallocated sectors before the drives leave the factory (due to ECC errors detected during burn-in), and this is giving rise to the M.C. error as a warning message.
Of course, it's best to listen to Samsung on this one (and I haven't seen anything official from them yet).
Samsung's possible use of the maintenance cylinder for faulty sector mapping:
http://v3.espacenet.com/textdoc?DB=EPODOC&...4190185&F=0
Some other Samsung uses of the maintenance cylinder:
http://v3.espacenet.com/textdoc?DB=EPODOC&...6624957&F=0
"The outermost zone, cylinder CYL_M, is reserved as a maintenance cylinder to record essential data necessary for the maintenance of the magnetic disk recording apparatus. This essential data may be, for example, a list of defects in the sectors of the disk, the data of spare sectors, parameters of the read/write channels, etc."
and more:
http://v3.espacenet.com/textdoc?DB=EPODOC&...5078393&F=0
"Information is stored in the annular tracks 134 on the disc 112. Generally, the disc 112 has a data zone where user data is written, a parking zone where a head is located when the drive is not used, and a maintenance cylinder. Values such as a type of a head, write parameter correction values "A" and "B" at low and high temperatures, and write parameter correction values "a" and "b" according to the type of the head, are stored in the maintenance cylinder.""""
Samsung refuses to say anything about this, I personally have called them for over two weeks now, no reply. "Korea not getting back to us"
Is this a real problem??
SYROB
