Internal hard drive becomes read only

Framework Laptop 16 Linux
1

I’m using:

  • Kubuntu 24.04
  • kernel version 6.8.0
  • bios version 03.05
  • CPU is AMD Ryzen 7 7840HS
  • no discrete GPU
  • hard drive is WD_BLACK SN770 1TB, which came with the box

–

Occasionally my system will act weird. Programs will no longer launch, they will fail in bizarre ways, and I can’t save documents. It appears that the hard drive has suddenly become read only (or possibly completely inaccessible). On reboot, the system comes back normally. There are unfortunately no system logs about the issue because they couldn’t be written.

This has happened a couple times over the course of a few months. Unfortunately both times, I did not have a terminal open already to debug and couldn’t launch one. I also don’t recall the details of what I was doing leading up to the issue but do recall I was not doing anything particularly intensive. I am keeping a terminal open now and will run any commands I and anyone else here can think of to debug when this issue recurs.

My computer is not damaged, has not been dropped or had liquid spilled on it, is kept clean, and I can’t think of anything I have done that would have caused this issue.

SMART details are:

=== START OF INFORMATION SECTION ===
Model Number: WD_BLACK SN770 1TB
Serial Number: xxx
Firmware Version: 731100WD
PCI Vendor/Subsystem ID: 0x15b7
IEEE OUI Identifier: 0x001b44
Total NVM Capacity: 1,000,204,886,016 [1.00 TB]
Unallocated NVM Capacity: 0
Controller ID: 0
NVMe Version: 1.4
Number of Namespaces: 1
Namespace 1 Size/Capacity: 1,000,204,886,016 [1.00 TB]
Namespace 1 Formatted LBA Size: 512
Namespace 1 IEEE EUI-64: 001b44 8b4cb04007
Local Time is: Thu Feb 27 23:02:04 2025 MST
Firmware Updates (0x14): 2 Slots, no Reset required
Optional Admin Commands (0x0017): Security Format Frmw_DL Self_Test
Optional NVM Commands (0x00df): Comp Wr_Unc DS_Mngmt Wr_Zero Sav/Sel_Feat Timestmp Verify
Log Page Attributes (0x7e): Cmd_Eff_Lg Ext_Get_Lg Telmtry_Lg Pers_Ev_Lg Log0_FISE_MI Telmtry_Ar_4
Maximum Data Transfer Size: 256 Pages
Warning Comp. Temp. Threshold: 84 Celsius
Critical Comp. Temp. Threshold: 88 Celsius
Namespace 1 Features (0x02): NA_Fields

Supported Power States
St Op Max Active Idle RL RT WL WT Ent_Lat Ex_Lat
0 + 5.00W 5.00W - 0 0 0 0 0 0
1 + 3.30W 3.00W - 0 0 0 0 0 0
2 + 2.20W 2.00W - 0 0 0 0 0 0
3 - 0.0150W - - 3 3 3 3 1500 2500
4 - 0.0050W - - 4 4 4 4 10000 6000
5 - 0.0033W - - 5 5 5 5 176000 25000

Supported LBA Sizes (NSID 0x1)
Id Fmt Data Metadt Rel_Perf
0 + 512 0 2
1 - 4096 0 1

=== START OF SMART DATA SECTION ===
SMART overall-health self-assessment test result: PASSED

SMART/Health Information (NVMe Log 0x02)
Critical Warning: 0x00
Temperature: 32 Celsius
Available Spare: 100%
Available Spare Threshold: 10%
Percentage Used: 0%
Data Units Read: 4,636,936 [2.37 TB]
Data Units Written: 2,969,787 [1.52 TB]
Host Read Commands: 23,115,539
Host Write Commands: 68,646,757
Controller Busy Time: 81
Power Cycles: 4,010
Power On Hours: 425
Unsafe Shutdowns: 1,888
Media and Data Integrity Errors: 0
Error Information Log Entries: 0
Warning Comp. Temperature Time: 0
Critical Comp. Temperature Time: 0
Temperature Sensor 1: 42 Celsius
Temperature Sensor 2: 32 Celsius

Error Information (NVMe Log 0x01, 16 of 256 entries)
No Errors Logged

Read Self-test Log failed: Invalid Field in Command (0x4002)

2

can you access one of the virtual terminals with ctrl-alt-f1 to f7? f7 might be your display manager. on most system the display manger boot on the first empty tty which is commonly tty7, my system boot the display manger on tty1 as it is a very special boy.

most likely the issue is with your drive, most init systems are configured to try to remount filesystems read only if they fail to mount the first time. the solution is either to repair the file system, your init system should try to do this on its own, or replacing the drive with a known good one.

/Zoe

3

Zoe, thanks, turns out ctrl-alt-f6 switches to terminal. I will keep that in mind.

Not sure my filesystem is damaged as my computer normally works fine. Note that this issue happens suddenly while I’m using my computer - I don’t think a filesystem issue would even be detected and cause a remount then - would it?

There could be a hardware failure - I’m not seeing anything in the SMART report that looks concerning except for the number of unsafe shutdowns, which seems grossly inflated as I have had to hard-power my system about 10-20 times and don’t know what else could contribute to that number. However, I am not knowledgeable in this area.

1 Like
4

Your symptoms seem quite similar to those I (and others) experienced with the 500 GB variant of that drive. That was solved by updating the drive firmware as described in this thread: Western Digital Drive Update Guide Without Windows/WD Dashboard - #44 by truffaldino.

If you read on from the post I linked above you’ll see that the update process was improved after I updated my drive.

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5

you are most likely using udisk.

udisk will mount your drive during early boot, as well as any hotplugged devices. udisk will also unmount them at shutdown. udisk run for the entire runtime of your system. udisk will remount any failing filesystems as read only. assuming that udisk works in the same way I am assuming mount deamons are working.

I losely said init system above as udisk is spawned by the inint system. and I wasn’t certain what mount deamon you where using, but apparently Ubuntu uses udisk.

/Zoe

6

Yes @jefgg I will second @truffaldino 's advice here; I think this has been solved.

I summarized my similar experience in this document if it helps. Scroll to the bottom for the solution (WD_Black SN770 250GB Firmware Update).

7

Thanks everyone for your replies. I will update my drive’s firmware.

1 Like