Possible Hard Disk Faliure HELP!!

[Curley_Boy 0]

I think one of my HDDs is on the blink

 

About a week ago I heard one of them 'clicking' repetitivly so I powered down the PC for a bit and when I booted it again all seemed well...

 

However this morning when I turned on the machine I got the 'Boot Device Faliure' message (or something very simlar you know the one i mean anyhow)... upon resetting the machine all was well.

 

I am backing up stuff to CD-RW and LAN drives in panic as I type this!!

 

Is there any way tell for sure (aside an absolute drive faliure) when and why a disk will fail? upto now chkdsk hasn't reported anything out of the ordinary..

[Bursar 0]

ChkDsk will only report on cross linked files or bad sectors on the drive surface. If there's a problem with the electronics, it won't pick it up for you.

 

A lot of hard drive manufacturers release vaious diagnostic tools for their disks. Vist the manufacturers website and see if some are available for your drive.

 

It may just help tell you what's going on.

 

If you can't see any tools on the site, call the manufacturers tech support line. It's possible the tools are hidden away and the support staff will tell you how to get them.

[iamthewookie 0]

Call your respective Hard Drive manufacturer. Maxtor; Western Digital, Seagate....etc

 

If you're drive is within 3 yrs old and purchased before June 2002. Most if not all drives have a 3 year warranty.

 

Call the support line and order an RMA. They'll send you a drive ( on a credit card ), pack yours up and send it back. If they recieve your drive within 30 days the charges are reversed off the credit card and voila. New drive.

 

Just don't lie to them.

If it's making noise or the MBR is not be recognized that's all you have to tell them. They make money on repeat customers, so they'll make you happy.

 

I sent back a Maxtor 40GB 7200 3x. Finallly sent me a 60gb7200. Drive was of bad batch, had a high pitch squeal and all three drives had discolouration on the same IC on bottom of drive.

 

Good luck.

 

P.S. You can do this any all hard drive failures. All you need is serial number ( on drive ) and Warranty info ( expiry date is on drive ) no receipts are required.

 

cheers

[Bursar 0]

That's not strictly true.

 

When I called IBM about a failing 60GXP, they told me to download the diag tools and run them first. I should then call them back with the results and they would decide then about an RMA number.

 

As a first port of call, I would try the diag tools first. They may just help you fix the problem without having to send the drive back.

[nebulus 0]

Had something like that a while ago.. I opened up a tower and made sure that all connection were secure. And it worked again.

So, I would check it before you contact a manufacturer.

[packman 0]

Curley Boy,

 

That hard disk of yours isn't a Fujitsu, by any chance, is it? I read a short article somewhere recently (Feb edition of PC Pro (UK), I think) where Fujitsu had taken CirrusLogic to court over this last year for being instrumental in the premature failure of thousands of Fujitsu MPG3xxx hard disks. Apparently, Cirrus reformulated the epoxy encapsulation for the drive's chips without telling Fujitsu. It seems the epoxy gradually eats through the dies themselves.

 

This last year Fujitsu have left the ordinary consumer market, where hard disk drives are concerned, and obviously for understandable reasons. I've also heard some pretty horrible stories about Fujitsu hard drives generally, from contacts of mine. Fujitsu now concentrate on the true professional market instead, with much pricier products.

 

Pity, really, as I have an MPG3xxx HDD myself! 40GB, and I've had it about 2 years, has always run fast and extremely quietly (fluid bearings), but I re-formatted the other day and I had real trouble getting it to wipe clean. So, can't be sure whether MINE's on its way out, to be honest! Must start thinking about additional means of backing up my partitions.

[Tomay 0]

There use to be good programs for detecting weak sectors. One of them was norton's calibrat.exe (some old dos version). You could do a pattern test and it found errors, that scandisk or norton disk doctor did not. Some hard drive manufacturers utilities have sutch features.

 

I got a hold of a 20GB western digital WD200EB, that had some bad sectors. I low level formated it with the wd's utility and it's showing no errors ...

 

... for now 8) If anyone know a program to test the drive for future errors (weak sectors), please let me know. I would use calibrat but I doubt that ist supports fat32

 

I know this tests are only good for testing the surface of the drive (e.g. future bad sectors).

[Curley_Boy 0]

I have 2 HDs:

 

Primary Master:

 

Maxtor 5T030H3 (30.1Gb, 7200rpm, ATA-133) [C:{BOOT/SYSTEM}, NTFS5.1, Dynamic]

 

Primary Slave:

 

Maxtor 52049H4 (20.4Gb, 7200rpm, ATA-100) [D:{FILE STORAGE}, NTFS5.1, Dynamic]

 

I had problems with the 2nd drive about a year ago now; file corruption, OS crashs etc.. (that used to be my main drive) the Maxtor diagnostic program reported a drive failure so I got a 2nd disk off my supplier and sent the old one back for tests.

 

In the words of my supplier 'That's Maxtor program's a pile o crap. I've tested that drive in 6 new PCs and it checks fine everytime'

 

;(

 

So since then I've used it as my storage and backup drive without issue, untill now it seems.... Surely the drive failures are not just a conicidence? Or perhaps like everything else in this heap o junk that pretends to be a PC it was just another bad choice.... I've learnt more about what NOT to put in a computer this past year than how to actually use one! AMD/VIA/Creative card.... cheapo modem AND now it seems Maxtor HDs

 

Anyhow thanks to those of you who replied I will try and see what I can do about the warranty.

[pmistry 0]

Quote:

Primary Slave:

Maxtor 52049H4 (20.4Gb, 7200rpm, ATA-100) [D:{FILE STORAGE}, NTFS5.1, Dynamic]

This is the exact same model hard disk that I had, the Maxtor 52049H4 20 gigger. It died on me and I had to get a new one for Maxtor. They sent me the same model back but all repaired.

[tylau 0]

Quote:

Apparently, Cirrus reformulated the epoxy encapsulation for the drive's chips without telling Fujitsu. It seems the epoxy gradually eats through the dies themselves.

Must be some kind of fierce epoxy

[Christianb 8]

Quote:

If anyone know a program to test the drive for future errors (weak sectors), please let me know. I would use calibrat but I doubt that ist supports fat32

Hi Tomay,
I haven't heard and or seen your name on here for a while. It's good to have you back x). Just Kidding 8). Sometimes you gotta have fun with these emoticons. Many hard disk analyzers will support unknown file systems, by not doing a file system check and just dealing with the media directly on a bit per bit basis. So Calibrat may in fact work. However, my guess is that it's an older program and probably doesn't support today's enormous drives. You could try asking symantec, but I doubt that'd be of much help. Their usual answer is that's not supported and we'd love to sell you a new version of our products? However "that's not a supported configuration" in no way means it doesn't work, it just means Symantec isn't willing to risk their reputation on telling you it will, because they haven't tested it or know of one or two issues they're not willing to tell you about.
Cheers and good luck,
Christian

[Tomay 0]

Quote:

You could try asking symantec, but I doubt that'd be of much help. Their usual answer is that's not supported and we'd love to sell you a new version of our products? However "that's not a supported configuration" in no way means it doesn't work, it just means Symantec isn't willing to risk their reputation on telling you it will, because they haven't tested it or know of one or two issues they're not willing to tell you about.
Cheers and good luck,
Christian

I use to like norton utilities 3.0, but after I tried the 2003 version I'm disapointed. The disc doctor has no settings at all, for the suface test. And in the speed disk I'm missing the walk map option and sort files and and ...
Is there a different version of norton 2003 in wich the disc doctor has a surface test option?

But then again, who cares. When the HDD will crash I'll get a new one anyway. BACKUP OFTEN!!!

[Curley_Boy 0]

Here's a few puzzling things to add to my above posting..

 

When I got the 'boot device not found' error message, the table that shows all the connected hardware (the one just before the XP boot logo shows) had the 'Pri Master Disk' AND 'Pri Slave Disk' fields blank. However as I said I rebooted and checked for them in the BIOS... there was no problems and the system booted fine the next time round.

 

Faulty IDE cable perhaps?

 

As well as the clicking from within the case (that seems to have been a one off upto now) My 2nd drive (Primary Slave) seems to 'forget' its NTFS permissions. This has happened twice now. It's supposed to be Authenticated Users = Full Access, but what I'm getting is SYSTEM and Administrators Group = Full Access, 'This Folder Only'??

 

I have run a full anti virus, chkdsk and trojan scan.... and then tried the full suite of tests from the Maxtor HD test program, but both disks check clean.

 

Theres only one other thing I've done recently that I can think of; I ran the boot optimization on Diskeeper, one of the things it does is to defrag the MFT, which is what i asked it to do on both disks. Is is possible that it's become corrupt in some way?, although if that were the case I would have expected one or the other of the drives to have stopped working, full stop, not the intermittant and very odd problems I seem to be having!

 

Anyhow tomorrow I will take the covers off and check all the cables are intact and firmly connected. Other than that I haven;t got a clue whats wrong with them..!

 

[Mr.Guvernment 0]

it is dying

 

when u say clicking - u mean like literal clicks, clicks

 

i ahd the samething witha 40g maxtor - died about a month later, sometimes it was okay, other times, dead!

[adamvjackson 0]

If the drive clicks upon spin-up, that's a sure sign of trouble!

[packman 0]

Just want to update something I contributed on 7th Jan.

 

I've subsequently been in touch with Fujitsu and they utterly refute the press report to which I've referred. They sent me a standard letter in which they've stated that they've had no problems whatever with the MPG34xx series of hard drives and that there's no truth at all in the news item I'd read.

 

Well, either they're the victim of a piece of rogue journalism or they're vainly trying to cover up a serious manufacturing fault by total denial. Take your pick.

[Curley_Boy 0]

But how do I tell WHICH drive is on the blink? All the tests I can think of I have performed and all say both drives are fine (I don't belive this either!)

 

How can I prove to my supplier (before the disk dies that is) that its faulty and thus get a replacement?

[Mr.Guvernment 0]

Quote:

Here's a few puzzling things to add to my above posting..

When I got the 'boot device not found' error message, the table that shows all the connected hardware (the one just before the XP boot logo shows) had the 'Pri Master Disk' AND 'Pri Slave Disk' fields blank. However as I said I rebooted and checked for them in the BIOS... there was no problems and the system booted fine the next time round.

Faulty IDE cable perhaps?

COuld be you have it in the bios to "manual" which means the bios knows the drives are there and skips looking for them, so it does not show in start up, this is usually done to give u a few more seconds off your start up time.

[Curley_Boy 0]

Nope I have the BIOS auto detect my HDDs

[billwinkle 0]

I just went thru this with my comp. I thought I had lost 2 WD 40 gig hd's within a week of each other. They would test good one time and another not. Then one went completely dead. I did not think both drives were dead, so I changed out motherboard. worked for about a week longer, then trouble again. I also changed power supply to no avail. Then I tried a new WD SE 80 gig and tried to format with windows xp and it too failed.

I talked to a buddy of mine and decided to replace my athlon 1.4gig processor. SUCCESS. Now even the "dead" drives are working flawlessly.

Hope this is of some help.