Another sad dying hard disk story

  • Thread starter Thread starter Laurence Hall and Tineke Hartgers
  • Start date Start date
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Laurence Hall and Tineke Hartgers

Hello all,

My hard disk seems on the way out, it's making occasional scraping noises,
punctuated by painful sound thuds.
The strange thing is, this is the second time around with this computer
(Dell Dimension). The last one lasted just one month less than the warrenty,
and was replaced, now 18 months later the story seems to be repeating
itself. My question is, could this have to do with the controller? 18 months
seems a very short life for a hard disk, and a controller is cheaper to
replace, is it worth it to try? This has been going on for 2 months now, and
recently I've been recording audio on the computer, producing sometimes 3
gigs of 1megabyte files, which of course puts this household machine in to
stress, but this surely couldn't be the cause? I'm still using win98,
figuring that if it ain't broke, don't fix it, but now it seems I might have
to revise my philosophy of life!

thanks,

Laurence,
Amsterdam
 
Laurence said:
Hello all,

My hard disk seems on the way out, it's making occasional scraping noises,
punctuated by painful sound thuds.
The strange thing is, this is the second time around with this computer
(Dell Dimension). The last one lasted just one month less than the
warrenty, and was replaced, now 18 months later the story seems to be
repeating itself. My question is, could this have to do with the
controller? 18 months
seems a very short life for a hard disk, and a controller is cheaper to
replace, is it worth it to try? This has been going on for 2 months now,
and recently I've been recording audio on the computer, producing
sometimes 3 gigs of 1megabyte files, which of course puts this household
machine in to stress, but this surely couldn't be the cause? I'm still
using win98, figuring that if it ain't broke, don't fix it, but now it
seems I might have to revise my philosophy of life!
Click to expand...

Unlikely to be the controller, unlike some of the old floppy and hard drive
interfaces the IDE controller has no direct control of the drive. It can't
make the drive do something it wasn't designed to do. All of the physical
operations of the drive are controlled by an internal controller built into
the drive.

Strange about the multiple failure. Sometimes a manufacturer has a bad run
of drives (Fujitsu being a good example here, or the IBM Deskstar 75GXP)
Dell probably did a like for like replacement so the problem drive was
replaced by an identical (but working) one.

I have heard of loose power connectors causing repeated drive failure.
Inadequate cooling can also be a factor, but when we are talking about an
unmodified branded machine you have to at least hope the cooling has been
properly addressed.

Personally I would go out and buy a (different) new hard drive and ghost
over before your old one fails completely.
 
Hello all,

My hard disk seems on the way out, it's making occasional scraping noises,
punctuated by painful sound thuds.
The strange thing is, this is the second time around with this computer
(Dell Dimension). The last one lasted just one month less than the warrenty,
and was replaced, now 18 months later the story seems to be repeating
itself. My question is, could this have to do with the controller?
Click to expand...

Controller problems could prevent the IDE subsytem from
working properly, that is, not being able to access the
drive, but won't cause mechanical failure noises or access
from another system... Odds of a controller failure are far
lower than drive itself... Even power or data cable failures
happen more often than the controller itself failing.
18 months
seems a very short life for a hard disk, and a controller is cheaper to
replace, is it worth it to try?
Click to expand...

IMO, no. Run the HDD manufacturer's diagnostics and see
what that reports.
This has been going on for 2 months now, and
recently I've been recording audio on the computer, producing sometimes 3
gigs of 1megabyte files, which of course puts this household machine in to
stress, but this surely couldn't be the cause? I'm still using win98,
figuring that if it ain't broke, don't fix it, but now it seems I might have
to revise my philosophy of life!
Click to expand...

The audio recording will be additional use, which might
accelerate demise of a marginal drive but it shouldn't have
cause such an early failure. You might check the drive
temps, perhaps it's getting too hot. If you can't take a
direct temp measurement then run the system for a while and
then power off, imediately opening case and touch-testing
HDD before it has a chance to cool.
 
IMO, no. Run the HDD manufacturer's diagnostics and see
what that reports.


The audio recording will be additional use, which might
accelerate demise of a marginal drive but it shouldn't have
cause such an early failure. You might check the drive
temps, perhaps it's getting too hot. If you can't take a
direct temp measurement then run the system for a while and
then power off, imediately opening case and touch-testing
HDD before it has a chance to cool.
Click to expand...

Yeah I never did that before check drive temps but after I did it with
some progs, I was shocked to see some progs made the temps jump like
crazy , some compression programs. And I put a Smart Drive monitoring
program on that didnt work right with one of my machines and had the
drive light on all the time after a while and the temps would jump
like crazy. I took that off right away.

I also had a recent problem similar to that. I put a copy of a
Aquarium screen saver on and the hard light would stay on continiously
and sometimes make my machine lock up after awhile. I took that off
immediately too.

Another thing I noticed was the corrosion/dirt/dust problem. I live in
a tropical humid climate and all the machines around here ---- and I
just went through another round of it, the contacts get bad. Ill get
really bizarre behavior --- mem not registering properly, cards not
recognized properly , hard drive corruption. I have to clean the
contacts with some electronics cleaning stuff and then it works
perfectly.

Another thing is the flat ribbon cables 133. The really thin wires
seem to go bad with constant plugging in and bending from shifting
them out of the way in your case. Ive had recurring issues with them
but today a friends computer - seemed like the HD was going out ,
totally erratic and finally cant read it and intermittent recognition.
I move it to my second PC --- seems to work OK except that I cant
format it after I formatted it with his PC with the erratic cable. Ive
kind of blaming them and then thinking they were OK cause with
replugging - probably rebending them they seem to work but now my
older cables seem really wacko --- I can clearly see they are causing
problems now.

However after plugging my HD in and out on it after testing his --- my
HD starts acting erratic and wacko. Finally no recognition of the HD !
I change out other old 133 cables I have laying around -- I get
erratic results. I then went out and bought some new unbent ones.
Those 133 cables get totally deformed with a zillion creases and bends
in them cause the wire is stiff and super thin. I bought two round new
cables and all the HDs are consistently coming out fine again along
with a new flat cable I took out of a new HD box I bought last week.

In fact my friends HD that I formatted when his cable seemed to be
massively messing up, when I didnt suspect the cable ---- is now
screwed up. With new cables I can consistenly read the HD , its
stablel but WINDOWS and WD (its a western dig) cant do anything with
it. They think its formatted in some werid format they cant deal with.
Im looking for a low level format util for WD - Maxtor has one but I
dont see it with WDs utils. I might try the old WIN98 partition etc
utils too.
 
Yeah I never did that before check drive temps but after I did it with
some progs, I was shocked to see some progs made the temps jump like
crazy , some compression programs. And I put a Smart Drive monitoring
program on that didnt work right with one of my machines and had the
drive light on all the time after a while and the temps would jump
like crazy. I took that off right away.

I also had a recent problem similar to that. I put a copy of a
Aquarium screen saver on and the hard light would stay on continiously
and sometimes make my machine lock up after awhile. I took that off
immediately too.

Another thing I noticed was the corrosion/dirt/dust problem. I live in
a tropical humid climate and all the machines around here ---- and I
just went through another round of it, the contacts get bad. Ill get
really bizarre behavior --- mem not registering properly, cards not
recognized properly , hard drive corruption. I have to clean the
contacts with some electronics cleaning stuff and then it works
perfectly.

Another thing is the flat ribbon cables 133. The really thin wires
seem to go bad with constant plugging in and bending from shifting
them out of the way in your case. Ive had recurring issues with them
but today a friends computer - seemed like the HD was going out ,
totally erratic and finally cant read it and intermittent recognition.
I move it to my second PC --- seems to work OK except that I cant
format it after I formatted it with his PC with the erratic cable. Ive
kind of blaming them and then thinking they were OK cause with
replugging - probably rebending them they seem to work but now my
older cables seem really wacko --- I can clearly see they are causing
problems now.

However after plugging my HD in and out on it after testing his --- my
HD starts acting erratic and wacko. Finally no recognition of the HD !
I change out other old 133 cables I have laying around -- I get
erratic results. I then went out and bought some new unbent ones.
Those 133 cables get totally deformed with a zillion creases and bends
in them cause the wire is stiff and super thin. I bought two round new
cables and all the HDs are consistently coming out fine again along
with a new flat cable I took out of a new HD box I bought last week.

In fact my friends HD that I formatted when his cable seemed to be
massively messing up, when I didnt suspect the cable ---- is now
screwed up. With new cables I can consistenly read the HD , its
stablel but WINDOWS and WD (its a western dig) cant do anything with
it. They think its formatted in some werid format they cant deal with.
Im looking for a low level format util for WD - Maxtor has one but I
dont see it with WDs utils. I might try the old WIN98 partition etc
utils too.
Click to expand...


Sounds like you desperately need a dehumidifier.
 
Sounds like you desperately need a dehumidifier.
Click to expand...

I got an air con now in my bedroom so its not that much of a problem
here anymore though the electricity bill took a huge leap.

Im a believer in round cables now. I mentioned I thought they were
fragile in the ends but actually I think they are more robust now
since they are usually surrounded by some thick covering that prevents
them from being really bent sharply in the middle. All my other cables
have zillions of little bends in them. Just moving them out of the way
seems to put lots of little creases in them after awhile.
 
XXXX said:
I got an air con now in my bedroom so its not that much of a problem
here anymore though the electricity bill took a huge leap.
Click to expand...

You do realize that an air conditioner will make your air DRYER, right?
 
You do realize that an air conditioner will make your air DRYER, right?
Click to expand...

Yeah thats what I want. You look at everything and its rusting ,
corroding like crazy. Thats the problem not static electricity. Though
thats always a concern. I was shocked when I looked at some
screwdriver bits - has a removable bit, that I bought a few weeks ago.
I picked it up and there was rust on the bits.

If I leave my car and house with the air con on and Im wearing glasses
they can actually get so fogged up I cant see.
 
Go to http://support.wdc.com/download/index.asp and check out the diagnostic
utilities.

Ray.
Click to expand...

Thats what Im using DOS versions and WIN versions.
With the new cables it recognizes the drive but it gives me a 0199
error and wont continue. I look up 0199 error and it says use a WD
diag utility ! Kind of a circular thing. Actually they tell me to RMA
it but its past the 1 yr warranty date.

Oh well I told my neighbor to get another HD. They are cheap anyway.
It cant diagnose it at all -- kicks out after a few seconds. And it
cant write zeroes to it.

Windows 98 startup disk cant Fdisk it etc.
It spins up and the PC recognizes it, just cant access it.
 
Hello all,

My hard disk seems on the way out, it's making occasional scraping noises,
punctuated by painful sound thuds.
The strange thing is, this is the second time around with this computer
(Dell Dimension). The last one lasted just one month less than the warrenty,
and was replaced, now 18 months later the story seems to be repeating
itself. My question is, could this have to do with the controller? 18 months
seems a very short life for a hard disk, and a controller is cheaper to
replace, is it worth it to try? This has been going on for 2 months now, and
recently I've been recording audio on the computer, producing sometimes 3
gigs of 1megabyte files, which of course puts this household machine in to
stress, but this surely couldn't be the cause? I'm still using win98,
figuring that if it ain't broke, don't fix it, but now it seems I might have
to revise my philosophy of life!

thanks,

Laurence,
Amsterdam
Click to expand...

What brand of drive? Maxtor's have the life expectancy of a May Fly. IBM
had a couple of bad drives, the 75GXPs and the 60GXPs, don't know if the
current Hitachi drives (IBM sold their drive division to Hitachi) are
reliable or not. Seagate are reliable and I've had relatively little
trouble with Western Digital.

The one thing in your system that could kill a drive is bad cooling
although I doubt that this is a problem in a Dell. The controller is
definitely not responsible, there is nothing that it could do to cause a
mechanical failure.


If I were you I'd get a new Seagate drive and put it in your system before
the old one dies completely. Copy all of your data to the Seagate so you
don't lose it.
 
General Schvantzkoph said:
What brand of drive? Maxtor's have the life expectancy of a May Fly. IBM
had a couple of bad drives, the 75GXPs and the 60GXPs, don't know if the
current Hitachi drives (IBM sold their drive division to Hitachi) are
reliable or not. Seagate are reliable and I've had relatively little
trouble with Western Digital.
Click to expand...
I have had over a dozen Maxtor drives, ranging from 200MB (my first PC) to
currently two 80GB drives, a 20GB drive and a 15GB drive. They have thus
far lasted the lifetime of the PC (3 years or more), except one 10GB drive
that died after 2 years. I have had one Seagate and one WD, and each lasted
less than a year.
 
Yeah thats what I want. You look at everything and its rusting ,
corroding like crazy. Thats the problem not static electricity. Though
thats always a concern. I was shocked when I looked at some
screwdriver bits - has a removable bit, that I bought a few weeks ago.
I picked it up and there was rust on the bits.

If I leave my car and house with the air con on and Im wearing glasses
they can actually get so fogged up I cant see.
Click to expand...

Make sure your AC isn't oversized, if it cycles on and off
too often it won't remove as much moisture, and will also
cost more to run.

Was it you that was wondering previously about the best way
to ventilate it out of a room? What did you end up doing if
so?
 
I have had over a dozen Maxtor drives, ranging from 200MB (my first PC) to
currently two 80GB drives, a 20GB drive and a 15GB drive. They have thus
far lasted the lifetime of the PC (3 years or more), except one 10GB drive
that died after 2 years. I have had one Seagate and one WD, and each lasted
less than a year.
Click to expand...

Yep it's a lottery, Maxtor's failure rate is nowhere near as
high as General Schvantzkoph implies. I too have about a
dozen Maxtors and only had problems with their old
Diamondmax 60 series, which is about 4 years old at this
point.
 
Thanks to everyone who has helped.
IMO, no. Run the HDD manufacturer's diagnostics and see
what that reports.
Click to expand...
I've run the diagnostics, and it fails on analyzying Error logs (whatever
they are), and gives some completion codes which mean nothing to me. Lastly
it says "Drive tested, Non-functional"....... Oh dear!
The other tests passed ok.
I can still use it, just burnt 2 backup CD's, but I guess it won't be long
now, I'm checking out prices for a new one.

Thanks again all,

Laurence
Amsterdam
 
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