how to stop constant parking HD (knocking problem) ?

  • Thread starter Thread starter robm
  • Start date Start date
R

robm

just clean installed W2K on notebook with 18Gb - fujitsu MHJ2181AT and 128
Mb RAM

The HD is constantly knocking (i.e. Parking ) throughout the W2K BOOT and
then frequently durring normal system operation whenever there happens to be
any disk accesses (i.e. file search, HD performance tests, run programs ,
etc)

I have scanned the drive for surface errors, nothing reported ?

Although noise is annoying, i am more concerned that the system seems to run
much slower than expected with this ? problem ?

I ran disk performance tool with good sequential R/W speed of 14/12 MB/s
However, **HORRIBLE** random access speeds of

14 KB/s for 512 byte reads
283 KB/s for 8K byte reads
1.46 MB/s for 64K byte reads
4 MB/s for 256K reads

at 3-5 % CPU

What is problem, how TO FIX ??

TIA
rob
 
As Rick said the noise is not the heads being parked, the sound you're
hearing is a calibration seek and almost certainly a sound associated with
imminent death of the hard drive. Backup your data immediately and get a
replacement hard disk. Get some brand other than Fujitsu.
 
Thx responders.
well I didn't believe you guys, but thinking back i suppose the noise was a
bit harsh for a park op. (thud and bounce of head/arm assembly)

SOLU: after failed adjustments: i went out and bought the cheapest 20Gb
drive i could find locally, installed it and no problems. i ran all the same
HD perf tests and have much better perf. ~23 Mbs through put, HD is quiet,
and PC zooms through the Win2K startup screens in seconds where it used to
ker-clunk through for about 1-2 minutes

So you were correct a new hard drive was the best solution.

THX

I just surmised that the performance hit was consistent with the symptoms,
no read/writre errors, but slow performance maybe from waiting for drive to
settle down and return ready status after park op.

Given all the tricks used by OS to extend battery life and other desired
affects, i tried all of the following mods (no joy) before i broke down and
bought the new drive.

- Scanning all W2k Power profile and hardware profile config settings
disabling energy saving stuff
disabling advanced features
disabling caches
adjust various DMA/PIO settings
Adjust Auto/Manual settings
Click to expand...
- Play with all Power / APM related BIOS setings
disable
enable
enable with disabling options like never or 0 seconds etc
Click to expand...
- FLASH new BIOS for notebook
- adjusting Cable select and Master drive jumpers
- tried differerent FS NTFS/FAT32

It does not have the ker-clunking problem as a secondary or slave drive,
which is how it was used prior to promoting it, only as a master/system/boot
drive but the drive performance is still poor

Thanks again for help
rob


robm said:
just clean installed W2K on notebook with 18Gb - fujitsu MHJ2181AT

The HD is constantly knocking (i.e. Parking ) throughout the W2K BOOT
and freq durring normal system operation [snip]
I ran disk performance tool with good sequential R/W speed
of 14/12 MB/s and **HORRIBLE** random access speeds of

283 KB/s for 8K byte reads
1.46 MB/s for 64K byte reads
4 MB/s for 256K reads
Click to expand...
 
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