bad hard drive? (UPDATE: bad MOTHERBOARD? wtf?)

[ZippyDan]

i have a WD 40gb HDD that ive been using for about a month now with no problems

the other day i started WinME up and it tried to run WinME scandisk. part way through the scandisk I got a blue screen that said something like:

Could not write to C:
Data or Files may be lost

this was concerning because I rarely use that computer and nothing had changed from the last time it worked fine,
everytime i tried to restart it gave me the same result

so i determined that something may be corrupted on drive (i dont know much about HDDs), and thought a format might be the best way to go

on this restart, i noticed that S.M.A.R.T. in the bios boot up said the drive was something along the lines of: Capable but not responding to command

i had never seen this report before from the drive (although i never specifically looked before so it may or may not have been happening before)

already suspicious now of the integrity of the drive, i did a format c: in dos. it got through the long format process, but choked as soon as it tried to create the FAT

now i was convinced that the drive was bad, but not eager to go through a return process, I downloaded the latest set of diagnostics from WD's website (Data Lifeguard Tools 2.8)

on this next restart, S.M.A.R.T. reported the drive as Capable and Status OK. i then ran all 3 tests supplied by WD (Quick Test which takes 90 seconds, Extended Test which takes about 20 mins, and then finally the Write to 0's test which destroys all data on the HDD and takes about 4 hours). all the tests came up negative. perplexed now, I formatted the HDD with the WD tools with no problem, and am now installing WinME again

im still worried about this drive though. any comments? what would u do with this drive?

someone said it could be the cable (which is ata100), and that is one thing that changed between errors and no errors - not the cable, but i removed the drive from it cage to visually inspect it, and its now just lying on top of the computer, so the positioning of the cable has changed. this however, seems to be an unlikely cause of the problem, even though as i said i know little about HDDs and their cables

UPDATE: see latest post at bottom

 

[MoMeanMugs]

I think time will tell. Hopefully your warranty isn't up anytime soon. Stress it a little by using it more to see if it fails.

 

[bendixG15]

My personality would demand that I return the drive.
Why wait to see if its going to stop responding again ????
Anyway ...Good Luck

 

[ZippyDan]

weird

this hard drive seems to work depending on where it is :/

as i mentioned earlier, after i layed the case down on its side, and removed the drive from its cage and layed it on the case, everything worked fine. i was able to successfully run all three tests with no errors, and format and reinstall ME and XP. then i put the HD back in the case and went to sleep.

i woke up this morning to find my HD making continuous noise, and XP scandisk hanging on 31%. repeated resets gave me the same hard drive chugging noise and XP hanging. WD quick test gave me an error, but WD tech support says that error is simply "could not finish," not an actual error that was found.

i take the hard drive out of the case, and reboot, and voila- no hard drive noise and windows starts without a hitch

considering i earlier ran the very in depth 4 hour test on HD (outside error) without an error, and WD tells me this usually will turn up an error if there is an error (although they say i can return drive if i want), and the very compelling evidence of removing the HD from the case... im starting to wonder if its actually a problem with the drive

this is very weird, what could possibly be the difference btwn having hard drive in case or outside case

~Zippy!

 

[ZippyDan]

bump

 

[bandXtrb]

<< this is very weird, what could possibly be the difference btwn having hard drive in case or outside case >>

Heat. Its much cooler out of the case. WD 7200 rpm drives run pretty hot. Can you check your case temp?

 

[ZippyDan]

highly unlikely, im using an SX600 series Antec case, which has the cool little feature that lets me put a 80mm fan up front right in the HDD cage that blows air right over the hard drive. one of the reasons i got the case, after my good experience with the SX1000 series. (the SX800 doesnt have the fan in HDD cage perk)

its a small budget computer, only has duron/mboard/vid card/cd rom and the aforementioned hard drive, other systems have much more stuff and much more heat im sure

~Zippy!

 

[lostnthenet]

Just curious. Did you or did you not change out the cable?

Thanks,
Eric

 

[Carrot44]

Its Simple Bad Bearings in the HD. I had a Seagate do the same exact thing for a bearing failure. Suggest you RMA it and get it over with. Or you could run it for some time outside of the case and then put it back and see if it works maybe just gummed up Naw RMA it!

Ken

 

[ZippyDan]

k, so I RMA'ed the drive

AND THE PROBLEM IS STILL HAPPENING WITH THE NEW DRIVE

suddenly, it hits me. maybe it has nothing to do with the drive at all

the computer is a tower case. when the HDD is in the case, its standing up

when i take the HDD out of the case, I lay it down on its side so that i can open it up and put the HDD on top

sure enough, i test my hypothesis. all i do is LAY THE CASE DOWN ON ITS SIDE, WITHOUT DOING ANYTHING ELSE, and everything suddenly works fine

STAND IT UP - nothing works, hard drive isnt detected, hard drive is constantly making continuous accessing noise even though nothing is happening

LAY IT DOWN - everything works fine

so the problem can't be with the HDD, so my money is now on the HDD controller on the motherboard...

BUT WTF DIFFERENCE COULD THERE BE BTWN STANDING CASE UP AND LAYING IT DOWN :/

~Zippy!

 

[Dreadogg]

what are the rest of the specs of your pC? Could this be related to heat, maybe the case cools better on its side!

the computer is a tower case. when the HDD is in the case, its standing up

this I dont understand how is the drive standing up it should be flat just as a floppy would lay!

 

[Creig]

Hopefully could be as simple as a defective IDE cable. On the bad side, it could be a loose pin for the HD controller on the mobo itself. Try swapping in a different cable first. If that doesn't do it, remove the cable, unplug the power and try wiggling each pin in the IDE port on the motherboard and see if one of them is noticeably easier to move than the others.

 

[Creig]

Also, look and see if you're moving any other components or wires when you move the hard drive from vertical to horizontal. Could be a different wire that's loose.

 

[ZippyDan]

what are the rest of the specs of your pC? Could this be related to heat, maybe the case cools better on its side!

highly unlikely, im using an SX600 series Antec case, which has the cool little feature that lets me put a 80mm fan up front right in the HDD cage that blows air right over the hard drive. one of the reasons i got the case, after my good experience with the SX1000 series. (the SX800 doesnt have the fan in HDD cage perk)

its a small budget computer, only has duron, mboard, vid card, cd rom and the aforementioned hard drive, 2 fans in front, 1 fan in back, plus powersupply with 2 fans, other systems have much more stuff and much more heat im sure

Quote

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the computer is a tower case. when the HDD is in the case, its standing up
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

this I dont understand how is the drive standing up it should be flat just as a floppy would lay!

bad grammar on my part. "its standing up" was referring to the case. i meant, that in my previous 'experiments' that when i had the CASE STANDING UP when the HDD was INSIDE, and i had the CASE LAYING down when the HDD was OUTSIDE. this led me to the incorrect assumption that the problem had something to do with the HDD being INSIDE or OUTSIDE, and therefore problem was with HDD, when in fact it seems to have something to do with the CASE STANDING UP or LAYING DOWN

Hopefully could be as simple as a defective IDE cable.

already tried a new cable, same problem. both cables were brand new ata100 cables. one came with the motherboard and one came with a promise ata100 controller i used in another comp

i will try checking the controller pins and other loose cables... any other ideas?

~Zippy!

 

[ZippyDan]

i tested all the controller pins with a safety pin and they all seem solid. plus i watched the inside of the computer as i moved it from standing to laying down position and i couldnt see anything moving, loose cables and stuff :/

~Zippy!

 

[Dreadogg]

yea I also have a Antec Case and I love the HD cooling cage! LOL your problem is kinda strange you say you lay the case on its side and it seems to help out correct? If that is the case check to make sure that there are no lose screws on the MB and the board is grounded to the case properly! Hope this helps!

 

[ZippyDan]

i will check it. i doubt it has anything to do with grounding because i have 9 screws holding the mb in. but it could have something to do with screws. maybe one of the screws is shorting out the hdd controller circuits when its standing up? i dunno much about how that works

~Zippy!

 

[Insidious]

I may have missed it, but have you changed the cable yet?

I know you wiggled the controller pins and all, but this sounds like a cable problem.

I suggest you get a new cable (they're cheap and a spare is not a bad idea anyway if it turns out not to be the problem)




Rule of Thumb passed down through the ages:

Always replace the cheapest part first when shotgun troubleshooting

 

[ZippyDan]

already tried a new cable, same problem. both cables were brand new ata100 cables. one came with the motherboard and one came with a promise ata100 controller

~Zippy!

 

[Dreadogg]

did you try a different power wire coming of the powersupply?

 

[Boobers]

I have a computer that had some very strange problems that turned out to be a defective WD 40Gb 7200 HD. Sometimes the computer would take 5-10 MINUTES just to boot, with no errors reported. Do a scan disk (Windows or WD Diagnostic) and no problems reported. The drive simply slowed down, like it had a bad motor or bearing, so it didn't spin as fast as it should. Sandra HD score would report 5000 sometimes, at other times it would report 18,000.

Example: I would boot the computer, and it would boot, but it was like everything was in slow motion. You know the screen between the BIOS screen and the "Win XP" screen that shows the white blocks that usually zip across the bottom of the screen (if you actually see them at all), well the blocks would appear one at a time and take about 1-2 minutes to finish. After it sat on the "Win XP" screen for 3 minutes, I tapped the drive (OK, I thumped it real hard ) and it booted almost instantly. Wierd. I ran all the WD Diagnostic tests, and the Quick test never reported any errors. The Extended test would always freeze at different places. I used Fdisk to clear all partitions and repartition. No prob. When I tried to format, it would always freeze at different spots. THEN I decided it was a bearing problem and flipped the drive over, and VIOLA, no more problems. Works perfectly. Boots fast, formats, runs at top speed. Flip it back the way it was, random freezes and slow scores. I went to the WD web site and got an RMA. I'm shipping the drive back tomorrow...

Can you answer this for me, what are the dates of the drives you've tried? The one I have was made June 4, 2001. I wonder if there was a bad batch?