Last Deathstar gives up the ghost!

[bigboxes]

Got home from work late last night after working all day. UPS for file server and networking equipment was off. Upon reboot the file server would not load fully into Windows. I put my ear to the front intake fans trying to listen for any telltale signs of drive failure. On my second attempt I heard "click-clack, click-clack". It was late and I was tired. Decided to wait until today to troubleshoot. After all it could be any of the 9 drives that could be affecting boot-up.

Disconnected all of the SATA storage drives from the controller cards, leaving just the lone PATA OS drive connected. File server booted into Windows, but started "click-clack"-ing on the desktop. Figured I'd clone the drive using Acronis, but the drive was not stable long enough to keep out of the infinite loop slap of the actuator arm. I've got some extra PATA drives lying around to just restore a back-up image. No biggie as I just need to do updates afterwards.

As I was taking out the dying drive I noticed that it was a 60gb Hitachi Deskstar. Wow. Memories. Takes me back a bit. I had six of IBMs Deskstar 60gb hard drives back in the day. They were quick, quiet and had high capacity (for the day). Unfortunately, they were not reliable. All six were RMA'd with the "click of death". Of the six replacements this Hitachi drive was the last to survive. Considering it lived over 11 years I'd say that it finally provided some good value. When things last that long you get a little attached.

:'( *sniff* goodbye Deathstar

 

[bigboxes]

Turns out that my diagnosis was a little premature. After more troubleshooting it seems that my problem was the PSU. Good thing I have a reliable back-up. Now to see if my Seasonic is under warranty. I just need to transfer my sadness to another part, although it's not near as old.

 

[randomrogue]

So the Deathstar still works? That's actually pretty impressive. That was a really frustrating drive back in the day.

My oldest working drive is a 320GB WD JB from 2005 I think and a 74GB raptor from 2006. I back them up daily since their age makes me a bit nervous.

I have a few older drives (IDE) that probably work but they've been in the closet for years so I'm not counting them.

 

[Rvenger]

The deathstars were actually reliable if you actively cooled them. I had mine actively cooled for a year. As soon as I removed the HDD coolers on my deathstars, they died within a month. Amazing.

 

[bigboxes]

So the Deathstar still works? That's actually pretty impressive. That was a really frustrating drive back in the day.

My oldest working drive is a 320GB WD JB from 2005 I think and a 74GB raptor from 2006. I back them up daily since their age makes me a bit nervous.

I have a few older drives (IDE) that probably work but they've been in the closet for years so I'm not counting them.

Yes, the Deathstar still works. I had hooked up two working Seagate PATA drives and they couldn't make it past the post. Click-clack, click-clack... I am rocking a 74gb Raptor that is rock solid. I've got a new SSD that has replaced it. I really didn't want to stop using it. Wish I had the $$ to build a new system (unneeded) just so I could keep the drive running. It has over 6 years of uptime.

Was checking Newegg for my old orders. Found out that the Seasonic that was in the file server is over 6 years old. No warranty will cover that.

 

[bigboxes]

Bah! I just hooked up my PSU tester and the following voltage reads:

+12V1: 11.8
+12V2: 11.9
-12V: 11.0

I guess that would explain the hard drive issues. Knowing that I just ordered the exact same PSU from Amazon. Hopefully, the new one will last at least six years as well.

 

[bigboxes]

Opened up the Seasonic and couldn't see any obvious signs of failure. No leaking capacitors, blown resistors or burnt out connectors. Meh. Sh!t happens.

 

[IndyColtsFan]

So the Deathstar still works? That's actually pretty impressive. That was a really frustrating drive back in the day.

My oldest working drive is a 320GB WD JB from 2005 I think and a 74GB raptor from 2006. I back them up daily since their age makes me a bit nervous.

I have a few older drives (IDE) that probably work but they've been in the closet for years so I'm not counting them.

I just tossed a bunch of older IDE drives that worked but I no longer had room for. I hate throwing away good equipment, but sometimes you just have to.

My oldest working drive is a circa 1991 52 MB Quantum SCSI drive in an old Amiga. Prior to last year, I had booted it up only once in the last 15 years. I REALLY need to back it up to a SCSI Zip drive I have connected to the Amiga before it is too late.

 

[Maximilian]

What model was the PSU?

 

[randomrogue]

I just tossed a bunch of older IDE drives that worked but I no longer had room for. I hate throwing away good equipment, but sometimes you just have to.

My oldest working drive is a circa 1991 52 MB Quantum SCSI drive in an old Amiga. Prior to last year, I had booted it up only once in the last 15 years. I REALLY need to back it up to a SCSI Zip drive I have connected to the Amiga before it is too late.

I kinda wish I would have kept all my old compenents. I was living in a small apartment at one point though and threw most of them out. I still have some of my oldest equipment at least. I have a working Mac Plus and all my old programs on floppy disks. I'm sure the floppys will be bad by the time I turn that thing on again but the computer will still work.

 

[IndyColtsFan]

I kinda wish I would have kept all my old compenents. I was living in a small apartment at one point though and threw most of them out. I still have some of my oldest equipment at least. I have a working Mac Plus and all my old programs on floppy disks. I'm sure the floppys will be bad by the time I turn that thing on again but the computer will still work.

You'd be surprised at how resilient floppies are. I hooked up my C64 a couple of years ago and I tried about 10 disks and only 1 didn't work. I was amazed because I assume that maybe 2 or 3 out of 10 would still work. And these disks had been stored in my garage and were subjected to big temperature swings.

 

[dave_the_nerd]

I thought the "Deathstars" were specifically the 75GXPs made in 2001-2 (before Hitachi bought IBM's drive division.)

 

[sm625]

I have several 20gb drives that are more than 10 years old, running for 10 hours a day 5 days a week. All WD, no hitachi.

 

[randomrogue]

I thought the "Deathstars" were specifically the 75GXPs made in 2001-2 (before Hitachi bought IBM's drive division.)

There were a few models but yeah the deathstars were before the buyout.

 

[Puffnstuff]

I only had one of them and it lasted much longer than I thought it would but alas it too fell victim to the click of death.

 

[BurnItDwn]

Ugh, I remember my pair of 75gxps. Both died within about 1 year of purchase.... ugh...

 

[bigboxes]

I thought the "Deathstars" were specifically the 75GXPs made in 2001-2 (before Hitachi bought IBM's drive division.)

Yeah, but according to Wikipedia:

In addition to the failure that had led to the lawsuit, additional flaws were found in the Deskstar 60GXP, 75GXP, 120GXP and 180GXP, caused by the way the Giant Magneto Resistive read/write heads interact with the stored data, and the easily corrupted NVRAM chip. It was even discovered that IBM had used a badly designed and laid out printed circuit board and had used a soldering alloy of a poor quality on them. Over time, the contacts of the chips loosened, in turn causing firmware corruption. The circuit boards were also quite susceptible to burn damage.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hitachi_Deskstar#cite_note-8

So my 60GXP drives kept failing one after another. I'll admit I was very defensive of them (here on AT) back in the day, but to tell you the truth I realized that there was some serious issues. Like I said, it's too bad because they were big, quick and quiet.

 

[bigboxes]

What model was the PSU?

Seasonic S12 (SS-430HB). I found a review of the new one, an S12II on Hardware Secrets. It's just got to power an A64 3200+, a Radeon 9250, Rosewill 4-port SATA II controller card (x2), an Intel gigabit NIC and nine hard drives. Not that taxing. I originally bought the Seasonic for reliability. I guess I got it after six years of uptime. Still sucks waiting on Amazon to get around shipping it out (I went for the free shipping).