Seagate Barracudda IV woes....

[Scootin159]

I have 2 80GB Seagate Barracudda IV's, one that has worked fine from the day I got it (love that one), and one that has the following story:

Bought drive ~ October 2001 -> worked fine
Around the begining of January it started to 'dissappear' whenever the comptuer experienced ANY form of shock. Even closing the door on my Antec SX1240 would cause it to 'click' and then 'dissappear'. BTW, by dissappear I mean that the IDE controller would no longer detect it. I tried multiple IDE cables & even tried switching master/slave config's, but it was always this drive that would 'go'.
Anyways, I RMA'ed it around then, and just got back a new one (it appears to be a different drive, not a reman. old drive). This one however has the exact same experiences.

Any suggestions? I don't want to RMA this drive again if I don't have to, but is it my only choice?

 

[Scootin159]

^

 

[sMashPiranha]

Sounds like your IDE controllers packing up. Time to throw away your motherboard, or else you could get a PCI IDE controller and use that instead of your onboard IDE (and save your motherboard in the process).
Hey, I maybe wrong, but I've had this sort of thing happened before and it was my IDE controller.

 

[LXi]

I think it's a power supply problem. I had a similar same problem, drives "clicking" then slows down to a crawl(or disappears) after any form of shock. I confirmed the problem by slightly touching the molex 4-pin power connector while the machine is on. If you manage to recreate the problem by touching the 4-pin connector, then it's the power supply. A normal 4-pin connector will withstand some shock or touch. After switching the power supply the problem was gone.

 

[Scootin159]

Well I'm glad to hear this, as it was really starting to be annoying. Do you think it is nessesarily the power supply, or just the power supply cable? If it's just the cable I can just use a y-cable off a 'good' jack, right?

Why do you think it's the IDE controller? Wouldn't checking the whole master/slave swap thing rule out that a certain channel is dead if it's the same drive every time?

(testing the molex now)....

 

[Scootin159]

It was the 4-pin molex....All Fixed now Thanks!

 

[sMashPiranha]

<< Why do you think it's the IDE controller? Wouldn't checking the whole master/slave swap thing rule out that a certain channel is dead if it's the same drive every time? >>


Ah sorry must've misunderstood your post, been a long day . Better go to bed before my brain melts even more.