why does my harddrive keep spinning down and spinning up?

[WayneTeK]

I just got a new Seagate 200GIG HD EIDE drive.

It runs great and i leave it on 24/7, however, i've noticed itkeeps on turning off and back on every now and then.

I have this HD as a slave drive and i use it for storage. Is my new HD dying or is not enough power being supplied to it?

btw, it makes a CLICKING sound when shutting off, then turning back on.

 

[airfoil]

If you've not noticed any anomalies in actual performance, I wouldn't think there's too much cause for concern...yet.

Windows may be shutting the drive down to save on power - check this by going to Display in Control Panel, and on the Screen Saver tab, choose Power - check settings here to see how many minutes after lying idle the rig is setup to turn off HDDs - and adjust accordingly.

 

[airfoil]

And hey, since the drive is used as a backup, Windows *will* turn off power to it since its not needed continously. This is perfectly normal.

 

[WayneTeK]

Originally posted by: airfoil
And hey, since the drive is used as a backup, Windows *will* turn off power to it since its not needed continously. This is perfectly normal.

well, i didn't classify it as a BACKUP persey.. I jsut use it as a slave drive and transfer over files onto it.

Geeze, it did it again! it turned off and went back on.

 

[bigboxes]

I never heard you answer his question. Do you have power management turn off your idle hdds and is that what is causing your situation? If not, maybe you have a short in your power connectors going to the affected hdd.

 

[Rike]

Originally posted by: airfoil
Windows may be shutting the drive down to save on power - check this by going to Display in Control Panel, and on the Screen Saver tab, choose Power - check settings here to see how many minutes after lying idle the rig is setup to turn off HDDs - and adjust accordingly.

Exactly my first thought. What the status Wayne?

 

[WayneTeK]

Originally posted by: Rike

Originally posted by: airfoil
Windows may be shutting the drive down to save on power - check this by going to Display in Control Panel, and on the Screen Saver tab, choose Power - check settings here to see how many minutes after lying idle the rig is setup to turn off HDDs - and adjust accordingly.

Exactly my first thought. What the status Wayne?

This wasn't an issue for me cause i always have it as NEVER OFF. But thanks for thinking of the problem when i didn't. =P

I"m thinking maybe the connector is loose or something? but it makes the sound and shuts down when it's doing nothing, so how could it be?

MY hd isn't going bad, is it?

 

[Rike]

Originally posted by: WayneTeK

Originally posted by: Rike

Originally posted by: airfoil
Windows may be shutting the drive down to save on power - check this by going to Display in Control Panel, and on the Screen Saver tab, choose Power - check settings here to see how many minutes after lying idle the rig is setup to turn off HDDs - and adjust accordingly.

Exactly my first thought. What the status Wayne?

This wasn't an issue for me cause i always have it as NEVER OFF. But thanks for thinking of the problem when i didn't.

I"m thinking maybe the connector is loose or something? but it makes the sound and shuts down when it's doing nothing, so how could it be?

MY hd isn't going bad, is it?

Umm, here to serve!

Connector? Doubtful. And not PSU or you'd have other problems.

Could be going bad. I wouldn't wait to find out.

It's a Seagate, right? Under thier new 5 year warranty? Back-up the data (good idea anyway) and tell Seagate that one of their drives is acting strangely and you'd like one the plays nice with the rest of your system. See what they say. They have a good rep, see if you can take that rep to the bank.

Edit: Just read that part about the click. Hard drives don?t usually ?click? unless they?re going to go ?crash.? Get the data you value off ASAP. Sometimes drives fail in an instant, sometimes the just fade away. I would wait to find out which this will be.

 

[Pariah]

I wouldn't worry about the click. That's a normal sound when a hard drive is spinning down and up like yours is. The problem is that the drive shouldn't be spinning down. Most often the cause is a power issue. Try moving the drive to a different cable, or removing some peripherals to see if it stops doing that. If it still does, the drive may be going bad. Enable SMART and see if it detects anything.

 

[WayneTeK]

Originally posted by: Pariah
I wouldn't worry about the click. That's a normal sound when a hard drive is spinning down and up like yours is. The problem is that the drive shouldn't be spinning down. Most often the cause is a power issue. Try moving the drive to a different cable, or removing some peripherals to see if it stops doing that. If it still does, the drive may be going bad. Enable SMART and see if it detects anything.

how do you enable SMART? IS SMART the software Seagate provided?

 

[Pariah]

SMART is a feature of the ATA drives/interface. Usually it is enabled in the BIOS. Seagate has diagnostics tools on their site that should be able to detect if anything is wrong with your drive. I'm not sure if Seatools reads the SMART logs, but either way it should tell you if the drive is OK.

 

[WayneTeK]

Originally posted by: Pariah
SMART is a feature of the ATA drives/interface. Usually it is enabled in the BIOS. Seagate has diagnostics tools on their site that should be able to detect if anything is wrong with your drive. I'm not sure if Seatools reads the SMART logs, but either way it should tell you if the drive is OK.

oooh thanks!