Is it ready to kick the bucket?

[Guest]

I've just finished saving some important data on my computer. I've had this western digital hard drive (ata100) for almost a year now. It has had poor performance since i bought it, but its gotten bad lately.
For as long as Ican remember its made noises where it'll shut off and shut right back on again. But within the last month, all files i've downloaded are corrupted. But right now, it shuts off and turns back on about 2 times per minute. I ran a sisoftware sandra test on it and it performed the equivalent of a ata33, and it actually did a little bit worse. I'm expecting it to fail tonight or in a few days, but if you guys have any idea of what this could be (power supply, etc.) I'd sure like to hear it.

By the way, if i don't reply, mabye it has already died.

 

[scamtrOn]

what dma mode is it in? it should be in ultra dma mode 5

what kind of cable are you using? you should be using a 40 pin 80 wire ribbon cable

what motherboard is it on? it should support ultra dma modes

what driver are you using? the latest would be nice

does your motherboard take a long time to find the drive every time you boot your pc? (longer than 8 seconds)

what os are youi using?

what kind of partition are you using?



there are more questions, but i don't remember. i think they go in the order i have listed.... the top is most likely the reason. if you pass all the questions (but i prolly forgot some) you have a bad drive


<font color=orange><b>Crying Stripper</b> - I can make all of your fantasies come true

 

[scamtrOn]

oh yeah


how long since last format?

how well is it cooled? (very important)

is there any thing around the hard drive that is not a part of a normal pc?

<font color=orange><b>Crying Stripper</b> - I can make all of your fantasies come true

 

[Guest]

Well, suprisingly today the sound is gone. Looks like its back from the dead. I did look to see if it was running in Ultra DMA 5, and in bios there were only options up to 4. I'm running A Soltek Board. Thanks for the help anyways, but i havent' heard it again today. Thats kinda weird, i hope thats a good sign. On the subject of cooling, I don't have any. I wasn't aware you had to cool your hard drives. Is this something I should be doing?

 

[lhgpoobaa]

I <b>STRONGLY SUGGEST</b> you go to the drive manufacturers webpage and download the drive monitoring tools and check the drive out.
Also i would be in a hurry to backup all your important info.

aslo checkt he cable connections, make sure they are all tight and snug.
Active drive cooling is not usually needed for IDE drives, however its good to have them somehwere where air can freely circulate, not sandwiched together between others.

<b>My Computer is so powerful Suron Desires it and mortal men Covert it, <i>My Precioussssssss</i></b>

 

[scamtrOn]

if your mobo doesn't have dma mode 5, uata 66 (dma mode 4) is the fastest it supports. make sure you have it in mda mode 4 on windows.

as for cooling, you don't need to have any special cooling for your hard drives, but make sure there is enought air going around in the case to keep them cool. if they are hot, its bad... they shouldn't be hot

<font color=orange><b>Crying Stripper</b> - I can make all of your fantasies come true

 

[Guest]

I've figured it out, my hard hard drive only does it when playing movies, downloading, or in situations where that hard drive is being used a lot. Also, where in windows do I enable mda 4? Thanks

 

[lhgpoobaa]

in win2k / XP dma is enabled in control pannel -> system -> devices -> device drivers -> primary/seconday IDE channel.

Enable UDMA then reboot. IF everything is working properly UDMA will work. If it doesnt something is wrong.

<b>My Computer is so powerful Sauron Desires it and mortal men Covet it, <i>My Precioussssssss</i></b>