What is going on with my hard drive?

[Will Pittenger]

I have a new Seagate 250 GB PATA drive I got as a warranty replacement. It immediately started acting up. So when I saw you had MHDD for download, I burned a CD and tried it out. My original theory was that a fan I just moved (while installing the new drive) was hitting the drive and/or its cage. (I was hearing a lot of chirping noises and the entire computer would constantly pause.) Windows rarely boots until the drive has been spinning for some time. This is bad because I have to shut the computer down while I sleep as it is in my bedroom.

I had MHDD do a scan just after I turned on the computer. I got over 50 on the item labelled ">500 msecs" and 172 IDNF (what ever that is). I then ran it a second time to see how much difference having it run for a while made. The scan completed much faster. All the times were lower and the IDNFs fell to 54. I also had MHDD do a screen shot, but I don't know how to read it. (See attached.)

Attachments

hostTest.log

Screen shot of second test. Screen shot taken by MHDD.

(388 Bytes) Downloaded 566 times

[rchadwick]

I suspect the chirping was coming from the drive itself, and not from a nearby fan. The short of it is you have another bad drive. A longer explanation might include bad sectors, or more likely a weak head. Time to call Seagate again...

[Will Pittenger]

Did you look at the file? Where you able to make any sense of it?

[Will Pittenger]

Well the new hard drive is in. However, I have heard it chirping in the same manner as with the previous hard drive. I ran the diagostics on it too. See the images below. Why can't Seagate send me a drive that really is repaired? (They only use "refurbished" or "repaired" drives for warranty returns.)

[jono-ats]

Have you tried the drive in a different enclosure or with a different power supply? Sometimes "chirping" with Seagate is mechanical, e.g. failed bearing. But it may be possible that the power supply isn't delivering enough 12VDC current to spin the motor.

If another supply doesn't help, then you've got another bad HDU.

Jon

[Will Pittenger]

Where am I going to get another enclosure or power supply?

[harddrivespecialist]

Just get a new drive from Seagate.

[Will Pittenger]

So I do I ensure I actually get working drives? The drive in question is the only bootable hard drive I have. (I do have a USB portable, but when I attempted to put my boot partition on that drive, the BIOS complained about the cylinder count.)

[Will Pittenger]

I just reran that test with the drive cold. The results are similar to before. Also, you never answered my question about how to ensure I get a working drive.

[Doomer]

Show SMART attributes please. That could shade a light on your problem

[Will Pittenger]