Beeping Deathstar

[snakeman]

Hello Ive been visiting this site for a couple of weeks now and think it is great, ALOT of hard to find information. So now I have joined and have my first question. I have a 46gig deathstar that does something Ive never heard a drive do, it beeps (yes its the drive not the PC). On boot it spins up and then beeps about 14 times and in between beeps you can hear the heads move (almost a click of death noise but not quite the same) after which the heads return to the outside and the drive continues to spin. Its not being recognized by anything either. Everything Ive read (google and here) about a drive beeping none had the same symptoms as this drive. I have checked and the platters look fine, no damage. Was wondering if anybody here had any insights they could share with me. Thanks.

[maxshot]

I suggested that the power supplier's voltage maybe un-stabilited. Bring on hdd powers poor when startup.

[snakeman]

So do you mean the PC power supply or voltage from PCB on. If you mean PC power supply Ive tried 2 of them. Any other ideas?

[pepe]

Hi

I would vote for head damage, but there are some things u can do before we say this for sure.
I suggest checking the connection between the PCB and the HDA, try resoldering the pads.
If this doesn't help, U can try another PCB from the same model.
It might not work without changing some things on the donor PCB, but the sound should definitely change if the PCB causes the problem.

pepe

[snakeman]

Ok Ive been shopping around for a donor drive and Im really suprised at how expensive these drives still are (even used on ebay). Does any body here have alot of experience with IBM drives (I mostly work with WD and Maxtor)? What Im wondering is if there is another model or same model but of different size that would have the same head stack in them (I know I would need the same one for the PCB). I'm finding alot of 20,30,40gb hdd and 60+ drives but only a few of this size (46.1). It is a customers drive and I cant go buying 5 drives to find one that has the parts I need. I will try tonight to resolder the pads thanks Pepe. Is there any other advice you could give me to help me narrow down wether its the PCB or heads? I to feel it is the heads but would like to be able to test the PCB further, is there any tests I can do on the PCB without having a donor handy? This drive has alot of jumper settings and it has a setting to force the drive to be recognized. When I set this jumper setting the drive does show in the bios but after the bios clears it says hdd error and disables the drive, which is what I would expect it to do since the heads arent working. Im' not sure if the system just looks for these jumpers to be shorted and then just says there is a drive present or if the board is working and there is some logic on the board that reports there is a drive, maybe someone could enlighten me. Thanks again for any help everyone.

[pepe]

Hello,

We don't even know the exact model of the drive yet...

pepe

[snakeman]

Oooops sory about that, trying to make sure I give as much info as possible and I forget the most basic thing. Its a DTLA-307045 46.1gb, P/N 07N5640. Thanks