I have a Hitachi HDS723020BLA642 2TB drive that has a weird quirk. If the computer is powered off for more than 12 hours or so, the drive will do the death click when powered on. A quick power cycle will then revive the drive. If it has been less than 12 hours it will most likely come up normal. It has been like this for 2+ years, and it is still going. I am using it as a backup drive, so it is not critical. But I was just wondering if anyone has seen this before? I was expecting the drive to fail long ago, but it has been very consistent. I am just curious as to what could cause this kind of issue. I know better than to trust it fully, but the fact that it has continued to work like this for almost 3 years is interesting.

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Hello maximus,

try to connect drive in another computer or try to replace power supply.
Otherwise replace drive

could be a faulty transsister on the PCB board that does not work well when cold, or the spindle motor could have a flaw in it that will get stuck slightly and need more force. Not sure really on this.

If you are up for it, you could see if you could get a new PCB with the same date the drive was made and see if that solves the problem. If the drive spins up okay with the new board, then move the ROM chip to the new PCB.

Shane

The topic title is confusing - what do you mean by "doesn’t always connect first time"? Also what is a "quick power cycle" and how it "will then revive the drive"?

We have these drives in some of our machines and in a silent room it's indeed rather easy to hear when they unpark their heads.

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+1

I'd say it's most likely due to the power supply not putting out enough voltage.

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I can't imagine what is going on, but I would think that if a PSU were flaky 3 years ago, then it would be dead today, unless the flakiness was due to a design fault rather than component ageing.

If the issue is a thermal one, then try to narrow down the cause by prewarming the HDD with a hair dryer.

Whatever the problem, it would be advisable to periodically examine the drive's SMART data with a tool such as CrystalDiskInfo.

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I would just like to provide an update on this. I have finally moved the drive to another computer, and it still has the same issue so it is not a power supply or voltage issue. But it is still consistent, as a power cycle always brings it back to life if it does not initially come up, and the condition has not gotten any worse. I don't fully trust it so I am not saving any critical data to it. And I really don't trust it because I had an identical model with less hours go south with a bad head right when I wanted to move the drives around to different computers. Not the best experience with this model drive for me.

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At this time I am still using the drive and need it, even if I can't fully trust it. But in the future... I do have an identical model with a weak/damaged head. While I am doing very well at writing software, this could end up being my first hardware test. But my focus is too much on my software right now to try to play with this on the hardware level.

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This drive is starting to annoy me, so I have to ask: How hard is this to do? What does it require in this case? I am old school and have no experience with hot air soldering if it involves that to swap the chips.

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