Hello.

Could somebody give me some pointers on where to start with this case please?

I have a Seagate ST325082 3A USB hard disk that has been working fine for a year. I have it in an 'Icy Box' enclosure. The OS is XP SP2.

The enclosure lights are always on and they flash quickly when the drive gets accessed.

The last few days, any time the system accesses the disk, e.g. while opening 'My Computer', the drive lights flash on and off but stay too long in the 'off' part.

The system is unable to get the disk's size and if I try to access it, it claims it's unformatted.

XP's computer management applet claims the drive is healthy but it doesn't recognize it as NTFS or anything else for that matter.

I run the Seagate tools on it, they came up with some unknown error and asked me to run the tools from a floppy or CD. I couldn't (see below).

I run HDDScan and it found about 120 bad blocks.

I tried Magic Boot Disk with MHDD but it gave me the same problem as Seagate's disc.

What it comes down to is that I can boot any Windows-based CD (MiniPE etc) but not the others.

Hiren's CD gets to its initial menu ( choose Windows or CD). Selecting CD, the system just stays with a blank screen with a cursor only.
Similarly with MHDD, Ultimate Boot CD and others that seem to boot with either a Dr DOS or Linux kernel.

I've already backed up the data on the disc (used FinalData under a boot Windows CD) and can reformat it but I'd like to know why these things happen all of a sudden.

All the above tools used to work fine last time I tried them. Is the problem related to the bad USB disk maybe?

All my other disks diskchecked fine, are defragmented, and check as virus-clean.

How doesn't the MHDD CD run? Does it expect something in particular? Some limit in the disk's sizes or rotation speeds maybe?

Thanks in advance for any suggestions.

Try wiping it a few times to eliminate bad sectors. It should help.

Thank you.

I'm in the process of formatting it now using the normal Windows applet under MiniPE.
I couldn't get any other type of CD to boot up.

When you refer to multiple wipe-outs, do you have some particular utility in mind? Does it work under Windows, since nothing else seems to work?

As for the possibility of the enclosure going bad, does it normally behave like that? Shouldn't the disk just become inaccessible? And if it's a bad cable, shouldn't it get the errors in random places.

I find it strange (in a good sense) that FinalData managed to get 100% of my data without any complaints. That was 240GB out of 250GB. Disk was almost full.

I'll check it for bad blocks once the format is done and post the results.

Thanks again.

I didn't get far.

I reformatted the disk and now HDDScan Read found around 2,500 blocks at > 500 and zero bad blocks. (They were about 5 when I started the checks with an additional 125 bad blocks).

A following HDDScan Erase found a bunch of bad blocks but it was going too slowly and I stopped it.

I'm running XP's format again but it's dragging its feet. The disk's lights stay mostly off.

Before doing all the above, I connencted the disk with a USB cable I took off a working disk.
It didn't make a difference so I guess this points to an enclosure problem.
Am I right?

What's getting to be annoying is that I still can't boot non-Windows CDs.

What on earth might be causing that?

Thanks.

Hi try taking it out of the enclosure and connecting it directly to an IDE/SATA cable inside your PC depending on the interface. If it works better there you know it is your enclosure. Try to wipe the drive using WDclear or some utility to write )'s to the drive a couple of times and then try to format.

_________________
I think ST is a sub company of Lucas

No good news I'm afraid.

I just bought a new enclosure and transferred the disk there.

No change. When I ask XP to format it, it takes forever again with the disk lights hardly ever lighting up.

Hard to believe the disk would let me get all my data and then die on me.

There aren't any filters in the driver chain either that could cause a problem. Only MS PartMgr.

What next? I tried a new enclosure, new power supply, new USB cable, different USB ports on the mobo as well as external powered ports.

I wonder if it's somehow related to not being able to boot from some CDs. I can't imagine how since they use different channels.

I'm open to suggestions (other than scratch the disk ).

Let me get this right.

XP finds the disk OK (i.e. as it's proper model name)?

And even starts to format, right?

If that's the case, then your drive almost certainly has developed some bad sectors.

You may be able to mark these out with something like MHDD, if there's not too many. Otherwise, yes, scrap the drive.

Some updates at last that hopefully will help.

First off, I'd scrap the drive if it had some physical problem.
Since everything went bad so quickly (after all, only yesterday I read my data off, all 230GB+ of it), I'd think it must be something that can be fixed with some formatting software.

Second, the updates I referred to above.

I can now boot from non-Windows CDs even though I don't understand the reasons behind it.

I've read a thread that referred to an Acronis problem with booting up. There were two suggestions on it:
1. When Acronis runs, force it to not use ACPI.
This didn't help me. Any combinations of ACPI in the BIOS didn't make a difference.

2. It could boot with no USB drives connected or powered up.
That's what I tried and it worked.

For Hirens boot CD, I switched the drives off, got to the first selection menu, selected CD and got to the second application menu. I switched the drives on at this point and then started up some application. It worked.

It was strange so I experimented a bit and found the culprit.

In my system, I have 3 external USB drives. Two 250GB WDs in IcyBox enclosures and one 500GB WD in a LaCie box split in two 250GB partitions.

The system boots the CDs fine if I just switch off the LaCie.

Why would that be, I've no idea. I know the other two are set as Master but the LaCie is in a closed box and I just don't know its settings. It shouldn't make a difference though. All drives have been working great for months now.

The problem is now, how to go about fixing the bad drive.

I could only repartition it but still can't finish a format.

I run MHDD on it with the F4 command but it generated too many errors and its log run out of space in the RAM disk.

What could I run that would just do a low-level format and skip all the logging?

Thanks.

I think this drive is toast my friend. Sounds like you have a head failing, or surface degradation.

An internal Selfscan 'may' fix it, but you need special software/tools to do this. And these cost 100x more than the drive is worth

Hi you could try to write 0's to the drive, then try HDDregenerator or Spinrite , but it takes a long time. Usually this is symptoms of a failing drive, better to bin it. 2 other things to try, open the box and plug directly into PC to eliminate controller for USB box, and see if bads show in different places or same each scan. Either way it sounds like the drive is on it's way out. Be happy you got your info before it died.

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I think ST is a sub company of Lucas

Hmm, possibly. But HDD regenerator, as far as I can work out, just remaps bad sectors to G-List. Spinrite 6 might be worth a try though, option 4 I believe, from memory.

Thanks for the suggestions.

I'll try them out and see how it goes. Unless they run under Windows, I can't let them have the computer for too long and I'd rather scrap the drive.

I still don't believe surface degradation or something as bad would settle in so quickly.

This disk is about 6 months old and it's quiet like a mouse. Well, it doesn't let too much data get through and that might explain that

The XP format (it runs since yesterday but the completed percentage counter hasn't even come up yet) spends its time lighting up the disk once every seconds.

The HDD Regenerator that I had tried for a while yesterday, spent two hours processing 1 GB but the lights were on all the time and it didn't find or correct any errors.

The day before when I backed up the data, XP claimed the disk was unformatted and the lights were off for some time on every access. Nevertheless, FinalData, found the data from the MFT, and after the initial lights-off seconds, it backed up the complete data with the lights on all the time and no errors.

I'm off to try some of your suggestions.

Thanks for your help.

Hi Spinrite will actually remove recovered Bad sectors from G-list if they are actually marked there. Just be ready to leave it running for up to 3 days for a drive that size with lots of bads.

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I think ST is a sub company of Lucas

Thanks.
I should do that when I go on vacation .

I just tried and stopped HDD Regenerator. It certainly doesn't behave as if the disk surface is bad.

It went on for 3 hours and processed 3+GB (7,000,000 sectors).
The lights were staying off now and then (but not as long as with XP).
Still though, it found zero bad sectors and recovered none. White process bar (even though it was just a notch).

Maybe the disk's surfaces are good but the power to the spindles or something is not smooth. There was a major power failure a few days ago. Not enough to bother my UPS (the disks are connected to it also) but maybe something went through.

I'll try a couple more utilities and then probably retire the disk.

If anybody has any further ideas, please post them.

Whatever the case, thank you all very much. Much appreciated for the help.

Spirite would take about 3 days for a 250GB disk if it has a bunch of bads!

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I think ST is a sub company of Lucas

MHDD or victoria is much faster why dont u try that .