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TMX · 02-21-2007, 11:33 PM

One of my drives (SATA II, 250GB, 7200RPM) sounds like it is on the verge of becoming a £75 doorstop.

For roughly six months it's been making the odd noise, where the drive sort of stalls, (clicks, spins itself down, then spins itself back up), doing this every 6-12 hours of use or so.

This week, it's stepped up it's erratic-ness a notch, by completely spazzing out twice in 2 days. Completely froze the system as it was spinning up, then down, then up, then down...
Did this until it was powered off (by the plug, was frozen so it wouldn't respond to being asked nicely).

I've already ordered a replacement drive, as I'd rather lose a month of beer money than risk losing all my stuff, but was just interested if anyone had any thoughts about cause/alternative solutions.

I don't think it's the cable, it's not twisted or showing outward signs of damage, I've also swapped it onto the other drive controller on the motherboard (got an NVida and a separate silicon image SATA chip), and it's happened while connected to both, so it can't be the drive controller.

It's a power-hungry system, but it's on a power line by itself, and other more sensitive devices aren't showing any signs of low power. The BIOS readout shows that all pin voltages on the motherboard are OK, plus or minus 0.1 volts, so I don't think it's a power issue.

Checkdisk doesn't turn up any problems with the drive, and Windows thinks that the drive is otherwise healthy, as does the SATA chip. I ran a SMART utility, and all the values it found were listed as "OK"

I also have an identical drive in the system, which is not displaying the same problem.

Finally (for when the drive comes) can anyone recommend any good disk imaging software? Has to be able to cope with files that are in use, protected system files, and not cry because the two drives are different (and obviously, support Windows Vista/NTFS V3.1).

OS is Windows Vista Ultimate 64 bit.

02-21-2007, 11:33 PM	#1 (permalink)
TMX Registered User Join Date: Mar 2005 Posts: 6 OS: XP Pro/Suse 9.2 Pro	Dying Hard Disk One of my drives (SATA II, 250GB, 7200RPM) sounds like it is on the verge of becoming a £75 doorstop. For roughly six months it's been making the odd noise, where the drive sort of stalls, (clicks, spins itself down, then spins itself back up), doing this every 6-12 hours of use or so. This week, it's stepped up it's erratic-ness a notch, by completely spazzing out twice in 2 days. Completely froze the system as it was spinning up, then down, then up, then down... Did this until it was powered off (by the plug, was frozen so it wouldn't respond to being asked nicely). I've already ordered a replacement drive, as I'd rather lose a month of beer money than risk losing all my stuff, but was just interested if anyone had any thoughts about cause/alternative solutions. I don't think it's the cable, it's not twisted or showing outward signs of damage, I've also swapped it onto the other drive controller on the motherboard (got an NVida and a separate silicon image SATA chip), and it's happened while connected to both, so it can't be the drive controller. It's a power-hungry system, but it's on a power line by itself, and other more sensitive devices aren't showing any signs of low power. The BIOS readout shows that all pin voltages on the motherboard are OK, plus or minus 0.1 volts, so I don't think it's a power issue. Checkdisk doesn't turn up any problems with the drive, and Windows thinks that the drive is otherwise healthy, as does the SATA chip. I ran a SMART utility, and all the values it found were listed as "OK" I also have an identical drive in the system, which is not displaying the same problem. Finally (for when the drive comes) can anyone recommend any good disk imaging software? Has to be able to cope with files that are in use, protected system files, and not cry because the two drives are different (and obviously, support Windows Vista/NTFS V3.1). OS is Windows Vista Ultimate 64 bit.