3rd hard disk in a row died

[K.I.L.E.R]

YAY!

What could possibly be causing the death of all my hard disks?
My current one doesn't have bad sectors, it plainly failed.

Seagate 16MB cache 320GB drive.

Could my motherboard SATA controller be responsible?
What could cause such deaths?

When I got my new drive, I scanned it head to toe and it was perfect.
Just now, 20 minutes ago, it failed when I was in Heroes 5 the game started stuttering badly and have long pauses in between stutters, my hard drive was going nuts.

 

[AlNom]

I don't suppose you use a magnetic screwdriver...

That is some pretty bad luck.

 

[K.I.L.E.R]

We do use a magnetic screwdriver (my brother says they are all magnetic) but it's a very weak magnetic screwdriver.

Is this a prbolem?

My 1st drive lasted 8 months, 2nd one lasted about the same but my current one is a few weeks old.
Wouldn't the magnetic screw driver destroyed my drive immediately?
I put my drive in my computer when the computer isn't plugged into the wall.

Just to note I've been using that screwdriver since I got a computer and have never had a problem with it. Maybe until now?

 

[Skrying]

I use to blame people on these things right away, untill I had an experience with BFG and three bad graphics cards in a row. Now I second guess.

I'd recommend you not using a magentic screwdiver, even if it is weak. I'd also make sure your power supply is giving proper readings.

 

[max-pain]

Maybe the PSU...

 

[K.I.L.E.R]

How do I test the PSU?

 

[Skrying]

How do I test the PSU?

Multimeter is best, you'll still need further instructions from there though, which I do not feel like typing out. You can also use a program and your motherboar's health status or some such to see those readings.

Once the hard drive starts acting up are you not able to use it at all? Can you format it and see if it acts up? Does it make any strange sounds before for dying? More details the better.

 

[K.I.L.E.R]

I am able to use it, however it starts spinning up/down over and over again until I exit the game.
It's not actually dead yet, but is displaying the above sign, which leads me to believe it's dying.
My last 2 hard disks have had the exact same issue.

I will do more tests.

Thanks.

Multimeter is best, you'll still need further instructions from there though, which I do not feel like typing out. You can also use a program and your motherboar's health status or some such to see those readings.

Once the hard drive starts acting up are you not able to use it at all? Can you format it and see if it acts up? Does it make any strange sounds before for dying? More details the better.

 

[Geeforcer]

Heat. Newer drives seem to be more sensitive to it. Make sure you have unobstructed airflow over/under your drive.

 

[K.I.L.E.R]

My disk drive is underneath it, but I do leave my case open. Would that even it out?

 

[K.I.L.E.R]

I'm the world's biggest moron.
I ran the file system check under DOS(whatever) and errors came about, however I didn't check the drive clusters because that's what I thought I was testing on a single partition.

Apperently the file system is guncked but not teh drive, which is why there was trouble reading files.

I know why I have file system errors, because my when I watch TV on my Leadtek DVB 1000T it freezes up after I close the program (and have watched TV) and it hard locks my system, no blue screens or anything, just a hard lock and I'm forced to restart.

Several problems occured due to this, Firefox had missing bookmarks, I luckily keep a backups.

Results for volume C: (NTFS)

Volume Label:
Volume Size: 96.02 GB
Some files on the volume are open. This may effect the accuracy of the file system check and result in false errors.

The file system contains errors that need to be repaired.

 

[K.I.L.E.R]

I just found out I'm a bigger idiot than I thought.
The very first test I've done(the one 30 minutes before I started this thread) had the very same information as the test I've just finished running on Seagate's online thing, no clusters are bad but my filesystem is damaged for the above reasons, I've only read the report now because when I read the report in DOS it only contained information but I saved the report anyway for future proof.

I will fix the partition and re-run the tests just to be sure.

SeaTools Desktop v3.02.04
Copyright (c) 2005 Kroll Ontrack Inc.

11/4/2006 @ 4:57 PM

The following information has been generated by SeaTools Desktop.  Use
this information to help you recognize and resolve potential data access
problems.


System Information:
BIOS Date                 01/16/04
Conventional Memory size   638 K
Extended Memory size      58532 K
IO Channel type            PCI



Drive Information:
SIZE         MODEL
---------    ---------------------
320 GB       BIOS Drive 0x80                         


Serial Number = N/A
Int13 Num = 80, PHYS CHS = 0x0x0.
ParmTable CHS, Rsvd = 38913x255x63

PARTITION       CYLINDER          SIZE
----------      ------------      ----
 #   Type       Start    End      MB
 PRIMARY
 1   NTFS       0        11673    96028  
 PRIMARY
 2   NTFS       11674    11934    2146   
 PRIMARY
 3   NTFS       11935    38912    221915 


Diagnostic Results:



  File Structure Test Result:   

    Partition 1 (NTFS (96 GB) )    Result: Failed with critical Errors

    The following errors were found while scanning the volume:
     - One or more errors were found in the index
     - Other errors were found

    NOTE:  Any report of possible errors in the file system tests are for
    informational purposes only.  We suggest you should consider testing with 
    the official file system diagnostic utilities for your operating system.
    Seagate is not able to assist with troubleshooting or reviewing
    file system test results.

    Partition 2 (NTFS (2.1 GB) Swap)  Not Tested

    NOTE:  Any report of possible errors in the file system tests are for
    informational purposes only.  We suggest you should consider testing with 
    the official file system diagnostic utilities for your operating system.
    Seagate is not able to assist with troubleshooting or reviewing
    file system test results.

    Partition 3 (NTFS (221.9 GB) Backups)  Not Tested

    NOTE:  Any report of possible errors in the file system tests are for
    informational purposes only.  We suggest you should consider testing with 
    the official file system diagnostic utilities for your operating system.
    Seagate is not able to assist with troubleshooting or reviewing
    file system test results.



******************************************


Recommendation:
If you are not experiencing data loss and SeaTools reports File 
System Structure errors, they may be caused by a lock-up or 
failure to shutdown Windows correctly. Many times, these errors
may be repaired through normal system maintenance which
includes using the Windows provided "Defrag" and
"Scandisk / Chkdsk / Error Checking" utilities.

If you are experiencing a hardware error, you should isolate
the cause and replace the failing component. If you are unsure how
to proceed with repairs, contact a computer professional. After
completing any maintenance tasks, run SeaTools again to
verify that all errors have been repaired. If errors continue to
occur, the system may not be stable. Again, contact a computer 
professional.




========================================================

 

[Gnerma]

So can you safely assume that since the previous two drives were exhibiting the same issue that were likely caused by the same thing they were also fine? And would that make you and even bigger idiot?

 

[K.I.L.E.R]

Now the only problem is how to fix my partitions?

chkdsk /r doesn't seem to do it, because it cannot find anything wrong with my drive.
Any ideas?

 

[stevem]

My disk drive is underneath it, but I do leave my case open. Would that even it out?

No. No airflow. You're actually better off closing the case & ensuring good airflow. Unless the sides of the HDD have complete flush contact with metal, you won't have any heatsinking going on at all either. Most cases/mounts contact metal only at the screw points. Unless you've got a drive stack (RAID, etc), space your drives out for better cooling. If your case can accommodate an intake fan mounted in front of the HDD bays, add one. ATA/SATA drives can reach >50C without appropriate cooling. 15k SCSI will go even higher.

chkdsk /r doesn't seem to do it, because it cannot find anything wrong with my drive.

Try chkdsk /f /x.

Re: Magnetic screwdrivers, unless we're talking the Dr. Who kind, forget about it...

 

[K.I.L.E.R]

Unfortunately I really have absolutely no space to move my drive.

ANother thing I've found is that Seatools can't diagnose an NTFS partition, the errors I got were normal, which is why Windows XP didn't detect anything.

The event viewer shows this issue every so often and it does it several times within a time window.

An error was detected on device \Device\Harddisk0\D during a paging operation.

For more information, see Help and Support Center at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/events.asp.

0000: 03 00 68 00 01 00 b6 00   ..h...¶.
0008: 00 00 00 00 33 00 04 80   ....3..€
0010: 2d 01 00 00 00 00 00 00   -.......
0018: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00   ........
0020: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00   ........
0028: b8 2f 38 00 00 00 00 00   ¸/8.....
0030: ff ff ff ff 03 00 00 00   ÿÿÿÿ....
0038: 40 00 00 0e 00 01 00 00   @.......
0040: 8a 20 0a 12 42 03 00 40   Š ..B..@
0048: 00 10 00 00 0a 00 00 00   ........
0050: 00 00 00 00 00 4e ec 86   .....Nì†
0058: 00 00 00 00 08 30 d3 85   .....0Ó…
0060: b8 cf e6 86 b7 b2 01 00   ¸Ï憷²..
0068: 28 00 00 01 b2 b7 00 00   (...²·..
0070: 08 00 00 00 00 00 00 00   ........
0078: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00   ........
0080: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00   ........
0088: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00   ........

I've just done chkdsk /f /x and came up with:

Checking file system on C:
The type of the file system is NTFS.


A disk check has been scheduled.
Windows will now check the disk.                         
Cleaning up minor inconsistencies on the drive.
Cleaning up 6 unused index entries from index $SII of file 0x9.
Cleaning up 6 unused index entries from index $SDH of file 0x9.
Cleaning up 6 unused security descriptors.

  93771373 KB total disk space.
  31360356 KB in 68539 files.
     22440 KB in 6977 indexes.
         0 KB in bad sectors.
    146105 KB in use by the system.
     65536 KB occupied by the log file.
  62242472 KB available on disk.

      4096 bytes in each allocation unit.
  23442843 total allocation units on disk.
  15560618 allocation units available on disk.

Internal Info:
60 2b 01 00 06 27 01 00 02 9b 01 00 00 00 00 00  `+...'..........
05 01 00 00 01 00 00 00 2d 02 00 00 00 00 00 00  ........-.......
d6 b7 1b 01 00 00 00 00 9a f3 11 24 00 00 00 00  ...........$....
b8 5f e6 01 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  ._..............
00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 7c 22 70 28 00 00 00 00  ........|"p(....
99 9e 36 00 00 00 00 00 c0 3c 07 00 bb 0b 01 00  ..6......<......
00 00 00 00 00 90 15 7a 07 00 00 00 41 1b 00 00  .......z....A...

Windows has finished checking your disk.
Please wait while your computer restarts.


For more information, see Help and Support Center at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/events.asp.

No. No airflow. You're actually better off closing the case & ensuring good airflow. Unless the sides of the HDD have complete flush contact with metal, you won't have any heatsinking going on at all either. Most cases/mounts contact metal only at the screw points. Unless you've got a drive stack (RAID, etc), space your drives out for better cooling. If your case can accommodate an intake fan mounted in front of the HDD bays, add one. ATA/SATA drives can reach >50C without appropriate cooling. 15k SCSI will go even higher.


Try chkdsk /f /x.

Re: Magnetic screwdrivers, unless we're talking the Dr. Who kind, forget about it...

 

[K.I.L.E.R]

Stevem, I think I'm going to kiss you.

You got me concerned about heat on my drive and so you know what I just have done?
I tried to attach a fan onto the side of my HD and while doing that I tried to disconnect my SATA wires but I couldn't, so I thought about forgetting that idea and pushed whatever I pulled out back in fully, or so I thought.

I turned on my PC, guess what? It didn't even recognise my drive, I did this twice.
So I fiddled with the SATA connector some more and TADA!!!
It worked, but it didn't just work, I though I'd try HOMM5 again and my other games and guess what?
No more stuttering, in fact it's working perfectly.

WTF???
All I really did was try to unplug and replug my SATA wire and the power connector and everything seems to work now perfectly.
Was it a loose wire all this time?
If so, how would that happen?

I *HOPE* this is the end of it but I will keep you guys informed.
Thanks for the ideas Stevem.

 

[PARANOiA]

KILER, this has to be your funniest thread in ages. Keep up the quality

 

[K.I.L.E.R]

It's not fixed.
It has started happening again.
Fucking drive.

It's only happening on the Heroes 5 single player campaign maps; campaign 1 level 5 and campaign 2 level2 tested.
The map I downloaded runs perfectly fine without any issues, as do all my other programs.

 

[Otto Dafe]

I've had problems with loose sata cables before causing drives to disappear, reappear, and sometimes just misbehave. I fixed it by wrapping the connectors with some double-sided scotch tape.

If not that I'd try to test drives on a different controller, I've had problems with that too. I suppose they could be 3 drives from the same bad batch, but isn't that about as likely as hitting a straight flush on the flop?