Hard drive problem

[i30i3i3y]

Hi,

My HDD has been making some loud clicks (well louder than usual, its the kind the drive makes when the windows decides to reboot on its own). It makes them randomly, and its a single click.

I've got 2 maxtor hdd's (a 120 and 200 GB). The 120 is the master. I believe its that one thats clicking (it's also older). P4 2.4 533 on an Asus P4P800-X mobo. 400W generic psu (rails are, 12.403, 4.945, 3.232).

I've had these errors,

The device, \Device\Ide\IdePort0, did not respond within the timeout period.
The driver detected a controller error on \Device\Ide\IdePort0.
An error was detected on device \Device\Harddisk0\D during a paging operation.
An error was detected on device \Device\Harddisk1\D during a paging operation.

Windows would also just stall, no BSOD, just a frozen screen of whatever i was doing.

I went and changed the ide cable. It seems ok now, but i think i still hear the clicking. I'm gonna swap the molex for good measure. But does anyone know anymore about this?

Windows did set my primary channel to PIO mode cos of all the errors. I did the uninstall/reinstall quick fix to restore udma 6.

This all just suddenly started happening, I hope my drive isnt failing.

Any input appreciated.

 

[Nodsu]

Download the hard drive diagnostic utility from your HD manufacturer and run a full scan of the drive. If any errors are found and your drive is still under warranty then you should have it replaced.

 

[DelJo63]

get an immediate backup ... no telling how long the beast may live.
Running diags is great, but that may shorten the HD life -- get the backup
first and at least you'll have your data

 

[i30i3i3y]

I've run the Maxtor PowerMax diagnostic software. Says everything is ok.After swapping the ide cable I still got clicks and it hung once. I then went and changed the molex connector to the hard drive as the one I had connected went thru 2 or 3 fans then to the hard drive. Now I've got two plugs coming straight from the psu to the HDD's. Let's see what happens. Defragging a couple of the partitions to test its integrity. Funny thing is when it hung there wasn't an error message in the event viewer.

Also about the warranty, I bought the HDD about 2 years ago as OEM. As far as I know OEM parts aren't covered by warranty or am I totally wrong here? I know asus don't cover OEM motherboards with their 3 year warranty. I didn't find anything about OEM products on the maxtor site, it just said Maxtor DiamondMax 9's have a 3 year warranty. Can anyone clarify?

 

[DelJo63]

..Let's see what happens. Defragging a couple of the partitions to test its integrity. Funny thing is when it hung there wasn't an error message in the event viewer.

OUCH! When you suspect HD problems, NEVER use defrag. If there is a real problem
underlying, you're only scrambling the data.
[/QUOTE]

 

[PanicX]

Check your warranty information here.

 

[i30i3i3y]

OUCH! When you suspect HD problems, NEVER use defrag. If there is a real problem
underlying, you're only scrambling the data.

[/QUOTE]

Not really anything of much importance on the drive. I just don't want the hassle and expense of buying a new drive and reinstalling everything. I'd rather the drive packed in completely or worked totally normally, I don't like in betweens If after the defrag it isn't dead then it shouldn't die anytime soon.

After changing the molex connector and doing the defrag things seem ok. I've yet to hear the click. Hope that was the problem.

 

[DonNagual]

In my last computer I had a maxtor 80Gb and it had loud clicking as well. Mainly when loading up a program (intensive HDD use) it would give a loud click every few seconds.

And just like you, no errors would come up with the powermax diagnostic. I talked to maxtor on the phone, and they agreed to exchange the drive for a new one.

The new one did it as well. I used it for a year with the clicking, and it never failed on me, but I constantly did backups just in case. I never found out what the problem was, and maxtor had no explanation.

 

[DelJo63]

Not really anything of much importance on the drive. I just don't want the hassle and expense of buying a new drive and reinstalling everything. I'd rather the drive packed in completely or worked totally normally, I don't like in betweens If after the defrag it isn't dead then it shouldn't die anytime soon.

Fine with me. I thought you may not be aware and as this is a public forum that
others might benefit from knowing there's risk when running any defrag
(loss of power for one) and do so with a disk that is already suspect is a bad
policy.

Personally, I run Norton Disk Doctor prior to every defrag.
My data is my friend and I try to treat it kindly

 

[i30i3i3y]

Fine with me. I thought you may not be aware and as this is a public forum that
others might benefit from knowing there's risk when running any defrag
(loss of power for one) and do so with a disk that is already suspect is a bad
policy.

Personally, I run Norton Disk Doctor prior to every defrag.
My data is my friend and I try to treat it kindly

Appreciate the input, any knowledge is useful. If I have anything of importance it's usually backed up to 3 different places at least . I'd never leave important stuff on a single hard drive, that's just asking for trouble!

Anyways, swapping the molex connector around seems to have done the job. It must've been the HDD not getting correct power (bad molex or too many fans in between :giddy: ).