Hard drive clunking, now seems dead

Trent© wrote:

I tried installing Windows again, but now Windows can see the drive and
its partitions but will no longer attempt to recognise it as a valid
volume. chkdsk fails to detect the drive at all.


Then there's nothing wrong with the drive...so disregard my other
post.

I'm sure there's something wrong with the drive.

I'm in XP installer right now (on the other machine) and it says...

An error occured while Setup was updating partition information on:
194475 MB Disk 0 at Id 0 on Bus 0 ATAPI [MBR]

Meanwhile, the drive is going spastic, grinding and making that loud
clunking, clicking noise like crazy, even though the XP installer is not
actually trying to talk to the drive anymore.

Does that really sound like there's nothing wrong with the drive? If
there is nothing wrong with the drive, what am I doing wrong?

It looks like the drive is well and truly dud. I bought the drive from
overclockers.co.uk and after describing this situation they informed me
that the email is being sent to their support team.

If the BIOS and/or Windows is seeing the drive, there's nothin' wrong
with the drive.

If there's something physically wrong with the drive mechanism, surely
the drive hardware would still show up without the drive being
completely usable?

Have a nice week...

Thank you, but I get the feeling it's gonna be a real *******.
--
Bob
London, UK
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Trent© wrote:

Sorry. I really didn't mean 'nothing' wrong with the drive. What I
meant was that the drive is being seen by the computer. You may
indeed have other problems with the drive.

You kept saying 'dud'...and its definitely not a dud. But it may
indeed have problems.

I swapped to another SATA cable, and changed the power cable, as you
suggested. When I went back to the Windows installer, even bigger
problems seemed to occur (now the installer cannot see the drive at all).

So I've reached the cables from one box into the spare hard drive in
this box, an ancient old ATA 66 job, and now the machine is working fine
(albeit rather slowly regarding drive access).

So the rest of the machine in fine, and not at fault. The hard drive is
the culprit.

Get the diagnostic software from the mfg. and run that. If you have
spinrite, run that also.

Given that I can't see the drive now, how would I run this software? Can
it be installed on another drive and used to see the faulty drive?

You might also try repartitioning and reformatting.

I don't know if that's possible anymore. Windows can't see the drive,
and just powering up the machine caused that insane clunking again.
--
Bob
London, UK
echo Mail fefsensmrrjyaheeoceoq\! | tr "jefroq\!" "

Cyde Weys wrote:
Robert Downes wrote:

Then, while installing the Mozilla web browser, the noise returned, a
clunking, choking noise. And this time it didn't stop. Windows became
unresponsive, then froze, then the machine rebooted.


"The 'ard drive - she cannae do it, Keptin!"

LOL!! Glad to see at least /someone/ else is on the same wavelength! ;o)

"Robert Downes" wrote in message
...
Trent© wrote:

Sorry. I really didn't mean 'nothing' wrong with the drive. What I
meant was that the drive is being seen by the computer. You may
indeed have other problems with the drive.

You kept saying 'dud'...and its definitely not a dud. But it may
indeed have problems.

I swapped to another SATA cable, and changed the power cable, as you
suggested. When I went back to the Windows installer, even bigger
problems seemed to occur (now the installer cannot see the drive at all).

So I've reached the cables from one box into the spare hard drive in
this box, an ancient old ATA 66 job, and now the machine is working fine
(albeit rather slowly regarding drive access).

So the rest of the machine in fine, and not at fault. The hard drive is
the culprit.

Get the diagnostic software from the mfg. and run that. If you have
spinrite, run that also.

Given that I can't see the drive now, how would I run this software? Can
it be installed on another drive and used to see the faulty drive?

You might also try repartitioning and reformatting.

I don't know if that's possible anymore. Windows can't see the drive,
and just powering up the machine caused that insane clunking again.
--
Bob
London, UK
echo Mail fefsensmrrjyaheeoceoq\! | tr "jefroq\!" "

if you're hearing a steady click-click-click (clunk-cliunk-clunk) about 1/2
sec apart, it's a goner

Paul L wrote:

if you're hearing a steady click-click-click (clunk-cliunk-clunk) about 1/2
sec apart, it's a goner

That sounds like it, yeah. And (when the drive was still showing up and
reading/writing) that noise would cause everything to freeze solid until
it finished.
--
Bob
London, UK
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Trent© wrote:

I don't want to beat a dead horse to death...so I guess I'll just quit
with the advice. Drives do indeed go bad...and some are even DOA. So
it looks like that may indeed by your problem.

But I've just got this gut feeling that you've got something
configured wrong in the BIOS for this drive...or a bad cable...or...?

Especially when you're testing back and forth between an EIDE drive
and then comparing it to the results when you try to use the SATA
drive.

More important than XP installer is the BIOS. You should be able to
see the drive in the CMOS screen as the computer boots.

Well, seeing as overclockers.co.uk are suddenly very quiet since I asked
to return the drive, I'm happy to keep investigating.

But can the rest of the machine get damaged by trying to talk to a
damaged drive (assuming it is damaged)? Voltages aren't going to be
wild, and risk screwing the I/O chip, or similar woe?

If not, I'll plug it in again and see whether anything can see the drive
anymore.
--
Bob
London, UK
echo Mail fefsensmrrjyaheeoceoq\! | tr "jefroq\!" "

You can run the diagnostic software for the maxtor drive. It will either fix
it or fail it .
Then just contact Maxtor and they will ship you another drive and you return
the old one.
The software spits out a code or information that tells the Maxtor people
the drive is dead. I returned a drive under warrantee and they shipped back
a bigger and better one.

"Robert Downes" wrote in message
...
I just built a new machine. (This is the fourth I've put together.)

Into it I put a Maxtor DiamondMax Plus 9. The machine booted fine to the
BIOS, found all the hardware, and I began to run the Windows XP install.

While XP was making the second partition, the drive started to make a
strange clunking noise, unlike any normal drive noise I've heard. But
then the partition completed and I assumed things were okay.

I installed Windows XP without hearing the noise again, then a load of
device drivers, with several reboots, and things seemed fine.

Then, while installing the Mozilla web browser, the noise returned, a
clunking, choking noise. And this time it didn't stop. Windows became
unresponsive, then froze, then the machine rebooted.

Now any attempt to boot the hard disk gives me:

DISK BOOT FAILURE, INSERT SYSTEM DISK AND PRESS ENTER.

Does this mean the hard disk is a dud and needs to be returned? Was it
something I've done during the machine build? Could the problem be
caused by some other component being at fault?

Thanks for any advice you can offer. My brother (whom the machine is
for) is gonna be very upset when I tell him something's wrong.
--
Bob
London, UK
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