Hard drive broken?

[dfgh11]

Hi,

I have a EIDE 200Gb western digital that seems to be responding quite slowly, and it freezes if play video or capture DV to it. It is currently hooked up to a raid controller card, so I attatched it to the IDE on the motherboard, formatted it with partion magic, and it's still doing the same thing. Also if I try to quick format it within windows, it just freezes.If I try to full format, it takes about a day. I've checked it with datalifeguard and it shows no errors. I've also used the 'write zeros' feature, which also didn't work.I've got various other drives in my computer ( windows XP) some of which are the same make and model.it just seems to be this drive with a problem, so do I deduce that the drive is the problem? I was thinking about reinstalling windows as that is the only thing I haven't tried. I can't see how that'd help though?

any help appreciated thanks

[ROF]

Is the drive making any obvious noises? How about excessive heat?

It's not windows of that I am quite sure. It sounds like the platters are OK but the drive heads or arm is out of alignment. When a drive heats up these things tend to manifest themselves in a locked up drive. Did the drive recently take a fall? Did it overheat at any point?

[dfgh11]

Actually no. It's been securely in a drive bay and cooled with fans since installation. It's not making any noise either. Is there any way to fix such a thing, if that's what it turns out to be? I'm not sure if it's still under warranty actually

[SLK001]

Get the WD diagnostic program that boots from a floppy (or CDROM) and run that. It will tell you if there is anything wrong with the drive. Have you enabled SMART disk monitoring?

[dfgh11]

maybe a silly question, but what is smart disk monitoring, and how do I enable/disable it?

and the dianostic tool says there is a smart error. One or more values are below threshold or worst case. So broken and it's out of warranty too. Which is just great. s there anything I can do now besides buy a new one?

[SLK001]

You can send it off to get fixed at a rate that will be higher than a new drive. A new 250MB Seagate (5 year warrantee) will cost you about $100. Got two of them myself about two weeks ago.

[ozymango]

maybe a silly question, but what is smart disk monitoring, and how do I enable/disable it?

S.M.A.R.T. is a hardware feature built into pretty much any new hard drive and most motherboards (as part of their disk support), and stands for Self-Monitoring, Analysis and Reporting Technology. Basically it does just what it says -- it just keeps an eye on the disk and warns you if something starts to go off the accepted charts.

And what you say next is pretty much the kiss-of-death for your drive --

and the dianostic tool says there is a smart error. One or more values are below threshold or worst case.

Basically, your drive is dead. If there's data on it that you want to recover, then disconnect it from your computer NOW if not sooner, and put it someplace safe until you get your new drive.

If you're lucky, SMART will alert you in time to recover the data on your drive, but if it's a big drive and you've got a lot of stuff, the drive may or may not stay running long enough to get your critical files off of it.

Of course, if you've backed up this drive, you don't need to worry.

Yeah, right, like I always practice what I preach! :P But I'm guessing it'll live long enough to get stuff off it, anyway.

As for what you can do with it afterwards ... do you need a paperweight? Want to see what's inside of dead hard drive? That's pretty much all the options I'd recommend.

For a new drive, I'll second SLK001's recommendation for Seagate drives -- they have the longest warranty in the biz (5 years) and when it comes to hard drives, I go with the longest warranty I can find because ... well, let's just say I've learned the hard way that a drive will always fail just when you need it the most.

EDIT: To enable SMART on your PC, boot to the BIOS and look around in the settings for drives or drive properties. There's usually an option in there for "SMART Monitoring" on or off, and by default it's almost always set to "Off," I don't know why. Then just turn it on.

Now, that will enable SMART monitoring from the drive to the motherboard, but you may need additional SMART software for your PC, depending on the install. I have a little program called ActiveSMART, I think it costs $25, but it'll monitor your discs in the background, gives a little system monitor on the taskbar, and I like knowing what my hard drives are up to on a moment-to-moment basis.

[dfgh11]

maybe a silly question, but what is smart disk monitoring, and how do I enable/disable it?

S.M.A.R.T. is a hardware feature built into pretty much any new hard drive and most motherboards (as part of their disk support), and stands for Self-Monitoring, Analysis and Reporting Technology. Basically it does just what it says -- it just keeps an eye on the disk and warns you if something starts to go off the accepted charts.

And what you say next is pretty much the kiss-of-death for your drive --

and the dianostic tool says there is a smart error. One or more values are below threshold or worst case.

Basically, your drive is dead. If there's data on it that you want to recover, then disconnect it from your computer NOW if not sooner, and put it someplace safe until you get your new drive.

If you're lucky, SMART will alert you in time to recover the data on your drive, but if it's a big drive and you've got a lot of stuff, the drive may or may not stay running long enough to get your critical files off of it.

Of course, if you've backed up this drive, you don't need to worry.

Yeah, right, like I always practice what I preach! :P But I'm guessing it'll live long enough to get stuff off it, anyway.

As for what you can do with it afterwards ... do you need a paperweight? Want to see what's inside of dead hard drive? That's pretty much all the options I'd recommend.

For a new drive, I'll second SLK001's recommendation for Seagate drives -- they have the longest warranty in the biz (5 years) and when it comes to hard drives, I go with the longest warranty I can find because ... well, let's just say I've learned the hard way that a drive will always fail just when you need it the most.

Hi,

Thanks, I did actually just put it into my other computer and the 'SMART' system did show up as I booted the PC and basically told me that, yes, the drive was on its way out. However, my other board doesn't seem to have this feature.

[ozymango]

However, my other board doesn't seem to have this feature.

I edited my previous post right when you were writing this, it seems, so in case you didn't read my update -- it could be that our board supports SMART monitoring but it's turned off, in the BIOS. So boot to the BIOS and dig around in the disk area, IDE or whatever, and I'll bet somewhere in there is a line for "SMART enable." And it's almost always turned off by default. I have no idea why.

[dfgh11]

Thanks. I did have a look as your suggested, but t seems that this board, or at least this bios version, doesn't seem to have that option.I did download a trial version of activeSMART.But it doesn't detect the drive on my ATA raid controller card.