Thread: Failing Hard Drive

  1. #1
    Redundantly Redundant RoD's Avatar
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    Failing Hard Drive

    Heres the problem:

    I can't boot it right now because it's failling to detect the hard drive. It was doing this a while ago, too. What's worse, the hard drive is dying randomly while the computer is on. It dies only for a few seconds, but long enough to completely screw everything.

    My thoughts:

    bad drive
    going drive
    bad ram
    faulty p-box
    corrupt FAT32

    Heres the specs:

    Win98 First Edition
    348MB Ram
    Maxtor HDD
    Intel P3 1GHZ

    The comp is 2 or 3 years old, any ideas?

  2. #2
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    Your harddrive fails and you blame you RAM?
    If it fails for only a short period i'd say you should check it's
    temperature.

  3. #3
    Redundantly Redundant RoD's Avatar
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    Originally posted by Travis Dane
    Your harddrive fails and you blame you RAM?
    If it fails for only a short period i'd say you should check it's
    temperature.
    I saw a prblem like this once it was the ram being faulty and tripping the system.

    I'll check the heat.

  4. #4
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    You're saying your HDD is dying randomly? You're saying it can't
    detect it sometimes? Seriously, ITS YOUR HDD.

  5. #5
    Redundantly Redundant RoD's Avatar
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    this is identical to before, i'm aware its not the ram now i tried another chip, but it could have been that was the problem in the other comp.

  6. #6
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    Well, Anyway, You have any cooling for your HDD?

  7. #7
    Redundantly Redundant RoD's Avatar
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    it has a single fan HDD cooler and is nice and cool. Going to try another pbox and see what that does.

  8. #8
    and the Hat of Clumsiness GanglyLamb's Avatar
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    to test wether its the HDD check on bootup with case open ofcourse if the light on the bottom of the Harddisk lits up....if so its working and it got power.... with working i mean it goes on....

  9. #9
    Redundantly Redundant RoD's Avatar
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    i know it goes on i can hear it spin up. The root of the prob was a faulty pbox, was cutting power after running a lil bit. Changed for a new one and its all better.

  10. #10
    Registered User Xei's Avatar
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    I have an 80GB Maxtor. Sometimes the POST has problems detecting the Maxtor, then it beeps at me, then I hear it spinning up and then it works fine. I tried Maxtors Diagnostic utility and it found 0 errors, so I couldn't send it back unless if I claimed that it would never spin up. You should also check your Power Supply to make sure that it is providing proper voltage(it may have in the past, but Power Supplys die too). Alos check your ATA cable going to the HD. The File System of the HD should have nothing to do with it not being detected during the POST sequence. I have had one instance at a friends where some Unregistered ECC DDRRAM got messed up and made windows think that the HD was messed. Otherwise I suggest getting a new HD, and backing up everything off of your other Maxtor as fast as you can(if you can get it working)

  11. #11
    Redundantly Redundant RoD's Avatar
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    Originally posted by RoD
    i know it goes on i can hear it spin up. The root of the prob was a faulty pbox, was cutting power after running a lil bit. Changed for a new one and its all better.

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