Maxtor Fluid Bearing Drive problems
FreeSolo
couple of months. I am using it as one of my data drives (i.e. it does not
have the OS or paging files installed on it). Ive noticed that when i bring
up Windows Explorer and expand the contents of my Maxtor drive within the
"Folders" view (i.e. click the '+' icon) it takes about 7 seconds to expand
the content. While it's doing this the Maxtor drive is making an audible
chunking noise.
I am using an ASUS A7V motherboard
http://www.asus.com/mb/socketa/a7v/specification.htm
This motherboard has onboard promise ata-100 controller that i have my
Maxtor hooked up too. I know that the Maxtor is an ata-133 model. Could this
be the cause of my problem?
All my other three drives that im using are Quantum (ata-100) and have a
much faster response. My system rig can be seen at:
http://www.geocities.com/wanengineer/systemrig.html
Thanks for any help!
FreeSolo
Rod Speed
FreeSolo <free...@nospam.com> wrote in message
news:UENh9.88$U5....@nasal.pacific.net.au...
> Ive had my 80 GB Maxtor Fluid Bearing (D740X 6L080L4) drive for the
> past couple of months. I am using it as one of my data drives (i.e. it does
> not have the OS or paging files installed on it). Ive noticed that when i bring
> up Windows Explorer and expand the contents of my Maxtor drive within the
> "Folders" view (i.e. click the '+' icon) it takes about 7 seconds to expand the
> content. While it's doing this the Maxtor drive is making an audible chunking noise.
Very likely the drive is failing and the clunking is the drive recalibrating
on read errors and thats the reason for the lousy performance.
Its crucial to backup that data NOW, even if
you have to buy a cdrom burner to do that.
Run Maxtor's PowerMax diagnostic on the drive.
http://www.maxtor.com/en/support/downloads/powermax.htm
> I am using an ASUS A7V motherboard
> http://www.asus.com/mb/socketa/a7v/specification.htm
> This motherboard has onboard promise ata-100 controller that
> i have my Maxtor hooked up too. I know that the Maxtor is an
> ata-133 model. Could this be the cause of my problem?
Unlikely. It should handle that auto.
Walt
Back up your Data!
Back up your Data!
There is never, ever, a good reason for the head actuator arm to
slam against the stops. That is the clucking noise. Basically,
your drive is not able to read the servo and preamp info anymore.
It is that info which the drive controller uses to know where
the head actuator arm is position. The controller doesn't know
where it is, and SLAM it goes right into a stop it drives the
heads. There is no mode or command which would ever do this
on purpose.
This will not fix itself.
Have you backed up your Data yet????
Rod Speed
Walt <Wa...@Early.com> wrote in message
news:3D88AAD7...@Early.com...
> There is never, ever, a good reason for the head actuator
> arm to slam against the stops. That is the clucking noise.
Its more complicated than that. Many drives
are surprisingly noisy when recalibrating.
> Basically, your drive is not able to read the servo and
> preamp info anymore. It is that info which the drive
> controller uses to know where the head actuator arm is
> position. The controller doesn't know where it is, and
> SLAM it goes right into a stop it drives the heads. There
> is no mode or command which would ever do this on purpose.
That is just plain wrong. The other thing that can
produce that sort of clunking is the drive not being
able to read a particular sector successfully, even after
a number of retrys. Most drives will audibly recalibrate
in that situation and thats usually the noise you are hearing.
If it was as bad as you claim there, he wouldnt be able
to use the drive at all and couldnt back up the data at all.
FreeSolo
I've had a few HDD fail on me in the past and am familiar with the clunking
sound you're referring to. The sound im getting from my drive isn't the same
(maybe I shouldnt have said 'chunking noise' in my previous post). The drive
just seems to be spending an unusual amount of time trying to access the
content folder of my drive when my pc is freshly booted. The sound coming
from the drive seems like normal access noise (that comes from any drive
when it is being accessed) but the access period is lengthy (7-8 seconds). I
thought these were silent and fast drives? Once the drive has accessed the
content folder within windows explorer, the drive works speedily away in a
silent fashion. I remember reading once that Maxtor fluid drives have a
slower response time when accessed from a cold-start state (i.e. after a
reboot). My other drives (Quantum) access their content much more quickly
from cold-start state.
Oh BTW, I tried using the powermax util. It recognised the lone drive on my
IDE controller, but it failed to recognise the other three drives which i
have on my ata-100 controller. Maybe i missed something. Ill try again
tonight.
Thanks again for the responses!
Cheers,
FreeSolo
"Rod Speed" <rod_...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:amahe2$487ah$1...@ID-69072.news.dfncis.de...
Hose
had somehow set his hard drive spin times down to the minimum in
FreeBSD, and he was wondering why it was taking so long to traverse
the /usr/local stuff - it was spinning down every TWO MINUTES! lol.
Not that you're like my dumb roommate :P but you didn't mention if
it's like this all the time, or just once in awhile. Anyway, you
might as well just what the time threshold you have set for spinning
down. I'm assuming you're using some Windows variant - if so, it's
under the control panel in the power settings.
J. Clarke
says...
> Hi, Ive had my 80 GB Maxtor Fluid Bearing (D740X 6L080L4) drive for the past
> couple of months. I am using it as one of my data drives (i.e. it does not
> have the OS or paging files installed on it). Ive noticed that when i bring
> up Windows Explorer and expand the contents of my Maxtor drive within the
> "Folders" view (i.e. click the '+' icon) it takes about 7 seconds to expand
> the content. While it's doing this the Maxtor drive is making an audible
> chunking noise.
Most likely doing repeated recalibrations, which it does when it
encounters a marginal but not yet dead sector. Back up your data and do
a surface scan and the OS should spot the marginal sector and mark it
bad.
> I am using an ASUS A7V motherboard
> http://www.asus.com/mb/socketa/a7v/specification.htm
> This motherboard has onboard promise ata-100 controller that i have my
> Maxtor hooked up too. I know that the Maxtor is an ata-133 model. Could this
> be the cause of my problem?
>
> All my other three drives that im using are Quantum (ata-100) and have a
> much faster response. My system rig can be seen at:
> http://www.geocities.com/wanengineer/systemrig.html
>
> Thanks for any help!
> FreeSolo
>
>
>
--
--
--John
Reply to jclarke at ae tee tee global dot net
(used to be jclarke at eye bee em dot net)
Peter van der Goes
I'm experiencing the same thing here with the same model (and, this is a
warranty replacement for the original purchase, which died within one
month). My symptoms go a bit further. Frequently, but randomly, I hear the
clack (or clunk), then the HD light is on solid and my system is frozen,
forcing restart with all the attendant drive recertification delays.
Sometimes I get reports from the OS (Win 98 SE) that a cluster was
unreadable, sometimes it says the registry is corrupt and reverts to an
earlier version. I cloned the partitions to a spare WD and using that, none
of the problems above occur, so I'm convinced this Maxtor is faulty. I even
tried the Maxtor in a different computer and guess what? Same problems with
freeze ups. Through all this, the Maxtor diagnostic software insists the
drive is OK?!?
I cannot trust the drive, or use it as the lockups occur quite frequently
(typically 2 - 3 times in a three hour session). I have to wonder what
Maxtor's reaction to a RMA request will be?
"FreeSolo" <free...@nospam.com> wrote in message
news:UENh9.88$U5....@nasal.pacific.net.au...
Rod Speed
Peter van der Goes <pv...@nospam.att.net> wrote in message
news:rfii9.41234$jG2.2...@bgtnsc05-news.ops.worldnet.att.net...
> Hmmm...
> I'm experiencing the same thing here with the same model (and,
> this is a warranty replacement for the original purchase, which
> died within one month). My symptoms go a bit further. Frequently,
> but randomly, I hear the clack (or clunk), then the HD light is on
> solid and my system is frozen, forcing restart with all the attendant
> drive recertification delays. Sometimes I get reports from the OS
> (Win 98 SE) that a cluster was unreadable, sometimes it says the
> registry is corrupt and reverts to an earlier version. I cloned the
> partitions to a spare WD and using that, none of the problems
> above occur, so I'm convinced this Maxtor is faulty. I even tried
> the Maxtor in a different computer and guess what? Same
> problems with freeze ups. Through all this, the Maxtor
> diagnostic software insists the drive is OK?!?
Which particular PowerMax test ?
> I cannot trust the drive, or use it as the lockups occur quite
> frequently (typically 2 - 3 times in a three hour session). I have
> to wonder what Maxtor's reaction to a RMA request will be?
Get them to send the replacement in advance of the return.
Then you'll have a replacement, whatever they think of the return.
Most likely thats how it happened, the fault is intermittent
enough so that the diag doesnt see it, so they sent that
drive back out again when it appeared to be ok and isnt.
Thats always been a problem with intermittent faults and
some have been known to electrically kill a drive to ensure
that its stone dead by the time the manufacturer sees it.
Peter van der Goes
>
> Peter van der Goes <pv...@nospam.att.net> wrote in message
> news:rfii9.41234$jG2.2...@bgtnsc05-news.ops.worldnet.att.net...
>
> > Hmmm...
> > I'm experiencing the same thing here with the same model (and,
> > this is a warranty replacement for the original purchase, which
> > died within one month). My symptoms go a bit further. Frequently,
> > but randomly, I hear the clack (or clunk), then the HD light is on
> > solid and my system is frozen, forcing restart with all the attendant
> > drive recertification delays. Sometimes I get reports from the OS
> > (Win 98 SE) that a cluster was unreadable, sometimes it says the
> > registry is corrupt and reverts to an earlier version. I cloned the
> > partitions to a spare WD and using that, none of the problems
> > above occur, so I'm convinced this Maxtor is faulty. I even tried
> > the Maxtor in a different computer and guess what? Same
> > problems with freeze ups. Through all this, the Maxtor
> > diagnostic software insists the drive is OK?!?
>
> Which particular PowerMax test ?
now contacted Maxtor, they recommended that I do the test that writes zeroes
to the drive, then repartition, reformat, etc. They then offered to RMA the
drive, and I accepted (using advance replacement).
Subsequently, I ran the test that writes zeroes (took about 4 hours!), then
partitioned, formatted and cloned the partitions from the backup drive. Now,
here I am several sessions later with what appears to be a "fixed" drive?
>
> > I cannot trust the drive, or use it as the lockups occur quite
> > frequently (typically 2 - 3 times in a three hour session). I have
> > to wonder what Maxtor's reaction to a RMA request will be?
>
> Get them to send the replacement in advance of the return.
> Then you'll have a replacement, whatever they think of the return.
>
> Most likely thats how it happened, the fault is intermittent
> enough so that the diag doesnt see it, so they sent that
> drive back out again when it appeared to be ok and isnt.
>
> Thats always been a problem with intermittent faults and
> some have been known to electrically kill a drive to ensure
> that its stone dead by the time the manufacturer sees it.
really didn't expect that.
Ed
pull the file table into one nice spot and thus reduce the amount of jumping
around.
Also, this is Windows XP and you have any Zip files in the root of the
drive, XP will pause until it reads the contents of the zip files. Move the
Zip files to a subdirectory.
Ed
"Ed" <EdE...@NetZero.MyPants.com> wrote in message
news:3d8b249c$0$1426$272e...@news.execpc.com...