Hard drive issues with my new computer...

[Hyper_Psycho]

Hey everyone,

My new build is acting up. In my new computer I have 5 Seagate hard drives ... all SATA bought within the last two years: 3 320gb models, 1 300gb model, and 1 500gb model

My new computer get these 'spells'. It happens very randomly. My computer just freezes for a moment and goes back to normal. During the freeze you can hear the hard drive accelerating and then data being read/written on it.

I thought that the oldest one (the 300gb one) was the issue, so I disconnected it. Now the 500gb hard drive is doing the same thing, but not as often.

I tried downloading sea tools for windows to see if all the hard drives are internally ok but the software does not want to run with windows vista 64 bit. .NET Framework error.

I called Seagate tech support, but they were useless.

Is there an alternative disk diagnostic software? Is there a way to update the onboard SATA controller?


Any thoughts?

 

[bugfood]

My new computer get these 'spells'. It happens very randomly. My computer just freezes for a moment and goes back to normal. During the freeze you can hear the hard drive accelerating and then data being read/written on it.

Well, that depends. Was the hard drive spinning already? If not, then you probably just have it set to spin down after some minutes of inactivity; when your OS decides to read from the drive, it has to spin back up again.

Otherwise, it may be the hard drive resetting itself. That can happen due to shock (electrical or physical), but if it's happening to you frequently, I would suspect your power supply is being intermittently flaky or consistently not providing a high enough voltage. The latter is easy enough to check: just see what your motherboard reports for 5V and 12V. Note that this will be very slightly below what the power supply is actually providing, but if it's well below spec than that's cause for concern.

From http://www.formfactors.org/developer/specs/ATX12V_PSDG_2_2_public_br2.pdf

Nominal: 12.00  Minimum: 11.40
Nominal:  5.00 Minimum:  4.75

-Corey

 

[DonDon]

I tried downloading sea tools for windows to see if all the hard drives are internally ok but the software does not want to run with windows vista 64 bit. .NET Framework error.

Go back to the Seagate support download page and download the Seatools for Dos program. It will make a bootable diskette that you can then boot with and run the diagnostics. It may even let you make a bootable CD which will be much faster to boot.

Good luck, and let us know what you find.

Don

 

[Hyper_Psycho]

Well, that depends. Was the hard drive spinning already? If not, then you probably just have it set to spin down after some minutes of inactivity; when your OS decides to read from the drive, it has to spin back up again.

Otherwise, it may be the hard drive resetting itself. That can happen due to shock (electrical or physical), but if it's happening to you frequently, I would suspect your power supply is being intermittently flaky or consistently not providing a high enough voltage. The latter is easy enough to check: just see what your motherboard reports for 5V and 12V. Note that this will be very slightly below what the power supply is actually providing, but if it's well below spec than that's cause for concern.

From http://www.formfactors.org/developer/specs/ATX12V_PSDG_2_2_public_br2.pdf

Nominal: 12.00  Minimum: 11.40
Nominal:  5.00 Minimum:  4.75

-Corey

Hey Corey,

Thanks on the info. My voltage settings are as follows:

5V @ 5.04
12V @ 12.12

The power supply is brand new and very highly rated (see sig). I know it has power to run 5 hard drives as my 350W Enermax psu was able to the same without a problem.

 

[Hyper_Psycho]

Go back to the Seagate support download page and download the Seatools for Dos program. It will make a bootable diskette that you can then boot with and run the diagnostics. It may even let you make a bootable CD which will be much faster to boot.

Good luck, and let us know what you find.

Don

I guess I will have to find one of these CD-Rs that were common back in early 2000s and burn the Seatools boot cd on there.... I wonder if its possible to put the software onto a usb drive...that might be easier to boot off of

 

[DeaconFrost]

If it's a DOS bootable USB drive, it might be feasible. Check your Vista power settings for the hard drives. They may just be "waking up", depending on your power profile.

 

[Hyper_Psycho]

If it's a DOS bootable USB drive, it might be feasible. Check your Vista power settings for the hard drives. They may just be "waking up", depending on your power profile.

sounds like thats what they are doing

i have it set them off every 300 minutes which is 5 hours ... but this issue happens once or twice an hour ... is there any other power profile I should look into?