<PC Help> Your opinion on what to do about funky hard drive?

Ok, here it goes..

I have a seagate beracuda 250 GB hard drive. Which was a primary boot disk in my main pc. The pc itself started having issues (random reboot, crashing Firefox , and other progies.) And now it totally won't boot.

So I've installed another smaller HD with xp pro.
Now what to do about this 250 GB harddisk. It is still under warranty but I would rather not send it off if I can help it. I have hooked it (250GB) to a usb adaptor with power supply and I can see the drive and files on it. But what may have gone wrong is a mystery to me.

Please give me some tips on trouble shooting this hard disk. It is not bootable and when I had it in my pc, it was not giving me any indication that it is spinning. While Trouble shooting this, I removed all other drives, PCI cards, USB storage and such and the only time that I can access the drive is with the universal usb connector with power supply.

Regards.
Noob

As a quick fact-finding step, check the output voltages of your system's internal power supply, to confirm they're somewhere within normal tolerances. The black wires are ground, orange should be 3.3V ± 5%, red should be 5.0V ± 5%, and yellow should be 12.0V ± 5%. If you don't have a multimeter, a second-best method is to look in the system's BIOS menus for a PC Health section that reports these voltages.

If the system's power supply is bad, replace it with a high-quality new one with adequate wattage, then run disk diagnostics afterwards (see below). If the power supply seems to be OK, then put the questionable hard drive back into the system as a secondary drive (not attempting to boot from it), and use your functioning Windows XP installation to run Seagate's SeaTools For Windows diagnostic tests on it.

What results do you get?

Well, the main issue is discerning whether it is the system (something besides the hard drive) or the drive itself. It sounds like you already isolated it to the drive though, right?

Was the first drive PATA or SATA? And what is the second drive?

I'd run Steve Gibson's Spin-Rite on it. It is a truly clever little program. Gibson is the real deal.

No reccomendations to back-up what's on the drive ASAP?? Shame on you guys

That's what I'd do first - back up the important stuff, assuming you haven't done so already. Once it's all straightened out, go from there..

When you say it wouldn't boot, do you mean Windows wouldn't boot?? Or the whole computer wouldn't do anything??

Check power supply, if ok then check the data cables. Sometimes there is a loose conection that makes the drive do haywire.
If you have an external enclosure, try it out there. If it works flawlessly then there is something definitely wrong within the cpu.
All the best in your trouble shooting...

i would look at the inside of the power supply and at the cpu area of the motherboard for bulging capacitors.this is the most common cause for the type of symptoms you have.
i recap 20 or so motherboards a week that folks send to me for repair.
beware of ultra cheap lightweight power supplies too.i see many with big numbers on them with nothing inside to back it up.
we call them gutless wonders and many are even dangerous.
there are several utilities for checking smart status of the drive.
takes very little time to run one and see if the drive is indeed dieing.
oh and copy off your data starting with the most important/irreplaceable stuff first.
bad drives often get worse really fast.

Sub_Umbra said:

I'd run Steve Gibson's Spin-Rite on it. It is a truly clever little program. Gibson is the real deal.

Click to expand...

I second that.
If spinrite doesn't recover your drive (as it sounds to me like it's developed bad sectors) then all you can do is to RMA it.

snakebite said:

i would look at the inside of the power supply and at the cpu area of the motherboard for bulging capacitors.this is the most common cause for the type of symptoms you have.
i recap 20 or so motherboards a week that folks send to me for repair.
beware of ultra cheap lightweight power supplies too.i see many with big numbers on them with nothing inside to back it up.
we call them gutless wonders and many are even dangerous.
there are several utilities for checking smart status of the drive.
takes very little time to run one and see if the drive is indeed dieing.
oh and copy off your data starting with the most important/irreplaceable stuff first.
bad drives often get worse really fast.

Click to expand...

I second Snakebite's comments. This is worth a read in terms of spotting bad electrolytic caps...

I saw this link to HarborFreight and wondered what could they have that would be beneficial..... I get it now.

It's called Percussive Maintenance!

My advice is to back it up and RMA it for a new one.
I had something similar happen, where an external USB case, wouldnt spin the drive, but a voltmeter would show everything was ok. The drive would work fine in a pc though. Still dont know the cause. Long story short, blew a drive in the ext case while testing it etc...
Just return it, and get a shiny new one to play with. If you are worried about sending it back due to the "data" (ahem!) you have stored, get a wipe clean program and wipe the disk before you send it in.

Hahaha!! Thanks for keeping us entertained.... You all are the best.

Here is what I have done so far.
Tried the process of elimination. Seem to me that all else is working OK.

And thanks for all of the suggestions. I would try the spin-rite but the cost is prohibiting considering the cost of the new drive. Seems to me that the hard drive is functioning ok for now with the usb universal connector and a power supply for it.
I'm in the process of copying all the files off of it and there are just too many files that I can't throw away. After that, it will be time to do a power wipe (not just delete and format) to the harddisk.
Than will do an RMA even tho I really don't want to RMA it. But there is a good chance that drive will blow up soon after just like "Mash" said.

Phew!! I though I will never see a dying hardisk and hope to ever again. That was such a pain in a "____".

Thanks for all the help. Now what to do with the power supply and 2 stick of memory [bought thinking they were at fault during trouble shooting steps]. I guess I'll have to return them:green::green:.

I really hate returning CRAP! Any Crap. That's just me.

If any of you know of other disk checking proggies that are more affordable, please advice.

Regards.
Noob

PS. HAPPY HOLIDAYS!! AND BE SAFE.:candle:

Hello Newuser,

Spin Rite is worth every penny of its cost. Used regularly, it can save you hours of frustration. I would even go so far as to recommend cutting back on a flashlight purchase in order to afford it...

Tom

Newuser01 said:

Hahaha!! Thanks for keeping us entertained.... You all are the best.

Here is what I have done so far.
Tried the process of elimination. Seem to me that all else is working OK.

And thanks for all of the suggestions. I would try the spin-rite but the cost is prohibiting considering the cost of the new drive. Seems to me that the hard drive is functioning ok for now with the usb universal connector and a power supply for it.
I'm in the process of copying all the files off of it and there are just too many files that I can't throw away. After that, it will be time to do a power wipe (not just delete and format) to the harddisk.
Than will do an RMA even tho I really don't want to RMA it. But there is a good chance that drive will blow up soon after just like "Mash" said.

Phew!! I though I will never see a dying hardisk and hope to ever again. That was such a pain in a "____".

Thanks for all the help. Now what to do with the power supply and 2 stick of memory [bought thinking they were at fault during trouble shooting steps]. I guess I'll have to return them:green::green:.

I really hate returning CRAP! Any Crap. That's just me.

If any of you know of other disk checking proggies that are more affordable, please advice.

Regards.
Noob

PS. HAPPY HOLIDAYS!! AND BE SAFE.:candle:

Click to expand...

It is GOING to die. And when you least want it to. BACK IT UP,

Then apply percussive maintenance while it is writing. Use a rubber mallet for this - the idea being to leave no marks.

Then it WILL be stone dead so return it and get a new one - unless it is a Chinese made Seagate Serial ATA 2.5" in which case sue. Ask any Macbook owner - my sister in law just lost everything. The failure modes of those are just plain nasty.

It is already dead for all practical purposes, so if you get the data off feel thankful. If you don't you know which brand to avoid the next time. Drives do fail - some fail more often than others. Do NOT attempt to store anything on it after you have the data back, because you WILL lose it. Replace it now.

Software will not resolve hardware problems which are what you almost certainly have. All they will do is buy you time - which you had really better use to back the thing up. If you don't the data loss that you WILL suffer is on your own head.

I don't like returning stuff either and have eaten quite a few losses over the years as a result. One of the things that pays my mortgage is sorting out the messes resulting from such failing hardware. Really, really don't ever trust that drive again. Either toss it and avoid that brand again - if you are worried about anyone accessing your data, tear the drive apart (The magnets in them are really powerful and fun to play with) and scratch up the platters - then the data isn't readily recoverable for anyone with less than governmental resources.

As long as the platters inside exist, the data is usually recoverable as long as you own a scanning tunneling electron microscope, a supercomputer and a bunch of PhD's to run it. In principle, everything that has ever been written to a hard drive can be recovered if you throw enough resources at it.

The military here feed their drives through a grinder or heat them above 650 degrees Centigrade. Heat the platters up with a torch and the data isn't even theoretically recoverable.

I always thought that a "funky hard drive" is one that contains a copy of this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v8ae0gdXf5E