Problems with my hard-disks

[limsandy]

Hello, all. I'm having problems with my hard-disks. These are the four that I currently own, although not all of them are used at the same time:

WD Raptor 74GB (SATA)
Maxtor DiamondMax 10 6L250R0 250GB (IDE)
Maxtor DiamondMax 10 6L250R0 250GB (IDE)
Brand new Seagate ST31000340AS 1TB (SATA) with SD15 firmware, made in Thailand.

One of the Maxtor drives is dying (clicking and very slow transfer speed) so I bought a brand new Seagate ST31000340AS to backup my data. If you read the reviews from newegg.com, you can find that many people are experiencing failures, especially those with firmware SD15 from Thailand. Mine is not yet dying, but it's showing symptoms. For example, sometimes during start-up, BIOS wouldn't recognize the drive and the hd would make clicking noise. So my quesiton is.... is it possible to request an RMA for the same drive with a different firmware, like SD04 from Singapore? I'm afraid they're gonna send me a replacement with the same firmware from Thailand and the hd would fail me again in no time. :frown:

Then I tried to copy a large file from one of the good Maxtor drives into the same drive. It takes approximately 19 seconds to copy a 348MB file, or roughly 18.3MB/sec. I did the same test to my Raptor drive, and to my surprise, it took 66 seconds to copy the same file to the same drive, or less than 5.3MB/sec! I also noticed that with the Maxtor drive, CPU utilization was between 0-7%. With the Raptor, it was 91-100%. Something is definitely wrong. Can anyone help me point out the error? I did a defrag on the Raptor before copying the file and it was still very slow. It has only 13.9GB free, 55.2 used space.

Any kind of help is very much appreciated and I thank you in advance. I am desperate....

 

[Roguestar]

Any chance you could try them in another PC? Perhaps your chipset is having trouble sending stuff to the drive buses.

 

[limsandy]

Maybe you're right.... the Raptor is on SATA and the good Maxtor drive is using the IDE channel, but I only have 1 computer at home.

I guess driving to my buddy's house and plugging my hard drive to his computer is possible, if he lets me. But if someone has other means to trouble-shoot the problem, please do let me know.

 

[Slatz]

Take rouguestars advice..it is spot on..

 

[Roguestar]

Well, try running the manufacturer's drive diagnostic program. I know seagate and WD have them on the support sections of their sites. Maxtor are owned by seagate now so use that one for your maxtor drives. Also try installing the latest chipset drivers for your motherboard.

 

[limsandy]

Yes, I have actually tried to run Seatools on all the drives and except for the clicking Maxtor, every one of them passed the short drive self-test.

And I will go look for the latest chipset driver for my motherboard NOW. Thanks!

 

[limsandy]

Downloaded 6.86_nforce4 driver directly from NVIDIA and installed it. Now my CPU utilization is 2-5% during copy. :woot:

Now I just have to RMA my 1TB Seagate with a different firmware. It's not technically dead yet, but it's making the clicking noise. Should I stress-test the Seagate so it'd break and I can RMA it?

 

[limsandy]

There is even a neat little tab on my Device Manager > nForce4 SATA Controller now, and I can use it to test the read speed of my Raptor 74GB.

Transfer mode: SATA Generation 1 - 1.5Gb
Burst Speed - 110.7
Sustained Speed - 70.9

Does that sound right? Expected from a Raptor 74GB?

 

[Roguestar]

No idea about the Raptor tests, but in regards your Seagate drive, at least phone the company's support line and ask them for an RMA on your clicking and glitching drive.

 

[limsandy]

Thanks for your help so far, Roguestar. Any idea if there is a nearby Seagate service center, I could specifically ask for non-SD15 firmware for my next ST31000340AS? I've been reading around some more and I can positively confirm that most drives that come with SD15 firmware have pre-mature drive failure.

http://www.dbstalk.com/showthread.php?p=1768099

 

[limsandy]

bump?