weird hdd problem

[Hyonie]

I have a Samsung 1TB hdd (model: HD103UJ) that causes my pc to lock up after about 20 mins being idle. If the hdd is used continuously after boot, it works perfectly hours on end.

This hdd was part of a raid 0 setup I had for over a year and was working fine until recently when I upgraded to an ssd and decided to use the two identical HD103UJ's as storage drives. The other one works fine btw.

If someone can tell me how I can fix it, that would be great. If someone can tell me that it's dead, that would be good too, I can just dump it and move on.

Things I've tried:
-different sata ports
-reformat a couple of times using mbr and gpt
-turn off hdd sleep
-run stock clocks (usually runs oc-ed)
-updated MB bios to 2nd newest. (most current bios won't post with 4 sticks of ram)

System specs:
windows 7 64bit
Core i5 2500k
MSI p67a-gd55
4 2GB ripjaws 1600
gtx 280
pc power and cooling 750w
1 120GB Mushkin chronos (SSD)
2 1TB samsung hd103uj <--only one is functional atm
1 1TB samsung hd103sj
1 2TB samsung hd204ui

 

[C1]

Sounds like a green drive that once allowed to enter standby/sleep, isnt waking up.
A possibility is to get the proper utility that can access the HDD's firmware for inspection as all that may need to be done is to change a firmware setting. I know that there are such utilities (at least Ive seen them discussed in these forums). Hopefully someone will respond in this area.

Meanwhile, try using "My Disk is Spinning" by SoftJock at least until you can find the correct solution (which is to permit the drive to wake up from sleep/standby via the controller).

http://www.softjock.com/mdis.htm

You may also want to see if the drive at least will work properly (ie, wake up) when using it in an external enclosure.

 

[sm625]

Write a batch file that copies a file from one location to another. Set up a scheduled task to have it run every 17 minutes.

The batch file would be a simple one liner and would go something like this:

xcopy C: \temp\f1\*.* c: \temp\f2 /y

f1 and f2 are folders. I would put at least 200 MB of stuff in the folder so that it gives the drive a good workout. Who knows if this would actually work since it is just rewriting the same files over and over. Maybe add a

echo y | del C: \temp\f2\*.*

before the other line.

(note: remove the spaces from inbetween the : and the \)

 

[BadThad]

At 20 minutes, that sounds like a power saving feature. Which power profile are you using in Windows? Is your BIOS set to use S3?

 

[Hyonie]

First of all, I'd like to thank all those who replied.

Those are some pretty ingenious solutions, but I would like a more permanent solution rather than a work around to keep the hdd busy. I'm sure those fixes would keep the pc from locking up, but the extra hdd space isn't really critical at the moment.

At 20 minutes, that sounds like a power saving feature. Which power profile are you using in Windows? Is your BIOS set to use S3?

also, all power saving features are turned off in the bios as well as in windows. Currently, I'm using the high performance profile with hdd sleep feature turned off.

 

[C1]

Although not exactly your problem, take a look at this thread.
http://sourceforge.net/apps/phpbb/freenas/viewtopic.php?f=65&t=9126

It might be worth trying Samsung's "ES Tool" (HDD Utility) and inspecting the drives firmware settings then changing/trying different AAM/APM (performance) settings.
http://www.samsung.com/global/busine...ort_in_es.html

 

[Motorheader]

I've encountered similar situation with a Samsung drive and the ES Tool was able to modify a setting that resolved it. The drive would make a slightly audible "whoosh" type of noise at various times until I made the change.

 

[Hyonie]

Thanks for the link to the ES tool, I'll have a go at it later on and see what comes up.