Bad drive? Yes/No?

philjayj

philjayj

philjayj

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I'm running defrags on my drives, and some of them take ages to complete. They 250GB Maxor MaxLine Plus II drives.

Is this a sign of the drives failing?

Thanks, Phil
 
RLBUHT said:
I'm running defrags on my drives, and some of them take ages to complete. They 250GB Maxor MaxLine Plus II drives.

Is this a sign of the drives failing?

Thanks, Phil
Click to expand...
Probally just means the drives are very full. What %age is free when you defrag? And is there enough space for moving the huge files?

Also - Try installing the demo of PerfectDisk. An excellent defragger.

As to disks failing - scandisk isthe thing for that.
 
Thanks for your reply. One of the drives has around 75GB free and another, which has around 10,500 MP3's and has around 75GB free.

PerfectDisk is what I am currently using to defrag the drives.

And how do i specify what drive to run CHKDSK on?

Many thanks, Phil
 
RLBUHT said:
And how do i specify what drive to run CHKDSK on?
Click to expand...
Open windows explorer.
Locate your drive.
Right click and select Properties.
Then you will find scandisk on the Tools page.

You could also run chkdsk c: /r from the DOS prompt.
 
Damn! One of the drives has just crashed - its not recognised in drive management or my computer, tried changing SATA connectors but no luck. And also tried it in another PC and that didnt work either.

And yes, the defrags take well over an hour.
 
Download Maxtor's Diagnostics floppy (or iso) and test the disks. May be worth letting them cool down first. (Once had a WD drive that failed all tests and wouldn't boot. But next day it had cooled down enough for us to boot it and rescue the data)

How good is the cooling around your drives? Install Speedfan (google it) and check the drive temps. You don't want to see them in the 50's... even 40's is "hot".
 
Many thanks for all your replies. This problem is getting interesting lol.

The defective drive was initially installed in a Coolermaster Stacker with 9 other drives, there are 5 fans in the case.

The stacker's OS is Windows 2000.

I have connected the defective drive to another machine, running WinXP Pro and it is detected every time and there doesnt seem to be a problem.

I have connected the drive to different SATA connectors within the stacker and used different power connections but it never works.

When the drive was connected to the XP Pro, i ran OnTracks Disk Diagnostic test and no problems were reported.

Thanks, Phil
 
I received my replacement drive from Maxtor this morning, and my worst fears were realised, that this drive doesnt work either.

I'm now guessing that this isnt a problem with the drive, but more the motherboard or OS (Win 2000).

I formatted the C: drive and re-installed windows and the RAID connector (Silion Image 3114) drivers for my motherboard (GA-K8N Ultra 9). It's almost as if the PC wont let me add more than 8 drives (bearing in mind that one drive is the OS drive, which is IDE).

The replacement drive doesnt appear in Disk Managament when connected to the Silicon Image SATA connectors, but when connected to the motherboard SATA connectors, the drive appears, but im not allowed to create a partition.

I have no clue at what to do, any suggestions?

Thanks
 
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