Seagate causing Windows to freeze

Borden · 25 Apr 2006 at 16:40

Hi all,

This has happened before where i'm just using my pc normally and then it decides to jam for no apparant reason. It happened before with my Seagate 200GB and i found file system errors when running the seatools utility. Seeing as this, i thought, was a software error i decided that the hard drive wasn't to blame. A reformat of Windows sorted the problem but now, about 3 months on, it's happened again and a reformat hasn't sorted it.

It seems to be only the end of the drive that's having problems because it's the last partition on the disk that gives problems when i try to access it.\

Is this a sign of disk failure?

Thanks

ChrisLX200 · 25 Apr 2006 at 17:54

Does chkdsk actually indicate bad sectors? What does the SMART report say?
(install the free utility SpeedFan 4.28 from http://www.almico.com/speedfan.php if you haven't got any other method of reading the SMART information).

Borden · 25 Apr 2006 at 19:13

ChrisLX200 said:
Does chkdsk actually indicate bad sectors? What does the SMART report say?
(install the free utility SpeedFan 4.28 from http://www.almico.com/speedfan.php if you haven't got any other method of reading the SMART information).

It doesn't show up anything in speedfan :confused:

Am i meant to enable SMART in the BIOS?

Thanks

Borden · 25 Apr 2006 at 19:21

I can't run chkdsk because that partition isn't formatted. I can't format it because it freezes windows :rolleyes:

EDIT: After it jammed when i tried again it, started making a strange frog-like noise so i assume it's dying

ChrisLX200 · 25 Apr 2006 at 20:12

Frog-like noises...

OK, well that 'sounds' like seek errors to me! Might well indicate a problem with the drive.

In SpeedFan, assuming you got it installed OK, just go to the SMART tab and click on the little down-arrow next to the hard disk box, it should let you select your hard disk from the list. You don't need to change any BIOS setting to access the SMART status.

Borden · 25 Apr 2006 at 20:39

ChrisLX200 said:
Frog-like noises...
OK, well that 'sounds' like seek errors to me! Might well indicate a problem with the drive.

In SpeedFan, assuming you got it installed OK, just go to the SMART tab and click on the little down-arrow next to the hard disk box, it should let you select your hard disk from the list. You don't need to change any BIOS setting to access the SMART status.

That's the best way i could describe it

The drop down box doesn't have any hard drives listed :confused:

Does SMART only work on some SATA controllers?

hp7909 · 25 Apr 2006 at 20:49

mark1 said:
That's the best way i could describe it

The drop down box doesn't have any hard drives listed

Does SMART only work on some SATA controllers?

Apparently but more like on some hard disk.

Just found out, cos it detects my Maxtor SATA but not my WD

ChrisLX200 · 25 Apr 2006 at 21:05

mark1 said:
That's the best way i could describe it

The drop down box doesn't have any hard drives listed

Does SMART only work on some SATA controllers?

The drive will have SMART capability, but if you have connected it via a hardware RAID controller then the program might not be able to read the information. I'm not certain which (Promise, NVidia, VIA for example) allow messages through and which dont... it's a driver thing (up to the driver to pass the messages on)

Borden · 25 Apr 2006 at 21:10

ChrisLX200 said:
The drive will have SMART capability, but if you have connected it via a hardware RAID controller then the program might not be able to read the information. I'm not certain which (Promise, NVidia, VIA for example) allow messages through and which dont... it's a driver thing (up to the driver to pass the messages on)

Well it's on a silicon image SATA controller so that might be the problem.

I think i'll contact Seagate for an RMA as it seems that the drive is dying

bbreezeuk · 25 Apr 2006 at 21:44

hi sorry to hijack this thread but i have a problem with my new seagate drive which is a 250gb IDE connected to the primary ide slot on my mobo, my problem is that windows does not detect the drive in my computer but find it in device manger, i also have a 200gb sata WD as my main boot drive, is it easy to fix this problem or do i need a new drive.

cheers

Borden · 25 Apr 2006 at 21:59

bbreezeuk said:
hi sorry to hijack this thread but i have a problem with my new seagate drive which is a 250gb IDE connected to the primary ide slot on my mobo, my problem is that windows does not detect the drive in my computer but find it in device manger, i also have a 200gb sata WD as my main boot drive, is it easy to fix this problem or do i need a new drive.

cheers

With ide drives don't you have to activate it via disk management? Right-click-->activate

ChrisLX200 · 25 Apr 2006 at 22:08

Yes, but this 'should' happen automatically...

Try selecting 'Scan for Hardware Changes' from Device Manager... XP will find it and install it. You'll still need to partition and format it afterwards using the Disk Management tool.