Upside down HDD

Revolt

Revolt

Revolt

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29 Nov 2010
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196
So, basically, for over a year now I've had my Hard Drive Disk installed upside down :cool: I've always had problems with drivers for my graphics card (ATI Radeon 6870) and I used to blue screen on a regular basis due to 'atikmpag.sys' and on occasion 'driver_power_state_failure'. It all seemed to fix itself over time as everything I tried had no effect. I only found out that I had incorrectly installed my HDD less then a month ago and I have since put it the right way up :D

To summarize, is it likely because I had my HDD the wrong way round that I have encountered these problems and is it really that bad to have your HDD upside down?
 
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Well, my HDD stopped working not long ago, and that's when I checked it and put it the right side up. In start up repair the root cause found was 'bad hard disk'. I couldn't fix it so as a last resort I gave it a few firm taps (now on its correct side) whilst my computer was loading up and it seems to be working fine ever since. No problems yet. Makes me think there was an out of place part of the HDD that I knocked back into place.
 
Im not an expert but it seems to me like the mechanical arm in a hdd might be "disturbed" when up side down, only a suggestion though.
 
Everything in a HDD is incredibly well built and ridged. Simply turning it upside down would not make any difference.
They should work in any orientation. I would suggest that it may have just been a dodgy connection :)
 
as above, ive worked with laptops where the hdd is actually mounted upside down permanently. Its the moving around during operation you should steer clear of,a nd even then its usually not that bad.,
 
The only issue I have ever heard of was back in the dark ages when the drive bearings required the drive the be the correct way up. Running upside down used to unload them so they didn't run correctly.

This was all 15+ years ago so i can't believe it would still be an issue in this day and age.
 
Juvenile said:
Okay, so would you say there is just a general problem with the HDD? It's a Samsung HD103SJ Spinpoint F3 1TB btw
Click to expand...
Sounds like the HDD is dodgy to me, and I'd guess the "few firm taps" it received while it was powering up won't have made it any happier, although it might have seemed a worthwhile exercise at the time.

Even if it's (apparently) working OK now, I wouldn't trust it if I were you - check it out with a SMART diagnostic utility, and if it fails return it under warranty (if you're covered). In happier days when HDDs were as cheap as chips I'd say just bin it and get a new one anyway, for peace of mind if nothing else... at the very least make sure your backup regime is solid, but this hardly needs stating.

The orientation makes no difference at all BTW, if you check out the various manufacturers' websites they all specify any position as long as it's squarely horizontal or vertical... in fact, even this restriction is probably a CYA position, simply because they won't have carried out extended testing for every conceivable angle in between. If you search the interwebs you'll find theoretical discussions as to how an angle of, say, 78.4% might lead to weird gyroscopic effects and/or uneven bearing wear, but IMO the chances of this being an issue in practice are vanishingly small. :)
 
CaptainCrash said:
Sounds like the HDD is dodgy to me, and I'd guess the "few firm taps" it received while it was powering up won't have made it any happier, although it might have seemed a worthwhile exercise at the time.

Even if it's (apparently) working OK now, I wouldn't trust it if I were you - check it out with a SMART diagnostic utility, and if it fails return it under warranty (if you're covered). In happier days when HDDs were as cheap as chips I'd say just bin it and get a new one anyway, for peace of mind if nothing else... at the very least make sure your backup regime is solid, but this hardly needs stating.

The orientation makes no difference at all BTW, if you check out the various manufacturers' websites they all specify any position as long as it's squarely horizontal or vertical... in fact, even this restriction is probably a CYA position, simply because they won't have carried out extended testing for every conceivable angle in between. If you search the interwebs you'll find theoretical discussions as to how an angle of, say, 78.4% might lead to weird gyroscopic effects and/or uneven bearing wear, but IMO the chances of this being an issue in practice are vanishingly small. :)
Click to expand...

How would I run a 'SMART diagnostic utility'?
 
A few years back when I was crunching SETI, I was running 8 PC's bare bones, 2 per 19" shelf in a rack and every HDD was stood on its side.... never had a problem. A bad HDD is a bad HDD period, once it starts to fail with errors... move on, it wont suddenly get better!
 
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