HDD not working but how to confirm

[gary4gar]

recently my harddrive wnet dead but its still deteched by bios & the windows xp boots stops at the boot screen.the thing i noticed was that the red led light of my hdd was glowing for 3 sec & off for 3 sec then again the same procedure.after some time min or 2 min its gets restarted again.however the system runs fine with a ubuntu 6.06 live cd from which i am posting this msg.i want u ppl to suggest me a test which confirms that my hdd is gone

i hace a segate barracuda 80gb sata drive,msi-k8mm-v,amd athlon64 3000+,
256ms ram,300w psu

[PrinceHeart]

heyyyyyyyyyyyyyy

i had the same problems with my seagate barracuda 80GB IDE drive 3 weeks ago.

One day it stops in winxp boot screen. since i don't had much files in c partition - i decided to format and install winxp again. but when i try to format it - it stopped at 4 %. Then only i knew something was wrong.

Luckyly i have an external case. So i bought a new 80GB HDD and now using it after installing everything newly. I plug in the old 80GB drive with the external casing . The green lights went on. and i can see the 3 partition drives i made in that in my computer.

But when i went inside 1 of the drives to browse my files - the green light of the external casing went off and like it trying to read the files - the hard disk makes lots of hissing noises and the green light is shown again.

Well i took lots of backup from that, but still some files i couldn't get backup.
I had called my friend who got a shop and deals with these stuffs. he came home 1 day and take the hard disk off the external casing and shake it. And it make noises. Then right at that moment - he said - my hard disk is gone bad beyond repairs. This is my story.

If ur still using the same hard disk that's ur having problem, i would suggest to please take backup of all ur files, in case its gonna end up completely dead.

Go to seagate.com support page and download Seagate DiscWizard for Windows V4.09.05(10MB). That will test your hard disk for lots of stuffs and reports on its conditions. My old hard disk is still detected by the bios but its unusable. I can't do anything about it.

They got offline download to install in your windows and online scanning too. Whatever u choose. But i will suggest offline scanning is better. If that test from seagate shows negative, it surely means your hard disk is gone. Take backup and replace it asap.

peace

[gary4gar]

thanx for your reply mate
but i need some more suggestion as this involes all my data and a some hard earned money too.
ppl come on. in the for a while i am on ubuntu live cd. god bless these ubuntu ppl!!.ubuntu saved my day.
also trying this Seagate DiscWizard for Windows

[Geforce]

I am also facing the same problem with my new seagate 200GB sata HDD.

Sometimes when i boot or i am already working on the pc...the hdd starts to make beep sounds with 1 sec interval and hhd light also blinks....kinda like when you insert a CD into a cdrom drive ...and it is detecting.

I have found that the HDD is ok. The problem is with the SATA cable itself.
Whenever this problem comes nothing works, and i need to disconnect the drive removing the cable from both the ends...then i replug it into another SATA port and voila it works.

But then again ...the problem repeats in a few days.

The permanent solution to all this is i guess to buy a shielded SATA cable, so that there is no data loss during transfer. Actualy after doing some research on the net i found that these SATA drives cannot recover after a data loss during transfer till you either restart pc or disconnect the cable....unlike the older PATA drives.

[yogi7272]

hmm .. well well well .. someone other than me is having probs with seagate hdds ... I am having very bad experience with seagate hdds ..

first i got their 7200.7 series 200 gb sata 1 hdd last july .. which always made some noise during its operation ..but i ignored it .. finally it stopped working in may .. since then i got it replaced twice .. now the current drive is struck in pio mode .. even after setting in dma mode in bios, it refuses to come out of pio mode .. also its making those similar noises .. looks like its time to visit the service station again ..

also meanwhile in may i got their 7200.9 300 gb sata 2 hdd . which gave me sound and detection probs from the first day .. replaced it with the dealer .. what more .. the new drive i got, gave me prob too ..so i have replaced that drive within one month of its purchase .. the new drive is working fine .. even few of my friends are experiencing the sound issues with seagate sata drives ..

I have talked to almost all persons including their call centre and regional marketing manager . but to no avail .. but one thing i should mention.. their service centre support is excellent .. but sady their sata drives suck ..

after that i got three more drives .. each 300 gb sata 2 from samsung , western digital and hitachi .. all are working fine without any issuses.. so why the hell these seagate hdds are having so many probs ?

for me seagate sata drives suck big time ..

[gary4gar]

^^^
can u give there help line nos i will call them and ask before trying anything further. becasue they know better than me

[magnet]

seagates drives are also goin samsung way...try other drives...i m on hitachi now after samsung...than seagate..both getting bad sctors in 6months.......ppl suggest gettin a raptor drive...and use it solly for os purpose

[yogi7272]

raptors are costly ..


go for other western digital drives like cavier se and se 16 and re series .. also maxtor diamond max 10 and 11 series is very good ..