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Electronics Repair (sci.electronics.repair) Discussion of repairing electronic equipment. Topics include requests for assistance, where to obtain servicing information and parts, techniques for diagnosis and repair, and annecdotes about success, failures and problems. |
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#1
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40Gb Western Digital hard drive
Hi,
Hoping to benefit from the collective wisdom of the group with regard to computer systems. So far over a period of about 2 years I've brought home from the scrapyard three different E-machine computers, all of which had a blown-up power supply made by Bestec - I get the feeling that that is reason enough to turn around and run the other way, once you see the 'Bestec' name, since out of those three systems, the only thing that was still usable that I have found was one 128Mb stick of ram. Until the other day... I was sorting out what I could drop off at the recyclers, scrapyard and landfill, when I once again hooked up a Western Digital 40 Gb hard drive, and once again got a bunch of grief from it, until I put a WD utilities disk in the floppy drive, just to run the mfg's utilities on it before tossing it. I selected for the program "install EZbios" - just because I hadn't done that before, ya know? Next, I told it to restore track 0 (zero), which it seemed happy enough to do. Long story short, this drive which I couldn't even complete any kind of diagnostic test on previously, I was now able to load Ubuntu on, and I used it for 3 days in a row for my usual news-gathering activities. Then, this morning in the middle of my readings the system went brain- dead on me. Of course, the first thing I suspect is the HD. I shut the system down and let it sit for 15 or 20 minutes, then checked to make sure there's no lose connectors or the like, nothing is unusually warm, and then unplug and replug everything (possibly the stick of ram wasn't quite seated right, everything else seemed OK) and started it back up - booted into Ubuntu 8.04 fine, I let it idle awhile then shut it down for the day. I can hardly wait to see what tomorrow may bring 8^). Just wondering if any one had any info or thoughts on why the HD was seemingly revived by the 'install EZbios' and 'restore track zero' moves that I put on it, and also what I might do to make a more effective repair to this drive, or at least a diagnostic that will tell me if something's wrong with it - I really think it would benefit from a low-level format but I don't have a program for that at the moment. The Western Digital diagnostics pronounce it to be error- free. Thanks, Mike |
#2
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40Gb Western Digital hard drive
On Fri, 28 May 2010 14:47:25 -0700, mike wrote:
Hi, Hoping to benefit from the collective wisdom of the group with regard to computer systems. So far over a period of about 2 years I've brought home from the scrapyard three different E-machine computers, all of which had a blown-up power supply made by Bestec - I get the feeling that that is reason enough to turn around and run the other way, once you see the 'Bestec' name, since out of those three systems, the only thing that was still usable that I have found was one 128Mb stick of ram. Until the other day... I was sorting out what I could drop off at the recyclers, scrapyard and landfill, when I once again hooked up a Western Digital 40 Gb hard drive, and once again got a bunch of grief from it, until I put a WD utilities disk in the floppy drive, just to run the mfg's utilities on it before tossing it. I selected for the program "install EZbios" - just because I hadn't done that before, ya know? Next, I told it to restore track 0 (zero), which it seemed happy enough to do. Long story short, this drive which I couldn't even complete any kind of diagnostic test on previously, I was now able to load Ubuntu on, and I used it for 3 days in a row for my usual news-gathering activities. Then, this morning in the middle of my readings the system went brain- dead on me. Of course, the first thing I suspect is the HD. I shut the system down and let it sit for 15 or 20 minutes, then checked to make sure there's no lose connectors or the like, nothing is unusually warm, and then unplug and replug everything (possibly the stick of ram wasn't quite seated right, everything else seemed OK) and started it back up - booted into Ubuntu 8.04 fine, I let it idle awhile then shut it down for the day. I can hardly wait to see what tomorrow may bring 8^). Just wondering if any one had any info or thoughts on why the HD was seemingly revived by the 'install EZbios' and 'restore track zero' moves that I put on it, and also what I might do to make a more effective repair to this drive, or at least a diagnostic that will tell me if something's wrong with it - I really think it would benefit from a low-level format but I don't have a program for that at the moment. The Western Digital diagnostics pronounce it to be error- free. Thanks, Mike The problems and solutions may be coincidental. There isn't much you can do to make the repair more reliable nor are there consumer grade diagnostics that can pinpoint problems. I revived a 120 gig Maxtor a week ago by swapping the electronics with an exact twin I had in the scrap box. The drive just quit. Made no noise, platters didn't spin. Replaced the electronics board, problem solved and friend didn't lose his OS or data. |
#3
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40Gb Western Digital hard drive
Hi Mike,
mike wrote: Hoping to benefit from the collective wisdom of the group with regard to computer systems. So far over a period of about 2 years I've brought home from the scrapyard three different E-machine computers, all of which had a blown-up power supply made by Bestec - I get the feeling that that is reason enough to turn around and run the other way, once you see the 'Bestec' name, since out of those three systems, the only thing that was still usable that I have found was one 128Mb stick of ram. Until the other day... eMachines are... well, we won't go there! :-/ I was sorting out what I could drop off at the recyclers, scrapyard and landfill, when I once again hooked up a Western Digital 40 Gb hard drive, and once again got a bunch of grief from it, until I put a WD utilities disk in the floppy drive, just to run the mfg's utilities on it before tossing it. I selected for the program "install EZbios" - just because I hadn't done that before, ya know? Next, I told it to restore track 0 (zero), which it seemed happy enough to do. Long story short, this drive which I couldn't even complete any kind of diagnostic test on previously, I was now able to load Ubuntu on, and I used it for 3 days in a row for my usual news-gathering activities. Then, this morning in the middle of my readings the system went brain- dead on me. What machine did ou have this running in? I think drive manufacturers cite something like 40% (? more?) of drive returns have "No defect found". (something to keep in mind). The first thing I would do is move the drive to a known *reliable* machine (perhaps on the secondary controller or as a slave, etc.) and see how well it runs. You may discover that the machine you were having problems with was the problem! (bad caps, bad power supply, etc.) Of course, the first thing I suspect is the HD. I shut the system down and let it sit for 15 or 20 minutes, then checked to make sure there's no lose connectors or the like, nothing is unusually warm, and then unplug and replug everything (possibly the stick of ram wasn't quite seated right, everything else seemed OK) and started it back up - booted into Ubuntu 8.04 fine, I let it idle awhile then shut it down for the day. I can hardly wait to see what tomorrow may bring 8^). Just wondering if any one had any info or thoughts on why the HD was seemingly revived by the 'install EZbios' and 'restore track zero' moves that I put on it, and also what I might do to make a more effective repair to this drive, or at least a diagnostic that will tell me if something's wrong with it - I really think it would benefit from a low-level format but I don't have a program for that at the moment. The Western Digital diagnostics pronounce it to be error- free. |
#4
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40Gb Western Digital hard drive
On May 28, 3:16*pm, D Yuniskis wrote:
Hi Mike, mike wrote: Hoping to benefit from the collective wisdom of the group with regard to computer systems. So far over a period of about 2 years I've brought home from the scrapyard three different E-machine computers, all of which had a blown-up power supply made by Bestec - I get the feeling that that is reason enough to turn around and run the other way, once you see the 'Bestec' name, since out of those three systems, the only thing that was still usable that I have found was one 128Mb stick of ram. *Until the other day... eMachines are... well, we won't go there! *:-/ They are made to sell at a low price point, like the Yugo. |
#5
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40Gb Western Digital hard drive
D Yuniskis wrote: eMachines are... well, we won't go there! :-/ I 'spose that may be why the E-machine 'puters at the scrapyard are usually still intact. What machine did ou have this running in? A Franken-machine, with an Asus MB that I recently replaced some bad caps in; all the other components have been sitting around, salvaged from other broken systems for long enough that I no longer know what their origin is. I think drive manufacturers cite something like 40% (? more?) of drive returns have "No defect found". (something to keep in mind). The first thing I would do is move the drive to a known *reliable* machine (perhaps on the secondary controller or as a slave, etc.) and see how well it runs. You may discover that the machine you were having problems with was the problem! (bad caps, bad power supply, etc.) Yeah, definitely a possibility... Thanks, Mike |
#6
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40Gb Western Digital hard drive
On Sat, 29 May 2010 03:18:18 -0700, mike ǝʇoɹʍ:
D Yuniskis wrote: eMachines are... well, we won't go there! :-/ I 'spose that may be why the E-machine 'puters at the scrapyard are usually still intact. I own a 2005 eMachine, 2.0 ghz AMD Athalon64. It's now a Windows 7 machine and does its job flawlessly. Just like any other brand you need to know what you are buying within the brand name. Being semi-retired from the IT world now since 2008 I've seen plenty of junk out there with Compac, HP, Sony, Toshiba badges on them. One thing you need to understand is not many if any make 100% of their own components. So you should not make global statements condemning the badge name without this knowledge. |
#7
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40Gb Western Digital hard drive
ʍoןd ʇɐǝɯ wrote: On Sat, 29 May 2010 03:18:18 -0700, mike ǝʇoɹʍ: D Yuniskis wrote: eMachines are... well, we won't go there! :-/ I 'spose that may be why the E-machine 'puters at the scrapyard are usually still intact. I own a 2005 eMachine, 2.0 ghz AMD Athalon64. It's now a Windows 7 machine and does its job flawlessly. Just like any other brand you need to know what you are buying within the brand name. I've yet to buy new, so I'm always stuck with whatever is already there. However, it always cheers me to find inside a MB made by Intel and a PSU with a name like Astec or Antec, or even John Deere, I've had pretty good service out those. I bought an LG dvd burner a couple years ago from a former IT guy and it is really phenomenal at reading dvds even when they're covered with finger prints and scratches (like a lot of the ones at the local library have), whereas, none of my previous burners (grand total of 2) would be able to read 'em, at least not error free. Being semi-retired from the IT world now since 2008 I've seen plenty of junk out there with Compac, HP, Sony, Toshiba badges on them. One thing you need to understand is not many if any make 100% of their own components. So you should not make global statements condemning the badge name without this knowledge. I had pretty good service with a T1742 that a neighbor gave me, it had an Intel MB, and didn't have a Bestec PSU. The 3 I found at the scrapyard all had failed Bestec PSU's, which became notorious for not having a crowbar circuit to shut down the outputs if they went over-voltage. Maybe they started using a better PSU, the last blown up one I found was a T2862 or something like that, I suspect a few years older than your 2005 model. |
#8
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40Gb Western Digital hard drive
On Sat, 29 May 2010 13:55:56 -0700, mike ǝʇoɹʍ:
ʍoןd ʇɐǝɯ wrote: On Sat, 29 May 2010 03:18:18 -0700, mike ǝʇoɹʍ: D Yuniskis wrote: eMachines are... well, we won't go there! :-/ I 'spose that may be why the E-machine 'puters at the scrapyard are usually still intact. I own a 2005 eMachine, 2.0 ghz AMD Athalon64. It's now a Windows 7 machine and does its job flawlessly. Just like any other brand you need to know what you are buying within the brand name. I've yet to buy new, so I'm always stuck with whatever is already there. However, it always cheers me to find inside a MB made by Intel and a PSU with a name like Astec or Antec, or even John Deere, I've had pretty good service out those. I bought an LG dvd burner a couple years ago from a former IT guy and it is really phenomenal at reading dvds even when they're covered with finger prints and scratches (like a lot of the ones at the local library have), whereas, none of my previous burners (grand total of 2) would be able to read 'em, at least not error free. Being semi-retired from the IT world now since 2008 I've seen plenty of junk out there with Compac, HP, Sony, Toshiba badges on them. One thing you need to understand is not many if any make 100% of their own components. So you should not make global statements condemning the badge name without this knowledge. I had pretty good service with a T1742 that a neighbor gave me, it had an Intel MB, and didn't have a Bestec PSU. The 3 I found at the scrapyard all had failed Bestec PSU's, which became notorious for not having a crowbar circuit to shut down the outputs if they went over-voltage. Maybe they started using a better PSU, the last blown up one I found was a T2862 or something like that, I suspect a few years older than your 2005 model. The 6212 was the first and only eMachines so far I've owned. MSI mobo, nVidia Nforce chipset. Came with XP. I replaced the 160 gig PATA drive with a 320 gig SATA and was just going to reinstall and keep the original but I'll be damned if i could locate the correct chipset drivers and I'm no neub at searching for stuff like that. I ended up cloning the 160 to the 320 with Acronis Easy Migrate or Migrate Easy or whatever they call it cuz it had a 15 day fully functional trial. Worked like a charm. Set the 160 on the shelf in case of catastrophic failure. Then I wanted an external so i bought a WD 500 gig USB. The case failed after a month so out came the drive and into the 6212 case it went. Bought Win7 a while back, nuked XP (well Win7 nuked it) and that's what I use for some specialized stuff. Most of the internet is on this Toshiba 1905 laptop with Mandriva 2010 linux installed. |
#9
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40Gb Western Digital hard drive
On Fri, 28 May 2010 14:47:25 -0700 (PDT), mike
wrote: brought home from the scrapyard three different E-machine computers, all of which had a blown-up power supply made by Bestec e-Machines are not the best quality. The power supplies and fans are the first to go. CDROM and floppy are next. After that, the motherboard. I was sorting out what I could drop off at the recyclers, scrapyard and landfill, when I once again hooked up a Western Digital 40 Gb hard drive, Model number? Series? The Protege series were tolerable. Protoge would last about 4 years and blow up. The Caviar series would last perhaps 2 years and blow up. About 1/3 of the pile is WD, mostly 40GB but some 80 and 120GB. http://802.11junk.com/jeffl/pics/drivel/disk-drives.jpg (New drives, boxed drives, and SCSI arrays are buried elsewhere). Then, this morning in the middle of my readings the system went brain- dead on me. What does that mean? Did the drive fail, or was there some other problem? It's highly likely that the drive failed. - booted into Ubuntu 8.04 fine, Ummmm.... Ubuntu 10.04 is the current version. The Western Digital diagnostics pronounce it to be error- free. The WD diagnostics will pronounce a failing drive to be good. What did you expect? Fire up SmartMonTools in Ubuntu and extract the S.M.A.R.T. statistics. You'll find one of three possible results, depending on WD drive model: 1. Lots of errors and pronouncement of imminent failure. This is what you get with the later drives. I don't think any of the 40GB drives are late enough to produce an honest result. 2. Absolutely perfect drive with no errors. This is what I usually see. WD lies on its S.M.A.R.T. stats. 3. Can't obtain S.M.A.R.T. That's what I see when someone has juggled controller cards. I also see that when there's a controller failure. -- # Jeff Liebermann 150 Felker St #D Santa Cruz CA 95060 # 831-336-2558 # http://802.11junk.com # http://www.LearnByDestroying.com AE6KS |
#10
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40Gb Western Digital hard drive
Jeff Liebermann wrote: On Fri, 28 May 2010 14:47:25 -0700 (PDT), mike wrote: e-Machines are not the best quality. The power supplies and fans are the first to go. CDROM and floppy are next. After that, the motherboard. The first one I owned had been a neighbor's that got blown up when their incoming power lost the nuetra at about age 3 - I replaced the PSU and the modem and used it for another 3 years, Prior to it failing I'd noticed that some of the caps on the MB were starting to bulge, and about six months or so later it finally just wouldn't start one day. I'm glad to hear that about the cd drives, I've got plenty of spares, I think even a burner or two. Floppies in working condition are becoming much less prevalent these days (my source always being the scrapyard, of course Model number? Series? Caviar, can't get a look at the model # right at the moment, but if it quits again I'll write it down. The Protege series were tolerable. Protoge would last about 4 years and blow up. The Caviar series would last perhaps 2 years and blow up. About 1/3 of the pile is WD, mostly 40GB but some 80 and 120GB. http://802.11junk.com/jeffl/pics/drivel/disk-drives.jpg Wow, nice collection! (New drives, boxed drives, and SCSI arrays are buried elsewhere). Then, this morning in the middle of my readings the system went brain- dead on me. What does that mean? Did the drive fail, or was there some other problem? It's highly likely that the drive failed. Well, I had several browser windows open and of a sudden the bowser was stuck viewing the last one I'd been looking at - the mouse cursor would still move around as it should but clicking on stuff had no effect. Couldn't close any browser windows, couldn't start up any other programs, couldn't shutdown the machine, except by pushing and holding down the power button. - booted into Ubuntu 8.04 fine, Ummmm.... Ubuntu 10.04 is the current version. I haven't tried anything newer than 9.10, after I tried and failed to figure how to get my modem working with it I went back to 8.04, which seems much more intuitive to me. The Western Digital diagnostics pronounce it to be error- free. The WD diagnostics will pronounce a failing drive to be good. What did you expect? Fire up SmartMonTools in Ubuntu and extract the S.M.A.R.T. statistics. You'll find one of three possible results, depending on WD drive model: 1. Lots of errors and pronouncement of imminent failure. This is what you get with the later drives. I don't think any of the 40GB drives are late enough to produce an honest result. 2. Absolutely perfect drive with no errors. This is what I usually see. WD lies on its S.M.A.R.T. stats. 3. Can't obtain S.M.A.R.T. That's what I see when someone has juggled controller cards. I also see that when there's a controller failure. Thanks, I'll have to see if I can get this SmartMonTools in 8.04. |
#11
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40Gb Western Digital hard drive
On Sat, 29 May 2010 03:52:45 -0700 (PDT), mike
wrote: The Protege series were tolerable. Protoge would last about 4 years and blow up. The Caviar series would last perhaps 2 years and blow up. About 1/3 of the pile is WD, mostly 40GB but some 80 and 120GB. http://802.11junk.com/jeffl/pics/drivel/disk-drives.jpg Wow, nice collection! I buy piles of them from the local recyclers. Those are the ones that work. You should see the piles and piles that didn't. Well, I had several browser windows open and of a sudden the bowser was stuck viewing the last one I'd been looking at - the mouse cursor would still move around as it should but clicking on stuff had no effect. Couldn't close any browser windows, couldn't start up any other programs, couldn't shutdown the machine, except by pushing and holding down the power button. Basically, the operating system got lost. That could be anything. Bad motherboard, flakey IDE device, flakey plug in card, or even a bad keyboard/mouse can hang the machine. However, it also can be a bad sector on the HD. If you can get it to boot, try scanning the HD for bad sectors and disallocating them. Then, keep track of the number of bad sectors on the drive. Any increase, and it's eWaste. I haven't tried anything newer than 9.10, after I tried and failed to figure how to get my modem working with it I went back to 8.04, which seems much more intuitive to me. What's a modem? Is that like dialup? I use those when desperate or visting stone age retro enthusiasts. Thanks, I'll have to see if I can get this SmartMonTools in 8.04. http://packages.ubuntu.com/hardy/smartmontools -- Jeff Liebermann 150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558 |
#12
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40Gb Western Digital hard drive
Jeff Liebermann wrote: On Sat, 29 May 2010 03:52:45 -0700 (PDT), mike wrote: I buy piles of them from the local recyclers. Those are the ones that work. You should see the piles and piles that didn't. Hmm, you must work on 'puters alot! One of my favorite places to hang out up till a couple years ago was the local 'puter recycler - I'd go there at least every other week and end up spending all my disposable income for the week (all 2 dollars of it . When the bottom dropped out of that market they had to close since none of the outfits they'd been sending the stuff to would give them any money for it any more. I miss that place, the guy who ran it was formerly a corporate IT guy, they always had some kind of great deals going on. Well, I had several browser windows open and of a sudden the bowser was stuck viewing the last one I'd been looking at - the mouse cursor would still move around as it should but clicking on stuff had no effect. Couldn't close any browser windows, couldn't start up any other programs, couldn't shutdown the machine, except by pushing and holding down the power button. Basically, the operating system got lost. That could be anything. Bad motherboard, flakey IDE device, flakey plug in card, or even a bad keyboard/mouse can hang the machine. However, it also can be a bad sector on the HD. If you can get it to boot, try scanning the HD for bad sectors and disallocating them. Then, keep track of the number of bad sectors on the drive. Any increase, and it's eWaste. OK, now I've got a couple new programs to learn, I'll be setting up a spare-parts machine so I can dig into this further, maybe restore some of the older pieces of hardware I've got hanging about, or at least classify as to whether I need to hang onto or not. I haven't tried anything newer than 9.10, after I tried and failed to figure how to get my modem working with it I went back to 8.04, which seems much more intuitive to me. What's a modem? Is that like dialup? I use those when desperate or visting stone age retro enthusiasts. Yeah, I know, I seem to keep slipping back into the stone age, been that way since 1993, one step forward, etc.. There's DSL at work so at least I'm getting a little familiar with that - kinda makes surfing at home at 56K a bit of a drag though... Thanks, I'll have to see if I can get this SmartMonTools in 8.04. http://packages.ubuntu.com/hardy/smartmontools Ah, thanks for the link! |
#13
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40Gb Western Digital hard drive
On Sat, 29 May 2010 14:27:24 -0700 (PDT), mike
wrote: Hmm, you must work on 'puters alot! I try to avoid computahs whenever possible. However, they do pay for my decadent and lavish lifestyle, so they're difficult to avoid. One of my favorite places to hang out up till a couple years ago was the local 'puter recycler The local senior citizens group runs a recycling operation. http://www.californiagreybears.org http://www.californiagreybears.org/images/computer.jpg The computer part was profitable when China was buying everything. These days, it's borderline. There also was a recycling operation at the local dump, but that went away about 3 years ago: http://802.11junk.com/jeffl/pics/e-waste/index.html (kinda old) The problem is that I can't return anything for credit or refund. I have to make an astute guess as to whether I can fix it, how much it will cost to fix, who I could sell it to, and whether I can make a profit on the repair. It's speculation at it's worst. My guess is that I lose money on all the computer rebuilds, but do fairly well on the HP printers and plotters. OK, now I've got a couple new programs to learn, MHDD is a good program for testing hard disks. That's one that I use when I get a pile of drives to test. I use the "magic-boot" version. The only catch is that I once wiped a drive by accident. Be careful with live data. Yeah, I know, I seem to keep slipping back into the stone age, been that way since 1993, one step forward, etc.. There's DSL at work so at least I'm getting a little familiar with that - kinda makes surfing at home at 56K a bit of a drag though... Locally, the monthly price of a DSL account is only slightly more than a dialup. When I had the only DSL in the neighborhood, most of the neighbors were "borrowing" my bandwidth (with my permission). You might ask around to see who's got a cable modem (faster than DSL) that's willing to share. Thanks, I'll have to see if I can get this SmartMonTools in 8.04. http://packages.ubuntu.com/hardy/smartmontools Ah, thanks for the link! The hard part was trying to remember the strange names of the various distributions. 8.04 was Hardy Heron, a truly memorable name that I can recall for about 10 minutes. -- Jeff Liebermann 150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558 |
#14
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40Gb Western Digital hard drive - followup
Jeff Liebermann wrote: I buy piles of them from the local recyclers. Those are the ones that work. You should see the piles and piles that didn't. Damn, that can be time consuming, for sure. I'd like to compare notes on using mhdd, but I didn't take any notes, so probably would get a bunch of stuff wrong if I tried to recollect correctly; plus, I discovered issues with the test machine's that I used, the 1st one I think is a MB problem and the 2nd one a cdrom that was causing the MB to misbehave. However, after getting familar with the program, I do feel that it does a pretty good job of pointing out a hopeless drive. On a slightly different subject, when I got curious about the definition of 'low-level format', I did some googling on the subject and checked out the Wikipedia for a bit and now I don't know whether I even did any low-level formatting in the last few days, though I do know that I used to in the early 80's - oh, well I guess that's "progress' for ya. Anyway, of the 3 hard drives that had been trashed by E-machines PSU failures, the WD 40Gb one is still working fine ( it's in the machine I'm posting from) so, after scanning it once and not seeing anything suspect I figure I'll just keep using it unless it starts acting up. Theres' also a 40 Gb Seagate that used not to be able to pass any of the mfg's utilities which, after running a few of the operations in mhdd now passes muster with the mfg's utilities, so I loaded ubuntu onto it and will start using it sos I can see whether or not it's a lasting fix. There's also an 80Gb Seagate drive which was not even addressable by any means, and mhdd was not able to address it either so I guess it must be totally screwed, forever, no matter what, it's still just an inert lump...had hopes of making it ert, but so it goes sometimes... Thanks for the help, Mike |
#15
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40Gb Western Digital hard drive - followup
On Wed, 2 Jun 2010 12:24:19 -0700 (PDT), mike
wrote: I'd like to compare notes on using mhdd, but I didn't take any notes, so probably would get a bunch of stuff wrong if I tried to recollect correctly; We'll, I wouldn't mind, but there's a problem. I don't keep any obviously defective drives and only save the paperwork on the good drives. The ones in between are kinda arbitrary. I'll keep results on the newer and better drives, but not on the older marginal junk. It's really not that much of a time burner. I have several test machines and boards, and usually let them run overnight. However, after getting familar with the program, I do feel that it does a pretty good job of pointing out a hopeless drive. My rule-of-thumb is that if the diagnostic says it's bad, it's almost certainly bad. If the diagnostic says it's good, it might be, but might also be bad due to some reason that wasn't obvious or tested. I once tested a drive (with a different program) that had obvious bearing spin (very noisy), but tested good. On a slightly different subject, when I got curious about the definition of 'low-level format', I did some googling on the subject and checked out the Wikipedia for a bit and now I don't know whether I even did any low-level formatting in the last few days, though I do know that I used to in the early 80's - oh, well I guess that's "progress' for ya. Low level format is usually done by the factory, and never again. It's places the sector numbers and servo tracks on the platter. There are programs that plug into the diagnstic port of the drive that will recreate the sector numbers, bios preload area, diagnostic tracks, and landing zone allocation, but not the servo tracks. If the drive seems to require a new primary format, give up now. Hint: I have a 15 year old Conner CP1060S 1GB drive sitting in my SCO Unix 3.2v4.2 server. It's been running continuously since about 1995(?). Three mother boards (486DX2/66), one video card, and one Wangtek tape controller card have blown up during this time. The secret to long HD life is leave it running all the time and protect it from power and static electricity glitches. I have other servers that have done almost as well, but this one is my oldest. -- Jeff Liebermann 150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558 |
#16
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40Gb Western Digital hard drive
On Fri, 28 May 2010 19:04:22 -0700, Jeff Liebermann ǝʇoɹʍ:
e-Machines are not the best quality. The power supplies and fans are the first to go. CDROM and floppy are next. After that, the motherboard. Geez you've just described about every computer out there. 2005 emachines T6216 Original power supply, Check! Original mainboard, Check! Original fans, Check! LiteOn DVDRW failed year number 2. So did it's LiteOn replacement last year. Now have 16x16 Pioneer DVRW I bought in 2004. Still works well. Moral of story, if you buy cheap stuff it will fail. Too bad that's pretty much what you will find OEM-wise in this throw-away world. |
#17
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40Gb Western Digital hard drive
On Fri, 28 May 2010 14:47:25 -0700 (PDT), mike
put finger to keyboard and composed: I was sorting out what I could drop off at the recyclers, scrapyard and landfill, when I once again hooked up a Western Digital 40 Gb hard drive, and once again got a bunch of grief from it, until I put a WD utilities disk in the floppy drive, just to run the mfg's utilities on it before tossing it. I selected for the program "install EZbios" - just because I hadn't done that before, ya know? Next, I told it to restore track 0 (zero), which it seemed happy enough to do. You can use MHDD to test each sector: http://hddguru.com/software/2005.10.02-MHDD/ AIUI, MHDD measures the time required to retrieve data from each block of sectors. Any bad or weak sector will require one or more retries. Each retry requires an additional revolution. At the end of the test MHDD reports the number of 5ms, 15ms, 50ms, 150ms, 500ms and 500ms blocks. Here is a screenshot: http://www.techmaniacs.net/files/tank_mhdd/mhdd_3.jpg MHDD Documentation: http://www.bandwidthco.com/whitepape...D%20Manual.pdf EZ-bios is a disk drive overlay (DDO) which loads a small TSR program into memory to allow a PC to overcome lack of BIOS support for LBA mode. It was used to overcome BIOS limitations such as 528MB and 28-bit LBA (128GiB / 137GB). EZ-bios works by overwriting the boot code in sector 0 of your HD with its own MBR code. The remainder of the TSR code is stored within track 0. |
#18
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40Gb Western Digital hard drive
Hi!
I get the feeling that that is reason enough to turn around and run the other way, once you see the 'Bestec' name Their 230/250 watt PC power supply has no overvoltage protection circuit. If something goes wrong, the motherboard usually gets it. I've found that nearly everything else (optical drive, hard disk, etc) survives. The later 300/350 watt supplies are better and do appear to have an OVP circuit. I think the often-highly-questionable wiring that some people have in their homes only serves to accelerate the demise of these supplies. Some of the wiring messes I have come across while servicing computers are dangerous. I'm not an electrician, so I can't fix it for someone else, but I do strongly suggest that they have it fixed ASAP. Out of the ones I have, some of which run 24/7, I have never lost one. As to your hard drive, perhaps they had a virus that was resident in the MBR or a similarly difficult-to-eradicate location? Or perhaps it really has been damaged and is not reliable. William |
#19
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40Gb Western Digital hard drive
"William R. Walsh" wrote: Hi! I get the feeling that that is reason enough to turn around and run the other way, once you see the 'Bestec' name Their 230/250 watt PC power supply has no overvoltage protection circuit. If something goes wrong, the motherboard usually gets it. I've found that nearly everything else (optical drive, hard disk, etc) survives. The later 300/350 watt supplies are better and do appear to have an OVP circuit. I think the often-highly-questionable wiring that some people have in their homes only serves to accelerate the demise of these supplies. Some of the wiring messes I have come across while servicing computers are dangerous. I'm not an electrician, so I can't fix it for someone else, but I do strongly suggest that they have it fixed ASAP. Out of the ones I have, some of which run 24/7, I have never lost one. As to your hard drive, perhaps they had a virus that was resident in the MBR or a similarly difficult-to-eradicate location? Or perhaps it really has been damaged and is not reliable. Sometimes you get lucky and can fix an infected drive with the command 'fdisk /mbr'. You have to boot with an emergency startup or diagnostics disk with a copy of fdisk. You can run the command manually, or run it from an autoexec.bat or other .bat file. -- Anyone wanting to run for any political office in the US should have to have a DD214, and a honorable discharge. |
#20
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40Gb Western Digital hard drive
William R. Walsh wrote: Their 230/250 watt PC power supply has no overvoltage protection circuit. If something goes wrong, the motherboard usually gets it. I've found that nearly everything else (optical drive, hard disk, etc) survives. Huh, they're still in business? That's a surprise... The later 300/350 watt supplies are better and do appear to have an OVP circuit. I think the often-highly-questionable wiring that some people have in their homes only serves to accelerate the demise of these supplies. Some of the wiring messes I have come across while servicing computers are dangerous. I'm not an electrician, so I can't fix it for someone else, but I do strongly suggest that they have it fixed ASAP. Good point, a lot of people don't know they need electrical work until after a problem has already cost them money. As to your hard drive, perhaps they had a virus that was resident in the MBR or a similarly difficult-to-eradicate location? Or perhaps it really has been damaged and is not reliable. Hmm, I hadn't thought to do a virus scan on it, if that's what it was I hope it's gone. Thanks, Mike |
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