Pooter Problem
 

Hi folks,

I'm currently having a problem with my machine and I'm not sure as to the cause. I had a Seagate SATA BarraCuda 7200.11/500GB 32MB unfortunately it was one of the defective drives (bad firmware issue) and died after 2 months. I've just had the replacement arrive from my retailer and although the firmware isn't listed as being a known defective one I've started having problems.

Occasionally the PC will freeze up, the blue lights on my USB mouse go out and it becomes inoperable and keyboard also stops responding.

Do you think this too could be related to the drive? or could the issue be elsewhere.

OS is XP with SP3,

Many thanks in advance for your help, as I'm at a loss now, and i like my head on my head thank you :)

Jo.
Edit: Just running Seatools, see if that shows anything.

Re: Pooter Problem
 

Jo,

I'd more suspect a power problem, especially is usb is losing power...but other than that it could be anything... Have you got an old IDE drive you can put in and test with?? At least that way you can rule out or confirm the new drive

Re: Pooter Problem
 

Ty Kymmy..

The keyboard is on a PS2 connection, and after a few Seatools tests the drive passed the SMART test, but has failed the short and long tests :(

The olde Maxtor that was in there is a Sata drive as well, and had no problems, I just wanted to run it by some folks as to other possibilities :)

I'll check the PSU, see if there's anything noticeable there.

Ty

Re: Pooter Problem
 

Have you tried the latest board drivers?? just incase it's that what's causing the problems

Re: Pooter Problem
 

I've had a few seagate and maxtor hard drives and I've found that theres a huge batch that are failing. You could try a new psu, normally a 700watts will be fine.

But I've switched from seagate and maxtor to Samsung and Fuji HD's as they are more realiable.

Re: Pooter Problem
 

Touch wood ive never had probs with Seagate drives. Had loads of Hitachi/IBM die on me tho.

Re: Pooter Problem
 

could well be a psu or mobo fault. When you say the pc freezes up does it recover or need a forced reboot. Have you have a look around Event viewer? hard drive problems often show up there first as do other problems also

Re: Pooter Problem
 

Hi folks,

Thanks for the replies.

The seagate forum is full of complaints about the 702.11 drives.

When the computer freezes it won't respond requiring a reset to get going again.

PSU is an OCZ and not quite a year old.

I've had a look in the event viewer but not found anything that stands out :(

Really is infuriating. I'll keep on at it and see if there's anything noticeable happening at the same time.

thanks again :)

---------- Post added at 15:05 ---------- Previous post was at 14:08 ----------

Just found the Seatools log

--------------- SeaTools for Windows v1.1.1.0 ---------------
29/03/2009 14:54:02
Model: ST3500320AS
Serial Number: 9QMAGGPM
Firmware Revision: SD1A
SMART - Pass 29/03/2009 14:54:02
Short DST - Started 29/03/2009 14:54:08
Short DST - FAIL 29/03/2009 14:54:36

Re: Pooter Problem
 

Looks like a bad drive then?

Re: Pooter Problem
 

I've tried the Seatools a number of times now and it's failed each time. So it's looking like it is the drive, but thank you to everyone who made other suggestions, as it's one of those faults that can be hard to track down.

I was reading on another forum someone had 12 Seagate drives die in 3 months, and the Seagate forums are full of irate drive owners. I'll RMA the drive again (after using eraser on it) and ask for a different make (not Maxtor as they're now owned by Seagate too)

Thanks again folks :)

Re: Pooter Problem
 

Oh gawd not Maxtor, they're worse than seagate...used to get so many of them in the workshop with one of the driver IC's blown (always with a nice hole burned in the middle)..

The only good thing about htem wa that the boards were easy to swap so we could recover everyones data..

Re: Pooter Problem
 

I got a Maxtor drive here, never had any probs with it at all. Guess I was lucky :)

Won't touch any Seagate drives again... Now to phone the retailer for another RMA and ask to get a different make this time :)

Re: Pooter Problem
 

right.. so the newly arrived Seagate drive is failing the tests, and i've now popped the old drive back in.

And... the intermittent freezing problem is still happening, so more tests to try out and see where the problem lies...

I'll see if i've got another psu in the cupboard, and try the board with that, i'm about to run memtest+ on it too..

I'll keep you posted

ty for your help so far

Re: Pooter Problem
 

Jo if you're upto it then unplug absolutely everything, clean up all the contacts (use a dry tissue/brush/vacumm and then plug everything back in..might be simply oxidised contacts, a bit of dirt or a loose connection..

Worth a try beofre you go any further...

Re: Pooter Problem
 

Lol, dont mean to rain on your parade, but maxtor have taken over seagate lol, or vice versa lol.
:D

Re: Pooter Problem
 

lol, Seagate too over Maxtor, as I used to buy Maxtor HD's but since they were taken over their quality went down the pan. There's been more and more failing Maxtor HD's since the take over.

Re: Pooter Problem
 

It's a pre failgate take over made drive :)

And I knew about the take over ty.. as I posted in post #10

Avoid Seagate and Maxtor as they've boarded the fail train (no wonder the CEO quit) But like most fatcats of failing business he's getting a nice payout for his failure :)