BstrucT

Hi All

I have a weird problem with one of my old hard drives.
Seagate 80Gb, IDE.

It shows in Bios, shows in Device Manager, but doesn't show in My Computer or Computer Management>>>Disk Management in Windows XP.

When trying to accec the drive with windows setup, I get an error message stating that the drive cannot be accessed.
Okay, so I changed my IDE cables, twice, but still no luck. I downloaded Seatools and got started on it.
Booted up with the disk and ran short scan, no problem. Ran the acquistic test, no problem.(not that it was making noise or anything.)
When trying to run long test I get errors that I can't fix at all.

Does anyone know what is up with drive?

Thanks

>>>BstrucT<<<

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BstrucT

Meant "access"

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lectricpharaoh

I have a suspicion:

I personally am not a fan of Seagate's drives, but by all accounts, they have improved in recent years. Perhaps this is because they bought Maxtor, who had previously purchased Quantum. Quantum drives had a pretty good reputation as far as reliability went, and I myself had several second-hand Quantum drives in the 90s that were subject to some abuse, but never gave me a bit of trouble. Since (to the best of my knowledge) the development teams were kept intact during these acquisitions, it can be hoped that some good things are happening inside Seagate.

Still, I tend to avoid Seagate and Western Digital drives, as both brands have given me trouble in the past.

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BstrucT

That's the weirdest thing ; I have used Seagate and Maxtor for quite a while and have never had trouble, except for one drive that had bad sectors, but they replaced it.

This is obviously not under warranty anymore and I am considering opening it up to learn a bit about the inside of hard drives, then chuck it away.

What hard drive(s) are you using if you don't mind me asking.
Here in SA we mostly get Seagate, WD, Maxtor and Samsung.

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lectricpharaoh

Well, there aren't too many hard drive manufacturers, so there's not as much selection as there are with some other components. I've never had a problem with Quantum/Maxtor, even after Seagate bought Maxtor. However, since I've had frequent problems with Seagate (non Maxtor-branded ones) and Western Digital drives, I try to avoid them.

Thus, if I'm buying a 3.5" drive, I generally go with Maxtor. If I'm buying a 2.5" drive, such as for my laptop or USB drive enclosure, I'll go with pretty much anything but Seagate (Hitachi, Fujitsu, etc). I don't have any experience with Samsung drives, so I can't really comment as to their quality, but the brand is pretty well-known.

__________________
And once again, Probability proves itself willing to sneak into a back alley and service Drama as would a copper-piece harlot.
- Vaarsuvius, Order of the Stick

BstrucT

Thanks for the feedback all. I have concluded that the Hard Drive is indeed poked and need to be disposed of.
Seems like Hard Drives can just sometime play up if they want to, and I think its great that Hard Drive manufacturers have increased their quality with the new drives available today.

Still need a backup drive though, and thinking of getting a nice SATA II 250Gb or something with a lot of cache.

@Shadowhunter: Thanks for the advice girl, will definetely have a look at Sisoft Sandra today.

@lectricpharaoh: Considering your advise on my next hard drive purchase. Thanks.

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Be kinder than necessary because everyone you meet is fighting some kind of battle.

lectricpharaoh

If you've still got some valuable data on the drive that you need to recover, you might try SpinRite. I've never used it myself, but I have heard good things about it.

__________________
And once again, Probability proves itself willing to sneak into a back alley and service Drama as would a copper-piece harlot.
- Vaarsuvius, Order of the Stick

Ooble

I've never had any trouble with either Seagate or WD. Hmm...

Hard drive-fixing software I will keep shouting about 'cos it's brilliant. And no, I don't earn a penny from pimping it.

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shadowhunter

You could try downloading Sisoftware Sandra and running tests on it. I got this advice from Jabo when I was having PC problems in my own topic forum (PC Help Required).

It didn't resolve my issue but it gave me some pointers which I found useful for my Hard Drives. I am using Hitachi DeskStar and Hitachi CinemaStar both 160GB.

Hope this helps you.

OpenLoop

Another vote for WD.