Temporary Hang and Click

[Flick]

I have owned an HP Pavilion 9795c for over 1 year. It has worked great with no problems until the last few weeks. The hard drive (60 MB) is only 16% full. I use Norton SystemWorks with Norton Personal Firewall and keep everything up to date (i.e. antivirus, cleansweep, defrag, disk scan, are run every night). My OS is Windows ME and I have downloaded all the updates. Same goes for IE 6.0 and Outlook Express. I upgraded the RDRAM to 512 MB and it works perfectly. The system resources normally come in at 80%. I use an APC 500va surge protector and my power source is good. In short, what I am saying here is that all the hardware and software are up to date and work fine...except for one problem. Within the last 3 weeks (with no changes to hardware or software), I have noticed a "click, click" sound coming from the tower (not the speakers). The sound only seems to happen when the computer goes to the hard disk. When the sound occurs, the computer "hangs" for just a second or two. The "clicks" seem to be rather random (except that it always happens several times during boot up, while on the Internet, off the Internet, etc.) but only seem to happen during "heavy" disk access. It sounds very much like a circuit breaker. Any help would be appreciated. Thank you.

[mjc]

Sounds very much like the beginning of the end for that 60GB hard drive....since ot is an HP computer the manufacturere of the probably won't hhave any warranty support for you but it would be worth a shot, find who made the drive and go to their site and download the diagnostic tools...somtimes the tools will tell you if you have any recourse with the warranty, otherwise start shopping around.....

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mjc
Links list:Computer Links (http://www.dreamwater.org/tech/mjc/index.htm)

Celts are the men that heaven made mad, For all their battles are merry and their songs are all sad.

[Flick]

Unfortunately, I think you are right. It's a Maxtor 96147H6. Ran all the diagnostic tests I could find and nothing worked. Sent Maxtor an email asking about a good replacement. HP wants $240.00. As you said I guess I better start shopping for a new drive. Also, I suppose it would be a good idea to buy Norton Ghost and "clone" the data on my current drive to CD's before it crashes? The idea being that when I replace the current drive I should be able to restore the data to the new drive from the clone CD's without a problem? (Note to self, this sounds too easy. You must be missing some important information.) Thanks for your help.

[mjc]

If you can still access the data, yep it should be that easy....

And shop around, I just picked up a couple of 40GB 7200rpm drives for $80 each, so that $240 that HP wants is a little on the steep side........

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mjc
Links list:Computer Links (http://www.dreamwater.org/tech/mjc/index.htm)

Celts are the men that heaven made mad, For all their battles are merry and their songs are all sad.

[Flick]

I have another idea. I ordered Norton Ghost today and I had planned to image the drive to CD's. However, a little light went on in my head and told me to get a "backup" hard drive. Tell me if you see a problem with my plan. If I buy an external hard drive with a USB connection and then use Ghost to clone the data from the faulty drive to the new drive, I'll then be able to use the new drive while I figure out the problem with the old drive...without any down time. I think this will be my best option.

[mjc]

Sounds like a pretty good plan, but be warned, the USB drive will be slow for transfers and may not be bootable....but you may be able to boot to a floppy and access it from there.

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mjc
Links list:Computer Links (http://www.dreamwater.org/tech/mjc/index.htm)

Celts are the men that heaven made mad, For all their battles are merry and their songs are all sad.

[Flick]

Glad you gave me that warning! Think I'll discard that idea. I believe that this computer has a free bay (it's stock except for the 512 MB RDRAM upgrade) so shouldn't I be able to just get another hard drive (80 GB for example) and slap it into the free bay and then use Ghost to copy the contents of the 60 GB drive to the new 80 GB drive. Then I could replace/repair the 60 GB drive and always have a backup in case of future breakdowns. I would then be able to switch from one drive to another at my will, right? Does this sound like a workable solution?

[mjc]

Yeah that sounds good....and after you have everything copied over and have a little time to play around you might want ot check the drive manufacturers diagnostics, sometimes they will tell you if you acn replace it under warranty.........

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mjc
Links list:Computer Links (http://www.dreamwater.org/tech/mjc/index.htm)

Celts are the men that heaven made mad, For all their battles are merry and their songs are all sad.

[Flick]

That was my thinking also. When I contacted Maxtor, they directed me to download Powerdiag.exe and said that if the dirve did not pass all the tests, I could return it for a warranty replacement. However since one of the tests involves a low level format, I didn't want to do the tests until I had another drive to take over the load. Sam's has an 80 GB Western Digital drive (7200 rpm) for $180.00. According to the computer guy at Sam's, the drive comes with full installtion instructions and software to clone the contents of my orginial drive to the new drive. He also said it would work fine with my HP 9795c. So, tomorrow (unless you see a flaw in my plan) I think I'll buy the Western Digital 80 GB drive and see if that will work for me. Anybody know if Western Digital drives are good, bad, reliable, etc? Thanks for all your great help mjc. Without your expert advice I probably would have made a few expensive errors while trying to correct this problem!

[Flick]

Update: I decided not to go with the Western Digital Drive. Their website is very slow and I just had a feeling that this drive was not right. Instead, I ordered a Maxtor 60GB, 7200 rpm with the ATA cable, 5.25" mounting kit, software, etc. Only cost me $155.00 including shipping. I contacted Maxtor about my "problem" drive and advised them that it passed all of their diagnostic tests, but that I was still having problems with it. They told me that as soon as I get the new drive up and running, just return the old drive and they would replace it for free (even though it's an HP OEM)! So, I decided to stick with Maxtor to avoid possible conflicts and because they stand behind their products. Also, I want to once again thank mjc for his help and apologize for posting this in the wrong forum. I know (now)it should have gone under the "storage" forum, but at the time I posted, I wasn't sure just what was the problem. It was only after the help from mjc that I realized my problem was the hard disk. Also, I was able to make an image of my current hard disk with Norton Ghost so, at least, I have that covered. I plan to install the new disk as a slave and then copy the old disk to the new and then remove the old disk and send it off for replacement. I don't expect to get the new drive until about 02/19/2002 so I'll post back with my success (or failure) sometime after that date.

[This message has been edited by Flick (edited 02-13-2002).]

[Flick]

Ok, I got the new Maxtor 60GB hard drive, 7200 RPM (actually it's a Quantum Fireball Plus AS). I have checked all the instructions form Maxtor and from the HP website concerning installing a second hard drive in an HP Pavilion 9795c. Maxtor says that if I intend to copy the contents of the original disk to the new disk, then both disks should be set to master and that the second disk should be connected to the motherboard (ASUS P4 with 850 chipset) with a separate IDE cable. However, since I also have a CD-Writer and a DVD drive connected to the motherboard in addition to the original hard drive, I just don't think there is going to be an open IDE connection on the motherboard (I haven't opened the case yet to look). Also, I want to be able to run all 4 drives on the same system. Therefore, it seems I will have no choice but to connect the new hard drive as a slave to the same IDE cable on which the master is located. Maxtor says its copy software will not work with this arrangement therefore after I get the BIOS to recognize the new drive, partition and format, then I suppose I'll have to use Norton Ghost to copy the contents of the old disk to the new. Does this sound like it will work or am I missing something? Also let me add that I have spent the better part of 3 days looking at the posts on this site for helpful information. It helped me a great deal! Now that I have seen others with similar problems, I've been able to learn a lot from their posts and the answers. Thanks! So, I plan on doing the upgrade tommorow or the next day. Wish me luck.

[mjc]

For the purpose of transferring the contents of the original drive to the new one you can temporarily disconnect the CD and DVD drives...connect the the new drive and initiate the transfer...because the Maxtor software works outside of Windows. When done with transfer, put the new drive as Primary master, reconnect the CD and DVD drive...reboot and make sure everything is correct. Then you can do what you want with the original drive (including removing the current partition and reformatting), making it slave on the primary IDE channel.....

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mjc
Links list:Computer Links (http://www.dreamwater.org/tech/mjc/index.htm)

Celts are the men that heaven made mad, For all their battles are merry and their songs are all sad.

[Flick]

Thanks mjc. Now I have a new twist. Just visited the Maxtor website and looked at the Fireball Plus AS (ATA/IDE) information and saw this:

Ultra ATA Operation

In order to achieve the Ultra ATA/100 transfer speed, you must have a system and BIOS that will support Ultra ATA/100. The correct drivers must be loaded, and an Ultra ATA specific data cable must be used. The Ultra ATA cables use the Cable Select (CS) method rather than a master/slave scheme, so the drive must be configured to enable Cable Select (jumper installed on CS position).


Now I know my motherboard (ASUS P4T-M) supports Ultra ATA/100. So wouldn't it be better to go with the Cable Select method? Doesn't this method get by the entire master/slave, primary master/primary slave issue? Man, I knew this would not be easy. That's why I decided to research this project before I cracked the case open. Thanks.

[Flick]

Hard Drive Installed and working!!! Thank you mjc!!!! I couldn't have done it without you. I owe you one (maybe 2 or 3). For the rest of the folks in my (former) situation, let me see if I can help you. First of all, the instructions from the Maxtor were just terrible. I guess that was because they shipped me a Quantum Fireball Plus AS rather than a "regular" Maxtor drive. The instructions that came with the drive were for the Maxtor, not the Quantum. As a result, all the jumper settings in the instructions were wrong and the instructions for copying the data from one hard drive to another were dead wrong! To make a long story short, I pretty much did the reverse of everything said in the instructions and everything worked like a charm! I'm booting off the slave now and it's very fast. I'm very tired now but happy with the results. Now I just have to ship the failing drive back to Maxtor for replacement. The moral to this story is, always have 2 disk drives, make regular backups and just pray your power supply doesn't go bad! Thank you.

[Flick]

The new hard drive is working perfectly, so I have decided it is time to return the old hard drive to Maxtor for a replacement. I got an RMA number from Maxtor and I have all the appropriate packing material to send it back. While I don't have any national security data on my hard drive, I do have a lot of personal information (i.e. names, addresses, phone numbers, birth dates, SSN's, tax returns, financial information, passwords, etc.). I realize that the only way to be SURE that the data can not be recovered from the disk is to fully destroy the device. However, since it is under warranty and Maxtor has agreed to replace it (on the condition that I send it back to them) I was wondering what is the best method to use to erase the drive contents. I plan on using Norton's so called Government Wipe to delete the data. Will this be adequate?

[mjc]

Several passes of that even satisfies the government....and no-one except the most determined of FBI agents would really want to try to get anything off of it after that anyway....I have seen several data recovery companies that will refuse a drive that has been through several passes of a wipe program that first writes random data and then all 0s or some other character/number (too much $$$ for too little recovered, and time and effort on their part)...

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mjc
Links list:Computer Links (http://www.dreamwater.org/tech/mjc/index.htm)

Celts are the men that heaven made mad, For all their battles are merry and their songs are all sad.

[Flick]

The saga continues.... I used Norton Government Wipe to delete the files and it worked just great. I am going to send the drive back to Maxtor on 2/27 and hope that I get a good replacement. The drive I'm sending back is a 60 GB, ATA 100, 5400 RPM device. I asked Maxtor if I could upgrade the drive to a 7200 RPM unit but they told me that the "upgrade program" had been discontinued. However, I'm keeping my fingers crossed because of the following reply I got from Maxtor:

Thank you for sending your MAXTOR E-mail inquiry.

Dear Maxtor Customer:

I regret to inform you that Maxtor no longer has an upgrade program. As it stands, you might get the upgrade you want without additional cost. This is due to the fact that Maxtor will replace your drive with what is in stock while making certain that you get at least what you had before. If your specific drive is not in stock, you might get a drive that has the same capacity, but faster data transfer rate or faster rpms. There is no guarantee that this will be the case, but it is a possibility.

[Flick]

I would like to update everyone (and mjc in particular) as to my recent disk drive replacement adventure. After getting the RMA number, I sent the drive back to Maxtor on 02/27/02 via Priority Mail (USPS) and I insured it for $150.00. I checked the Maxtor RMA status line on the Internet and found that they have not yet received the drive! I called Maxtor at 1-800-262-9867 to double check and they still have not received the drive. I checked back with the post office and showed them my Insured Mail Receipt and they told me I had to wait 30 days until I could file a claim! Bottom line here is, I should have used UPS. Live and learn. I plan to buy another drive. I currently have one Quantum 60GB, ATA 100, EIDE, 7200 RPM drive. I have an ASUS P4 mobo and am running Windows ME. So now, I'm going to have to buy another new hard drive because I want to have two hard drives in my system. Should I stick another 60GB drive in the system or would it be better to put in an 80, 100 or 120GB drive? Would another drive larger than 60GB cause any conflicts or problems with my current OS (i.e. can Windows ME handle two 120GB drives (total of 240GB) or am I limited to 120GB no matter the combination)? I ask this question because I know that although my mobo supports up to 1 gig of memory, Windows ME gets "confused" with anything over 512MB. Thank you.

[mjc]

Nope...shouldn't have to worry about it, if the BIOS can handle a drive of that size then it should work in Windows....Windows sees each drive as a separate entity, not an aggregate total (like RAM), so you could have upto 4 120GB drives....

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mjc
Links list:Computer Links (http://www.dreamwater.org/tech/mjc/index.htm)

Celts are the men that heaven made mad, For all their battles are merry and their songs are all sad.