IBM Problem

[Onethenumber2]

I have an IBM 40 gig deskstar Hard drive and I have had serveral problems with it before. Those problems were related to heat issues and easily fixed but I have a new probelm, this one has me stumped. When I turn it on the computer is unable to read from it almost. The Bios can see it and if i wait long enough some data is loaded but i cant even get into windows. It makes a sort of soft schreeching noise four times and then does a read type noise twice. after maybe tweenty sets of these the windows load page is displayed but then it goes black again and never goes into windows. Is it time to call IBM and ask for a new drive? Does anyone have any idea what causes this or how to fix it. Thanks

EDIT: this is my primary drive and it has info that it would be really bad to lose so uh yeah

[Mark]

you might try going to IBM's web site (http://www.storage.ibm.com/hdd/support/pre_rma.htm) to get their drive fitness test and see if it qualifies for as being a bad drive. my IBM's sometimes make a little clicking , but so far they have tested fine.

[Onethenumber2]

I cant get to windows so i cant run the test. Mine made a clicking fomr time to time before.

[Mark]

if you can download that fittness test program on another PC and install it to a floppy it runs in pc-dos. then boot up to the floppy and run the test.

just set your BIOS to boot off the floppy first.

[HongKongPolice]

Hehe just keeping an IBM drive cool is NOT enough.... If you're running Win2K or XP, you gotta MANUALLY shutdown your computer everytime or else the drive will get screwed over after a while... Win2K and XP shut down faster than IBM drives can, so sometimes, it leaves the head in "write" mode and it drags across the platter.... Theres a fix for Win98, but NOT for 2K or XP.

I know this cuz it was from an e-mail sent by an IBM tech posted on amdmb forums, LONG time ago

[Onethenumber2]

yeah i was overclocking a bit above stability and used to do not so nice shut downs so that is probably the cause. Is there much of a chance I can recover the data? (It can read some, windows starts to load and then stops)

[Onethenumber2]

I just ran SMART defender too (yesterdsay). I guess that doesnt detect it huh?

[Onethenumber2]

Ran the dft said it was a defective dirve. If I run the sector repair utility what exatly does it do and what can it correct. If these sectors are bad is there anyway I can block them off later.

[Onethenumber2]

Ran the dft sector repair function and it fixed it all up.

The surface must not have been scrached after all.

Thanks to all especially to the snake who pointed me to the dft.

:D :) :D :) :)

[Mark]

you may still want to back stuff up regularly just to make sure, read that sometimes the drives will fail sometimes soon after they are fixed with that DFT.

not trying to scare you just thinking that is what i would do.

after lossing some good stuff i had on one RAID setup and then haveing it go bad from overclocking way too high i learned my lesson.

anyway glad you got it up and running again :)