# Please help me fix my hard drive problem?



## cheesy999 (Jul 25, 2011)

*Please help me fix my Case, PSU and motherboard problem?*

My Maxtor one touch 4 is having some minor problems, after prolonged use (more then 20 mins of data access), the speed and access rate will start to slow down, and after a while, the drive will stop responding

it does have warranty on it, so f necessarily i can RMA it, however i'd like to know if this is just normal for USB drives (having no other to compare it with at the moment) or whether this is old age or something

The disk -> 
	

	
	
		
		

		
			





the hardware ECC recovered value keeps changing so i think there may be some sort of drive error



Spoiler: smart values (i don't understand these)



-- S.M.A.R.T. --------------------------------------------------------------
ID Cur Wor Thr RawValues(6) Attribute Name
01 100 253 __6 000000000000 Read Error Rate
03 _91 _88 __0 000000000000 Spin-Up Time
04 _96 _96 _20 0000000013FA Start/Stop Count
05 100 100 _36 000000000000 Reallocated Sectors Count
07 _85 _60 _30 000017D21703 Seek Error Rate
09 _84 _84 __0 0000000038CA Power-On Hours
0A 100 100 _97 000000000000 Spin Retry Count
0C 100 100 _20 00000000031B Power Cycle Count
BB 100 100 __0 000000000000 Reported Uncorrectable Errors
BD 100 100 __0 000000000000 High Fly Writes
BE _32 _25 _45 033B45430044 Airflow Temperature
C2 _68 _75 __0 001000000044 Temperature
C3 _59 _52 __0 0000038D75BD Hardware ECC recovered
C5 100 100 __0 000000000000 Current Pending Sector Count
C6 100 100 __0 000000000000 Uncorrectable Sector Count
C7 200 200 __0 000000000000 UltraDMA CRC Error Count
C8 100 253 __0 000000000000 Write Error Rate
CA 100 253 __0 000000000000 Data Address Mark Error




*EDIT:Changed the thread title*
EDIT^Again


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## Millennium (Jul 25, 2011)

Have you tried it with another pc / a laptop? You were saying in the other thread you were having USB problems...


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## cheesy999 (Jul 25, 2011)

Millennium said:


> Have you tried it with another pc / a laptop? You were saying in the other thread you were having USB problems...



yep, i had to run chkdsk on a laptop after my PC removed all the partitions and decided the drive was 5.6GB big (a reoccurring problem with this drive seems to be it randomly messes up the security settings so you can't access it from the OS you were running at the time)


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## brandonwh64 (Jul 25, 2011)

Looks as the temps are sky high! keep it in the 40deg range!


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## MilkyWay (Jul 25, 2011)

Maybe the external hard drive killed the usb slots, sounds like its dying Cheesy. Try defrag and recover the disk.
Sounds like a problem with the disk spinning maybe a power surge destroyed the USB and the hard drive?
Afraid im sure people will say to RMA it, depends if its still in warranty.


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## erocker (Jul 25, 2011)

brandonwh64 said:


> Looks as the temps are sky high! keep it in the 40deg range!



Indeed! 69 ~ 75c seems way too hot for a HDD. Has it always run that hot? If the temperature readings are correct, I would RMA that thing.


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## cheesy999 (Jul 25, 2011)

brandonwh64 said:


> Looks as the temps are sky high! keep it in the 40deg range!



can't do that, opening the case would void the warranty...



MilkyWay said:


> Maybe the external hard drive killed the usb slots, sounds like its dying Cheesy. Try defrag and recover the disk.
> 
> Sounds like a problem with the disk spinning maybe a power surge destroyed the USB and the hard drive?
> 
> Afraid im sure people will say to RMA it, depends if its still in warranty.



no, my USB problems happened when i let someone use my PC and they bent the pins in a USB port causing it to short circuit, this was attached to a rear USB port and they still work anyway (only took out the USB headers it would seem)

the problem is that seatools doesn't find a problem and i don't think any of these codes http://www.seagate.com/staticfiles/support/seatools/seatools-test-codes.html describe my problem, so they might send it back claming its working.

anyone know a way to let seagate know my drive slows down after prolonged use and randomly deletes my partitions and file tables?

EDIT: It's also really loud (seriously i can hear it over my music, and it vibrates a lot), do you think i could send it back as 'noisy'


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## Millennium (Jul 25, 2011)

If it's loud all the time I would RMA it with the retailer describing the symptoms, assuming it is within a year.


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## erocker (Jul 25, 2011)

cheesy999 said:


> It's also really loud (seriously i can hear it over my music, and it vibrates a lot), do you think i could send it back as 'noisy'



Mechanical failure imminent. Bearing is going out, thus making noise and getting hot. Backup your data to something else ASAP and RMA.


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## scaminatrix (Jul 25, 2011)

cheesy, I know there's a whole load of things going wrong with your rig at the mo. When there's a load of random problems that seem to affect different bits of hardware at different times then I'd start looking at PSU.

PSU could be slowly killing components. Me and FreedomEclipse among others can tell you that this is entirely feasible.


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## cheesy999 (Jul 25, 2011)

scaminatrix said:


> cheesy, I know there's a whole load of things going wrong with your rig at the mo. When there's a load of random problems that seem to affect different bits of hardware at different times then I'd start looking at PSU.
> 
> PSU could be slowly killing components. Me and FreedomEclipse among others can tell you that this is entirely feasible.



no, there is a problem with the PSU but it's not that, the drive did it's first 'remove all my partitions phase' before i was using this PSU, the Case is broken but it's what caused the Mobo to break, and the case was broke by this very hard drive (well the hard drive was what caused the damage that allowed someone to break my case braking my mobo at the same time)




Millennium said:


> If it's loud all the time I would RMA it with the retailer describing the symptoms, assuming it is within a year.



Hard drive is from 2009 meaning i have to send it to seagate (and pay the postage on this brick of a hard drive)


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## scaminatrix (Jul 25, 2011)

cheesy999 said:


> no, there is a problem with the PSU but it's not that, the drive did it's first 'remove all my partitions phase' before i was using this PSU, the Case is broken but it's what caused the Mobo to break, and the case was broke by this very hard drive (well the hard drive was what caused the damage that allowed someone to break my case braking my mobo at the same time)



So there *is* a problem with your PSU? What are you doing man! Get it out of there! You'll have nothing but problems with a dodgy PSU! A gammy PSU will cause all sorts of random things to break at random times so until you replace it, how you can start any process of elimination? It's impossible for you and for us to pinpoint the problem with a shagged PSU.


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## cheesy999 (Jul 25, 2011)

scaminatrix said:


> So there *is* a problem with your PSU? What are you doing man! Get it out of there! You'll have nothing but problems with a dodgy PSU! A gammy PSU will cause all sorts of random things to break at random times so until you replace it, how you can start any process of elimination? It's impossible for you and for us to pinpoint the problem with a shagged PSU.



i don't have enough money!, and besides the problem only occurs when the PC is unplugged, so i fixed it by just leaving the PC on

if anyone can find me a decent PSU for ~£30 i may consider replacing it, but until then it's lasted 1-2 months like this so it can stay like this


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## scaminatrix (Jul 25, 2011)

So you turn your PC off but leave it on at the plug (standby) and it's alright when you turn it back on?
But when you turn it off by the plug then turn it on it goes gammy?


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## cheesy999 (Jul 25, 2011)

scaminatrix said:


> So you turn your PC off but leave it on at the plug (standby) it's alright?
> But when you next turn it off by the plug the turn it on it goes gammy?



yes, 100%, if you can help me fix my current PSU then i will do whatever you say


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## scaminatrix (Jul 25, 2011)

cheesy999 said:


> yes, 100%, if you can help me fix my current PSU then i will do whatever you say



On that, I'd go back to my old tip, replace BIOS battery. It sounds like it's losing settings when you turn off at the plug, so the battery is probably dead. Doesn't matter how old your mobo is, the battery can always die.

But still, you need to sort your PSU out. You can replace it yourself or you can do what I did with Antec - RMA it saying it kills hardware after a few weeks/months. This makes it hard for them to replicate the problem, as they won't want to keep it running on a bench for weeks to find a fault.


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## cheesy999 (Jul 25, 2011)

scaminatrix said:


> On that, I'd go back to my old tip, replace BIOS battery. It sounds like it's losing settings when you turn off at the plug, so the battery is probably dead. Doesn't matter how old your mobo is, the battery can always die.
> 
> But still, you need to sort your PSU out. You can replace it yourself or you can do what I did with Antec - RMA it saying it kills hardware after a few weeks/months. This makes it hard for them to replicate the problem, as they won't want to keep it running on a bench for weeks to find a fault.



It's not the battery i fixed it by changing PSU's, but i won't run that PSU 24/7 as i feel running off an unbranded 400w carries a higher risk then runnning it off my current one

it's got no warranty cause i bought it off TPU


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## scaminatrix (Jul 25, 2011)

cheesy999 said:


> it's got no warranty cause i bought it off TPU



If it's still in warranty period, I can help you with that as long as the person who sold it to you is willing to help too. There's usually a way round the "non-transferrable warranty"  Just to clarify, I think it's your OCZ PSU that's dead/dying so I think your OCZ PSU murdered something and now you're still experiencing problems even after changing PSU.

In case you haven't noticed, I'm blaming PSU


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## scaminatrix (Jul 25, 2011)

cheesy999 said:


> no, my USB problems happened when i let someone use my PC and they bent the pins in a USB port causing it to short circuit, this was attached to a rear USB port and they still work anyway (only took out the USB headers it would seem)



Quick question: are the USB ports still bent? Are the pins touching?


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## cheesy999 (Jul 25, 2011)

scaminatrix said:


> If it's still in warranty period, I can help you with that as long as the person who sold it to you is willing to help too. There's usually a way round the "non-transferrable warranty"  Just to clarfiy, I think it's your OCZ PSU that's dead/dying so I think your OCZ PSU murdered something and now you're still experiencing problems even after changing PSU.
> 
> In case you haven't noticed, I'm blaming PSU





scaminatrix said:


> Quick question: are the USB ports still bent? Are the pins touching?



I'm going to tell you some very important details regarding my rig

yesterday i took it apart and tested every single part of my PC, here are my results

USB
the USB port on the front of my PC had some bent pins causing a short circuit, after being bent back into positions, the USB ports now work when attached to another motherboard, but no ports will work attached to this motherboard

Problem = MOBO

Power problem
The power problem is caused by the PSU, i temporarily swapped out the PSU for another and it worked, overall i know where the problem lies there

Problem = PSU

Hard drive problem
this has happened 3 times, once last year on a completely different rig, the only common part between that rig and the one i have now it the GFX card., second was earlier on on this rig, before i got the OCZ, third was now, and the hard drive now has some new symptoms to go with it

Problem = ?


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## scaminatrix (Jul 25, 2011)

cheesy999 said:


> I'm going to tell you some very improtant details regarding my rig
> yesterday i took it apart and tested every single part of my PC, here are my results
> USB
> the USB port on the front of my PC had some bent pins causing a short circuit, after being bent back into positions, the USB ports now work when attached to another motherboard, but no ports will work attached to this motherboard
> ...



Bad luck 

My older brother's rig was working fine until he upgraded to a 2nd hand 7950GT. His PSU died two weeks later and he didn't want to chance using the 7950 so he upgraded again. Just saying, GPU can kill PSU IMO. Might not be relevant, but still worth noting.

The way I see it, you've answered your own questions.
Mobo -  f*cked
OCZ PSU - dying so should be RMA'd
HDD - stop using Seagate. You've got a HD103SJ (I guess?) so go with Samsungs IMO.


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## cheesy999 (Jul 25, 2011)

scaminatrix said:


> The way I see it, you've answered your own questions.
> Mobo - f*cked
> OCZ PSU - dying so should be RMA'd
> HDD - stop using Seagate



1:i was going to ring ebuyer today but totally forgot 
2:Can't do that 
3:It's a Maxtor they were just taken over by seagate , Samsung have now been taken over by WD

EDIT: I see you've been reading my specs...


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## FreedomEclipse (Jul 25, 2011)

cheesy999 said:


> 3:It's a Maxtor they were just taken over by seagate , Samsung have now been taken over by WD



there are still a lot of samsung hard drives ont he market that are MADE by samsung and not WD.

the WD transition will come later. for now only samsung make samsung drives


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## scaminatrix (Jul 25, 2011)

cheesy999 said:


> 1:i was going to ring ebuyer today but totally forgot
> 2:Can't do that
> 3:It's a Maxtor they were just taken over by seagate , Samsung have now been taken over by WD



1:tomorrow
2:who sold it to you?
3:HD103SJ's are still the same and are available eeeeverywhere. I did a search before I posted to make sure they were still about.




cheesy999 said:


> EDIT: I see you've been reading my specs...



yup


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## cheesy999 (Jul 25, 2011)

FreedomEclipse said:


> there are still a lot of samsung hard drives ont he market that are MADE by samsung and not WD.
> 
> the WD transition will come later. for now only samsung make samsung drives





scaminatrix said:


> 1:tomorrow
> 2:who sold it to you?
> 3:HD103SJ's are still the same and are available eeeeverywhere. I did a search before I posted to make sure they were still about.
> 
> yup



1:Yes
2:http://www.techpowerup.com/forums/member.php?u=67227
3:i know, problem is i don't trust myself to have 2 identical hard drives and not raid them, secondly it'll cost a lot more money to buy a new HDD then it will to send this one off

EDIT:Look at this 750W for £20, and it has 'comes in a box' as one of it's special features http://www.scan.co.uk/products/750w...t-fan-24plus4-pin-intel-v203-enhanced-plus12v


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## FreedomEclipse (Jul 25, 2011)

Packaged in designer retail box???


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## cheesy999 (Jul 25, 2011)

FreedomEclipse said:


> Packaged in designer retail box???



i know, what a bargain, if wanted to break the few things left in my PC that still work i'd buy it in an instant


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## scaminatrix (Jul 25, 2011)

I see what you mean, the cost of shipping mobo+HDD+the time it'll take to sort out the PSU it starts getting overwhelming.
Start making the (uncostly) steps and PM Th0rn0 asking him politely when and where he bought it as you need to RMA it if possible.

Concentrate on sorting PSU and mobo for now. HDD Later.


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## FreedomEclipse (Jul 25, 2011)

What scam said...RMA the PSU, sell the replacement and get yourself a Corsair PSU with 7 year warranty.... Hell.. you could buy my HX750W if you want. save you some cash


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## cheesy999 (Jul 25, 2011)

Well i've PM'd th0rn0 asking him if the PSU still has any warranty left on it, i'll try to remember to phone ebuyer tomorrow and if anyone can give me seagates phone number, i may have a small talk with them about my hard drive , and i will also try to contact coolermaster asking them why they gave me a Case where bits off the USB ports came out when you unplugged things, and maybe give them some advice when it comes to making cases

and whilst i'm on that path i'm gonna get back to SCAN about that CPU cooler they refused to send me 

Overall a lot of companies are going to be in some serious trouble


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## scaminatrix (Jul 25, 2011)

I would just do an RMA ticket with OCZ and put a note saying "I don't have proof of purchase, can I have a quote for price of repair please? The (unique) Serial number is xxxx".
I've done this with Antec and Corsair and both have just said "It's okay we'll replace it under warranty".
Although with Antec, me and FreedomEclipse had to jump through some hoops, it got done because we were pleasant and polite.


http://www.seagate.com/www/en-us/support/warranty_&_returns_assistance


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## cheesy999 (Jul 25, 2011)

scaminatrix said:


> I would just do an RMA ticket with OCZ and put a note saying "I don't have proof of purchase, can I have a quote for price of repair please? The (unique) Serial number is xxxx".
> I've done this with Antec and Corsair and both have just said "It's okay we'll replace it under warranty".
> Although with Antec, me and FreedomEclipse had to jump through some hoops, it got done because we were pleasant and polite.



Great, that's some good advice on the PSU, lets just hope they are as easy to deal with as they say

no phone number on the seagate website, but if anyone can provide me with any way to contact a human at Seagate, Email,phone number, Address to send a letter to etc, i would like that a lot


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## scaminatrix (Jul 25, 2011)

Meh I wouldn't bother contacting Seagate. I'd just RMA then use it as a pagefile drive or scratch disk or summat.


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## cheesy999 (Jul 25, 2011)

Forget about the hard drive warranty, I just fell over the power cable, the hard drive then launched itself of the desk and hit the ground with a reassuring crunch,  its now as dead as a brick, if anyone has any advice on how I can even get the thing to start , I would like it a lot.


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## FreedomEclipse (Jul 25, 2011)

cheesy999 said:


> Forget about the hard drive warranty, I just fell over the power cable, the hard drive then launched itself of the desk and hit the ground with a reassuring crunch,  its now as dead as a brick, if anyone has any advice on how I can even get the thing to start , I would like it a lot.



does the external box the drive is housed in still power up?


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## cheesy999 (Jul 25, 2011)

There are noises but no lights on the box, and nothing from within windows


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## FreedomEclipse (Jul 25, 2011)

Im not quite sure then. take the drive out of the case and try hooking it up to your pc. Im guessing its a SATA HDD inside. 

the enclosure could have had it.


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## cheesy999 (Jul 25, 2011)

Yeah, inside the box is a SATA 2 7200 rpm 3.5" drive, problem is removing box = no more warranty


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## FreedomEclipse (Jul 25, 2011)

then just RMA it then, simple as that


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## cheesy999 (Jul 25, 2011)

Then I lose data (i was backing up all my data at the time)


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## FreedomEclipse (Jul 25, 2011)

unfortunately all my methods need the drive removed from the casing. If you cant do that then theres no real choice..

#1 - RMA, lose your data but get sent a replacement

#2 - open the drive up, void your warranty and hook the drive up to your PC. if it works then you can get another cheap caddy/enclosure for it.

#3 buy a new external drive and keep the broken one for a paperweight and/or open it up and void your warranty


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## cheesy999 (Jul 25, 2011)

I heard something somewhere about fixing hd by freezing them for a while


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## FreedomEclipse (Jul 25, 2011)

cheesy999 said:


> I heard something somewhere about fixing hd by freezing them for a while



thats the hard drive itself...not the enclosure.


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## cheesy999 (Jul 26, 2011)

Ok, i took the hard drive out of it's enclosure, it was the enclosure that caused all of the problems

the drive is now silent, vibration free, the read speed has gone from 15MB/s to 70MB/s and it's reading my data perfectly, i plan on keeping the drive permanently now, as an internal drive

now, to fix the motherboard, case and PSU


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## scaminatrix (Jul 26, 2011)

Tht's what I did with my Toshiba external - now the 500GB WDC Green is in my front room net rig.


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## cheesy999 (Jul 26, 2011)

scaminatrix said:


> Tht's what I did with my Toshiba external - now the 500GB WDC Green is in my front room net rig.



we should ban these external drives, nothing but trouble, i can't believe i could go from a drive completely totaled after being thrown across (accidentally) the room to the second best hard drive i own, think i'm going to keep it, 

anyone know if there would be any benefit in putting half of the pagefile on this?, or even putting it in raid with my Samsung

now, to ring up ebuyer, for the second time this month (first time i was buying something though so i can't hold that against them)


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## scaminatrix (Jul 26, 2011)

Don't RAID it, just stick your (whole) pagefile on there if you want, and install games on there too. I like to keep everything separate, so it's what I would do anyway. Different strokes for different folks though.


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## xBruce88x (Jul 26, 2011)

my brother had a seagate one for less than 3 months. I went to plug it up and no go (he rarely used it). cracked it open, pulled the drive, and hooked it up to a enclosure I got (minus the shell, its just the boards and cable now lol) and it worked just fine.


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## cheesy999 (Jul 26, 2011)

scaminatrix said:


> Don't RAID it, just stick your (whole) pagefile on there if you want, and install games on there too. I like to keep everything separate, so it's what I would do anyway. Different strokes for different folks though.



wouldn't it be easier and result in a faster PC to have the pagefile split across the 2 drives?

@xBruce88x: Turns out all of the internals on my drive are seagate anyway, seems to be a reoccurring problem then, seagate use crap sata-USB adapters

EDIT: I've used Ebuyers warranty form and all it did was tell me to ring them, at least it gave me their 03 number though so i don't have to pay to call them like the normal 08 number


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## scaminatrix (Jul 26, 2011)

cheesy999 said:


> wouldn't it be easier and result in a faster PC to have the pagefile split across the 2 drives?



Only if you run out of RAM a lot. Even then I couldn't see a massive increase in performance.


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## cheesy999 (Jul 26, 2011)

scaminatrix said:


> Only if you run out of RAM a lot. Even then I couldn't see a massive increase in performance.



might as well do it anyway, or would shifting all the PF over to the seagate make the PC faster as all the files are on my samsung and it would therefore equal lower disk access to the samsung


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## scaminatrix (Jul 26, 2011)

Stick the whole pagefile on the emptiest drive IMO.


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## cheesy999 (Jul 26, 2011)

scaminatrix said:


> Stick the whole pagefile on the emptiest drive IMO.



it will still have backup's on it but they will only be accessed once a week / month so i don't think they matter

in other news i've worked out why the seagate survived the jump, it's a barracuda 10, and the warranty on those things doesn't even void till 350G's


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## FreedomEclipse (Jul 26, 2011)

cheesy999 said:


> wouldn't it be easier and result in a faster PC to have the pagefile split across the 2 drives?
> 
> @xBruce88x: Turns out all of the internals on my drive are seagate anyway, seems to be a reoccurring problem then, seagate use crap sata-USB adapters
> 
> EDIT: I've used Ebuyers warranty form and all it did was tell me to ring them, at least it gave me their 03 number though so i don't have to pay to call them like the normal 08 number



any chance of passing this number on to me??? they put me on hold for quite a while last time when i was trying to sort out Sams PSU.  dad wasnt happy when the phone bill came in.

I wouldnt say they had a nasty habit of saying they were going to do something for you - put you on hold then move onto other callers while you are on hold then apologise to you when you hang up after 30mins of waiting and ring them back.

but thats what happend to me.... otherwise i would think the team there are normally very efficient but they do get overun by so many callers and they sound really stressed out on the phone because they have to rush about dealing with your call as quick as they can so they can move onto the next one.


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