motor

No.1 · 10-09-2005, 06:40 AM

So the HD a 200GB Baracudda has given up. Its not the system drive, but is full of mp3s videos pictures etc...

It's making the dreaded clicking noise, and i cannot retrieve data from it, explorer just crashes when attempting to copy files over to another drive.

Two questions

a) Is it fucked?

b) How do i go about getting a replacement from Seagate? Are they generally any good with warranty claims?

I'm so pissed of right now it's untrue.

Any help/advice/words of condolence much appreciated

OLD PROBLEM BELOW

Once again, my computer is being a PITA.

It doesn't run as quick as it did yesterday, and there is a lot of HD activity on startup, and whilst the XP loading screen is on. This continues when i log on.

Is the HD on its last legs, or is ther a virus (some programmes aren't running properly)

Any help would be appreciated

Here is a scrrenie of Task Manager after logging on

AlienDB7 · 10-09-2005, 07:53 AM

Did you try to scan your computer with latest version of the spyware scanners? Like Adaware or Anti-Spyware.

The processes listed in your task manager screen look legit, most of them are management software for various peripherals (logitech, ati, ipod, realtek soundcard, etc.) you have.

If you cant find any spyware or virus, perhaps it's time to do some scandisk or defrag

No.1 · 10-09-2005, 09:21 AM

Yeah... scanned with up to date Spybot search and destroy.

Defragged HD a couple of hours before problems arose.

Just disconnected my other (storage HD) annd seems to have sorted the problem out... fingers crossed eh?

nthfinity · 10-09-2005, 12:09 PM

a while ago, thamar posted a link for hitman pro. Spybot is great, but doesnt catch everything. since ive used it, its worked much much better

hitman is a script that runs all the best spyware/trojan search programs all in a row w/out you having to do them all yourself.

i think it was at www.hitmanpro.de

No.1 · 10-09-2005, 12:52 PM

cheers mate.. will give it a bash

AlienDB7 · 10-09-2005, 03:20 PM

Originally Posted by thenumber1

Just disconnected my other (storage HD) annd seems to have sorted the problem out... fingers crossed eh?

Go in Control Panel | System | Device Manager | IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers and check if your HDs are running in Ultra DMA mode.

ae86_16v · 10-09-2005, 03:54 PM

This too

Originally Posted by ArsTechnica

Ahhh, the joy of bringing home a shiny new computer: the speed, the snappiness, the smell. Unfortunately it isn't just the smell that fades over time. Many users believe that re-installing Windows is a kind of ritual of necessity which renews performance and stability. Indeed, 68% of Ars readers indicated that they re-install Windows every 2 years at a minimum, with more than half of that number doing it yearly. Why?

There are many purported reasons for so-called "WinRot," ranging from registry corruption to "DLL Hell" to disk fragmentation, and there are plenty of entertaining rants about WinRot available for your perusal.

One commonly accepted cause for WinRot is "DLL Hell"—a term referring to the myriad problems of managing DLL libraries. Multiple versions of the same DLL can cause any number of problems in Windows, from crashes to random performance problems. Related, and sometimes confused with this, are problems relating to uninstalled software, drivers, and utilities that can haunt a computer. Have you ever tried uninstalling a Norton product? That'll bring you WinRot in no time.

Microsoft is hoping to rid itself of rot with Windows Vista, although one wonders if their proposed solutions will do much good. Windows Vista will automatically defragment hard drives, use a new feature called SuperFetch to load frequently used programs into memory before they are needed, and utilize a new control panel applet to help identify specific areas that are causing performance problems. Furthermore, .NET and WinFX are being designed with DLL Hell in mind—something they have been waiting for since .NET was released.

Gabriel Aul, group program manager for the Windows division is quite confident that the changes Microsoft are making will be enough.

"Certainly a year after a user gets a Vista system, if they do the sort of standard things we encourage users to do (install Windows updates, etc.), it should run the same as when they initially got it."

SuperFetch is an evolution of an existing technology that is included with Windows XP which loads basic resources into memory before they are needed. SuperFetch is going to take that idea and run with it. It will monitor frequently used programs, on an individual basis, and load them into memory automatically.

Personally, I run Outlook, Yahoo Music Engine, and Visual Studio.net almost constantly. After a couple of days Vista will notice that trend and load the necessary components for those applications into memory for me so when I open one of those programs, it's almost instantaneous.

Nevertheless, some developers, like Suse Linux developer Andrea Arcangeli, are skeptical that SuperFetch will solve the problem of WinRot. In fact, it might even make performance worse.

"It might help on a 128MB system that flushes the cache away very fast, but on a 1GB system I doubt it can make a significant difference, and at first glance, it doesn't seem to be worth the complexity it would introduce," the Imola, Italy-based developer said in an e-mail interview.

Arcangeli said it was important to note that, in many cases, preloading new memory means flushing away an existing cache. "So it's not like it's a "risk-free" operation," he said. "It may be a good trade-off but it can actually slowdown the system instead of making it faster."

Microsoft is also implementing a control panel applet that will identify any performance problems with the system. The applet monitors your boot time and if it notices a slowdown it will log what applications have been added to startup. In other words, it is an automatic version of MSConfig.

Microsoft is hoping that these changes are enough to keep Vista from slowing down over time. What do our more Windows-savvy readers think?

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20050808-5181.html

No.1 · 10-09-2005, 04:31 PM

thanks guys

@Alien DMA mode is on... we'll see how it goes

@ae86... lol at Winrot... so true.

RC45 · 10-09-2005, 05:04 PM

Be careful with HitmanPro.... it cleans a bunch of stuff... but I exposed a serious flaw in their logic.

If you run HitManPro it invokes all the best of breed to clean up for you... no problem there... and they even report at the very end a summary of what was removed/deleted or quarantined... which is also good incase on or more of the Anit-Spam/Spyware doodads that HitMan runs screw something up..... BUT

BUT... the very last 3 processes are conducted by HitMan - a registry scan a file scan and I think a rectal probe...

The problem is if at this stage they (HitManPro) come across an inuse of locked item, such as a file they deem appropriate to delete, they popup a dialogue saying "We need to delete somthing that is in use - restart now OK."

At it would appear that no matter what you do, as soon as you acknowledge this request they shut you donw and restart the system.

this kicks off HitManro again, which starts at the beginnig again, running all those best of breed Spyware kilelrs - whom this time round report there is nothing to erase/delete or quarantine.

The final result is HitmanPro throws up a clean bill of health report... and now who knows what the fuck they deleted the first time round?

This inability to keep track of state and then post final results with a list fo things done during the first serious of scans is very dangerous and amatuerish - rather a pity, since the idea they have is relally good.

Why shoudl the user now have to try dig through logs to find out what happened... this is assuming they kept logs...

No.1 · 10-10-2005, 11:33 AM

*BUMP*

New problem posted in the top post

SFDMALEX · 10-10-2005, 11:40 AM

If its making a clicking noise its mostly likely gone physicaly.

You need an RMA

go here and check if its still under warranty and then go through the process of getting an RMA number

http://support.seagate.com/customer/...validation.jsp

stracing · 10-10-2005, 11:58 AM

it doesn't even have to make a clicking for it to die. my 200gb died without making noises. there are some methods that some others have had success. although i couldn't get mine working again but you could try putting it in a freezer for couple hours, quickly plug it back in and copy the data immediately. or you could try bashing it.

SFDMALEX · 10-10-2005, 01:05 PM

Originally Posted by stracing

it doesn't even have to make a clicking for it to die.

Indeed. Lately at work we have more people with HDD problems then power supplie. Maybe its something in the air.

nthfinity · 10-10-2005, 01:07 PM

Originally Posted by SFDMALEX

Originally Posted by stracing

it doesn't even have to make a clicking for it to die.

Indeed. Lately at work we have more people with HDD problems then power supplie. Maybe its something in the air.

or the tech advance in HDD's has met with huge reliability problems... all of my old drives still work perfectly, but its the newer ones that i run into problems with

SFDMALEX · 10-10-2005, 01:22 PM

/\/\/\Yep, I had a brand new maxtor sata 7200rpm go on me in 6 months, but there I still have good old quantum bigfoots working.