40Gb Western Digital hard drive
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From: Franc Zabkar on 29 May 2010 06:12 On Fri, 28 May 2010 14:47:25 -0700 (PDT), mike <mlightner(a)survivormail.com> put finger to keyboard and composed: >I was sorting out what I could drop off at the recyclers, scrapyard >and landfill, when I once again hooked up a Western Digital 40 Gb hard >drive, and once again got a bunch of grief from it, until I put a WD >utilities disk in the floppy drive, just to run the mfg's utilities on >it before tossing it. I selected for the program "install EZbios" - >just because I hadn't done that before, ya know? Next, I told it to >restore track 0 (zero), which it seemed happy enough to do. You can use MHDD to test each sector: http://hddguru.com/software/2005.10.02-MHDD/ AIUI, MHDD measures the time required to retrieve data from each block of sectors. Any bad or weak sector will require one or more retries. Each retry requires an additional revolution. At the end of the test MHDD reports the number of 5ms, 15ms, 50ms, 150ms, 500ms and >500ms blocks. Here is a screenshot: http://www.techmaniacs.net/files/tank_mhdd/mhdd_3.jpg MHDD Documentation: http://www.bandwidthco.com/whitepapers/compforensics/danalysis/MHDD%20Manual.pdf EZ-bios is a disk drive overlay (DDO) which loads a small TSR program into memory to allow a PC to overcome lack of BIOS support for LBA mode. It was used to overcome BIOS limitations such as 528MB and 28-bit LBA (128GiB / 137GB). EZ-bios works by overwriting the boot code in sector 0 of your HD with its own MBR code. The remainder of the TSR code is stored within track 0. I suspect that by restoring track 0, you actually overwrote the EZ-bios code, which would have left you where you started. - Franc Zabkar -- Please remove one 'i' from my address when replying by email.
From: mike on 29 May 2010 06:18 D Yuniskis wrote: > > eMachines are... well, we won't go there! :-/ I 'spose that may be why the E-machine 'puters at the scrapyard are usually still intact. > > What machine did ou have this running in? > A Franken-machine, with an Asus MB that I recently replaced some bad caps in; all the other components have been sitting around, salvaged from other broken systems for long enough that I no longer know what their origin is. > I think drive manufacturers cite something like 40% (? more?) > of drive returns have "No defect found". (something to keep in > mind). > > The first thing I would do is move the drive to a known > *reliable* machine (perhaps on the secondary controller > or as a slave, etc.) and see how well it runs. You > may discover that the machine you were having problems > with was the problem! (bad caps, bad power supply, etc.) Yeah, definitely a possibility... Thanks, Mike >
From: mike on 29 May 2010 06:52 Jeff Liebermann wrote: > On Fri, 28 May 2010 14:47:25 -0700 (PDT), mike > <mlightner(a)survivormail.com> wrote: > > e-Machines are not the best quality. The power supplies and fans are > the first to go. CDROM and floppy are next. After that, the > motherboard. The first one I owned had been a neighbor's that got blown up when their incoming power lost the nuetra at about age 3 - I replaced the PSU and the modem and used it for another 3 years, Prior to it failing I'd noticed that some of the caps on the MB were starting to bulge, and about six months or so later it finally just wouldn't start one day. I'm glad to hear that about the cd drives, I've got plenty of spares, I think even a burner or two. Floppies in working condition are becoming much less prevalent these days (my source always being the scrapyard, of course:) > > Model number? Series? Caviar, can't get a look at the model # right at the moment, but if it quits again I'll write it down. > The Protege series were tolerable. Protoge would last about 4 years > and blow up. The Caviar series would last perhaps 2 years and blow > up. About 1/3 of the pile is WD, mostly 40GB but some 80 and 120GB. > <http://802.11junk.com/jeffl/pics/drivel/disk-drives.jpg> Wow, nice collection! > (New drives, boxed drives, and SCSI arrays are buried elsewhere). > > >Then, this morning in the middle of my readings the system went brain- > >dead on me. > > What does that mean? Did the drive fail, or was there some other > problem? It's highly likely that the drive failed. Well, I had several browser windows open and of a sudden the bowser was stuck viewing the last one I'd been looking at - the mouse cursor would still move around as it should but clicking on stuff had no effect. Couldn't close any browser windows, couldn't start up any other programs, couldn't shutdown the machine, except by pushing and holding down the power button. > > >- booted into Ubuntu 8.04 fine, > > Ummmm.... Ubuntu 10.04 is the current version. I haven't tried anything newer than 9.10, after I tried and failed to figure how to get my modem working with it I went back to 8.04, which seems much more intuitive to me. > >The Western Digital diagnostics pronounce it to be error- > >free. > > The WD diagnostics will pronounce a failing drive to be good. What > did you expect? Fire up SmartMonTools in Ubuntu and extract the > S.M.A.R.T. statistics. You'll find one of three possible results, > depending on WD drive model: > 1. Lots of errors and pronouncement of imminent failure. This is > what you get with the later drives. I don't think any of the 40GB > drives are late enough to produce an honest result. > 2. Absolutely perfect drive with no errors. This is what I usually > see. WD lies on its S.M.A.R.T. stats. > 3. Can't obtain S.M.A.R.T. That's what I see when someone has > juggled controller cards. I also see that when there's a controller > failure. > Thanks, I'll have to see if I can get this SmartMonTools in 8.04.
From: Michael A. Terrell on 29 May 2010 07:16 mike wrote: > > D Yuniskis wrote: > > > > > eMachines are... well, we won't go there! :-/ > > I 'spose that may be why the E-machine 'puters at the scrapyard are > usually still intact. With all the HP computers that were built with the same motherboards and power supplies? > > What machine did ou have this running in? > > > A Franken-machine, with an Asus MB that I recently replaced some bad > caps in; all the other components have been sitting around, salvaged > from other broken systems for long enough that I no longer know what > their origin is. > > > I think drive manufacturers cite something like 40% (? more?) > > of drive returns have "No defect found". (something to keep in > > mind). > > > > The first thing I would do is move the drive to a known > > *reliable* machine (perhaps on the secondary controller > > or as a slave, etc.) and see how well it runs. You > > may discover that the machine you were having problems > > with was the problem! (bad caps, bad power supply, etc.) > > Yeah, definitely a possibility... > > Thanks, > Mike > > -- Anyone wanting to run for any political office in the US should have to have a DD214, and a honorable discharge.
From: mike on 29 May 2010 07:22
Franc Zabkar wrote: > On Fri, 28 May 2010 14:47:25 -0700 (PDT), mike > <mlightner(a)survivormail.com> put finger to keyboard and composed: > > You can use MHDD to test each sector: > http://hddguru.com/software/2005.10.02-MHDD/ All right, that definitely looks like a keeper... > > AIUI, MHDD measures the time required to retrieve data from each block > of sectors. Any bad or weak sector will require one or more retries. > Each retry requires an additional revolution. At the end of the test > MHDD reports the number of 5ms, 15ms, 50ms, 150ms, 500ms and >500ms > blocks. > > Here is a screenshot: > http://www.techmaniacs.net/files/tank_mhdd/mhdd_3.jpg > > MHDD Documentation: > http://www.bandwidthco.com/whitepapers/compforensics/danalysis/MHDD%20Manual.pdf > Thanks, I'll be spending some time with it in the near future. > EZ-bios is a disk drive overlay (DDO) which loads a small TSR program > into memory to allow a PC to overcome lack of BIOS support for LBA > mode. It was used to overcome BIOS limitations such as 528MB and > 28-bit LBA (128GiB / 137GB). > > EZ-bios works by overwriting the boot code in sector 0 of your HD with > its own MBR code. The remainder of the TSR code is stored within track > 0. > > I suspect that by restoring track 0, you actually overwrote the > EZ-bios code, which would have left you where you started. > > - Franc Zabkar Thanks for the explanation - so, I guess maybe some part of the info on the drive was corrupted and I just basically refreshed things - wonder if I should try installing EZ-bios again (just kidding, at least while it's still working). Mike |