EIDE/SATA hard drive

Electra_King

Hi needasprin,
The pc is just over 3 years old! :mad: So out of warranty. Thanks anyway. But I will check on the site, you never know.

AHAR

needaspirin wrote: »

Hi Electra King

Maxtor has a 3 year warranty on their drives. You can check the warranty on your drive here: http://support.seagate.com/customer/warranty_validation.jsp

You can get the Serial No. from the drive label. It is also shown when you run SeaTools.

If your drive is still in warranty you need to continue on with the site to get an RMA number so that you can send it to Seagate in Derby for a replacement.

Drives supplied to computer manufacturers for inclusion in complete systems are usually only covered by their warranty though. The web site will tell you what the status of your drive is.

Electra_King

:T loaner, worked first time!

Only ran the short test because I had an error come up saying

Drive had been overtemp -- 253

Whatever that means? Surely if that were true it would have caught fire by now!

Anyway going to let the hard drive 'cool down' and run the long test and see what that gives me.

BTW have physically checked the hard drive and it is warm to touch but not hot.

AHAR

Electra_King wrote: »

:T loaner, worked first time!

Only ran the short test because I had an error come up saying

Drive had been overtemp -- 253

Whatever that means? Surely if that were true it would have caught fire by now!

Anyway going to let the hard drive 'cool down' and run the long test and see what that gives me.

BTW have physically checked the hard drive and it is warm to touch but not hot.

I've seen that on pretty much every poorly Maxtor I've tested. I think the 253 is a measurement on the drive's own scale, not Fahrenheit or Celsius.

Electra_King

As far as I can see there are 2 fans. 1 on the motherboard (above what looks like a heatsink) and the other near the power supply ( I think!). The 1 on the motherboard seems to be working fine but I am not sure about the power supply.
As it is encased I can't really get at it but putting my hand at the back of the tower there does not seem to be much air coming out.

Could this have something to do with it???

I thought 253 seemed a strange number, so you think it is more an indicator rather than an actual temp reading?

Electra_King

OK.....

Have run the seatools diagnostics "long test" as expected I have 99 errors. Info as follows:

Drive FAILS pretest smart checks!!

read scan FAILED

LBA 308706549 99 errors detected

What do I do now? The diagnostics did not give me an option to repair these errors so I can only assume it is 'unrepairable'.

CHR15

Dump it!

Take a bit of frustration out on it with a hammer and throw it in the bin.

AHAR

Electra_King wrote: »

As far as I can see there are 2 fans. 1 on the motherboard (above what looks like a heatsink) and the other near the power supply ( I think!). The 1 on the motherboard seems to be working fine but I am not sure about the power supply.
As it is encased I can't really get at it but putting my hand at the back of the tower there does not seem to be much air coming out.

Could this have something to do with it???

I thought 253 seemed a strange number, so you think it is more an indicator rather than an actual temp reading?

This wikipedia article explains a bit about S.M.A.R.T technology. It looks like they must set the temperature sensor to report value 253 (the maximum possible value) at the point it reaches the temperature the manufacturer has decided is too hot. I guess there's no point allowing for the recording of temperatures that are hotter than too hot. Perhaps the manufacturer can use that attribute to to blame insufficient cooling for failure rather than their manufacturing faults etc.
The failed Maxtor drives I've seen have all been in computers where the fans have been working as they should though.

At work I had another Maxtor start going wonky today. I found it sitting there making a clanking noise but it came back to life after turning it off for a while. Just like your drive I'll be replacing it and won't use it for anything important even if it seems OK again. If you need to get anything off yours, do it as soon as you can.

Electra_King

Sorry for the late reply!

If you had not already guessed I have been without a computer until now.

Finally had enough and gave it back to the friend (who built it) to have a look. Said I thought it was the hard drive failing but he thought otherwise.

Got it back this week, with "new hard drive" :rolleyes:

Anyway I just wanted to say thanks to all who have given advice on this thread! :T :T :T :T

Chr15

Dump it!

Take a bit of frustration out on it with a hammer and throw it in the bin.

Believe me I was very close!

Thanks again.