Hard Light Productions Forums

Off-Topic Discussion => General Discussion => Topic started by: Zuljin on May 11, 2004, 01:50:53 pm

Title: A slight harddrive problem?
Post by: Zuljin on May 11, 2004, 01:50:53 pm
Ok for some time now one of my HD's has been bugging me a little.
All day long it keeps making this clicking noise (with some minutes in between usually), as if it's spinning down and then a second afterwards it spins back up again.
Now either one of my HD's is just ****ed, or it just might be that it isn't getting enough power from my power supply (using a standard power supply from a Chieftec tower (360w I think it is).

I'm thinking about getting a new power supply to see if that would help, but I figured I should get some opinions on this just in case...:)

oh and I have used disk diagnostic tools from the manufacturers of the various HD's I have, and on none of them were there any errors of any kind.
Title: A slight harddrive problem?
Post by: kasperl on May 11, 2004, 01:52:28 pm
is it your OS drive or swap drive? Are you sharing any files?
Title: A slight harddrive problem?
Post by: Zuljin on May 11, 2004, 01:55:32 pm
Quote
Originally posted by kasperl
is it your OS drive or swap drive? Are you sharing any files?


Thats the problem, I don't know which drive it is.
I have 5 HD's, and I haven't bothered to unplug them and booting up with only one of them, and see which one it is.

And no I'm not sharing any files over the network.
Title: A slight harddrive problem?
Post by: kasperl on May 11, 2004, 01:58:22 pm
ugh, what about the good ole attempt of opening the case and using your ears?
Title: A slight harddrive problem?
Post by: Zuljin on May 11, 2004, 02:01:09 pm
Quote
Originally posted by kasperl
ugh, what about the good ole attempt of opening the case and using your ears?


That one I already tried. But when the disks are crammed together like they are, it's kind of hard to decide which HD the sound is coming from :(

Thats why I tried the disk diagnostic tools to see if that would get me any results, but alas...
Title: A slight harddrive problem?
Post by: kasperl on May 11, 2004, 02:06:26 pm
Then, I don't know.
Title: A slight harddrive problem?
Post by: Peter on May 11, 2004, 02:09:20 pm
5 Hard discs? That sounds excessive, how big are they?

Had you considererd unplugging the power one at a time to find out which one is causing your problem?
Title: A slight harddrive problem?
Post by: Zuljin on May 11, 2004, 02:11:26 pm
Quote
Originally posted by Peter
5 Hard discs? That sounds excessive, how big are they?

Had you considererd unplugging the power one at a time to find out which one is causing your problem?


40gb (my OS HD)
120gb
160gb
160gb
160gb

And yes I have considered it, but it's such a bloody fuss, so I decided to get some more opinions on it first.
But if I don't have any options left other than buying a new power supply, then I will plug them out one by one and find out which one it is.
Title: A slight harddrive problem?
Post by: kasperl on May 11, 2004, 02:17:14 pm
40+120+(160*3)=640GB!!!!

I.

Hate.

You.

well, if you need to free up some space, I wouldn't mind being sent one of those HD's, you know....
Title: A slight harddrive problem?
Post by: Zuljin on May 11, 2004, 02:25:12 pm
Quote
Originally posted by kasperl
40+120+(160*3)=640GB!!!!

I.

Hate.

You.

well, if you need to free up some space, I wouldn't mind being sent one of those HD's, you know....


:D

I'm almost out of space anyway, so getting rid of one of them would be kind of hard :p

And several people seems to hate me because of my hd's :nervous:
my prrreeciousss *hugs his HD's*

From the reactions I got from some other people I asked about the clicking HD thingy, it almost seemed like the disk was gonna blow up any second or so, or atleast that there was something seriously wrong with it...
I haven't really noticed anything except the sound, I'm just hoping it isn't harmful to the disc or anything...
Title: A slight harddrive problem?
Post by: Peter on May 11, 2004, 02:26:08 pm
nope, I can't think of anything other than doing it the old fashioned way.

I don't know if its what you are hearing, but drives do get noisy when they get old naturally. Checking software probably won't find problems with hardware in this instance.

Just take it apart now and have a look (or listen?)
Title: A slight harddrive problem?
Post by: Zuljin on May 11, 2004, 02:28:43 pm
Quote
Originally posted by Peter
nope, I can't think of anything other than doing it the old fashioned way.

I don't know if its what you are hearing, but drives do get noisy when they get old naturally. Checking software probably won't find problems with hardware in this instance.

Just take it apart now and have a look (or listen?)


I don't think it has anything to do with age, since none of my disks are very old. (40gb the oldest, had it for nearly 2 years or so.)
But yeah...doing it the hard way seems to be the only option that is left, short of buying a new power supply, which I kind of want anyway *searches his pockets for cash*.
Title: A slight harddrive problem?
Post by: kasperl on May 11, 2004, 02:41:54 pm
it might just be the Os swapping, or some virus writing crap.

And how the bloody hell did you get 640 gigs full? And full of what?
Title: A slight harddrive problem?
Post by: Zuljin on May 11, 2004, 02:46:06 pm
Quote
Originally posted by kasperl
it might just be the Os swapping, or some virus writing crap.

And how the bloody hell did you get 640 gigs full? And full of what?


It might be...although I've never had this problem in the past, and it gets annoying after a while.

Didn't really take me long to fill them.. :\
LAN parties does wonders in filling up your HD's with stuff you want (series, movies, games, music, anime and various other stuff which I probably don't have a clue that I even have)
Title: A slight harddrive problem?
Post by: kasperl on May 11, 2004, 02:53:01 pm
time for a major cleaning if you ask me.

That, or you should get on some DC hubs I am on as well......
Title: A slight harddrive problem?
Post by: Zuljin on May 11, 2004, 02:56:50 pm
Quote
Originally posted by kasperl
time for a major cleaning if you ask me.

That, or you should get on some DC hubs I am on as well......


Not much to clean actually...I have done that, the stuff that can be cleaned are no more than 1gb or so, spread over all 5 disks, so it isn't much.

And I used to be on DC, but it strained my upload a little bit too much, since I can't limit the max upload :(  (if you give me a way to limit it, then I'll gladly get back on DC :D)

And unless someone has a solution to this I guess I'll spare some hours later on tonight and try to disconnect the drives..
Title: A slight harddrive problem?
Post by: IceFire on May 11, 2004, 03:04:00 pm
Loud clicking noises generally equals hard drive failure imminent.

Having a tight array of HDD's is usually a bad idea unless you have some serious cooling (and maybe an alumninum case).  You've probably killed the top one with heat death.

Check on it...
Title: Re: A slight harddrive problem?
Post by: ionia23 on May 11, 2004, 03:05:35 pm
Quote
Originally posted by Zuljin
Ok for some time now one of my HD's has been bugging me a little.
All day long it keeps making this clicking noise (with some minutes in between usually), as if it's spinning down and then a second afterwards it spins back up again.
Now either one of my HD's is just ****ed, or it just might be that it isn't getting enough power from my power supply (using a standard power supply from a Chieftec tower (360w I think it is).

I'm thinking about getting a new power supply to see if that would help, but I figured I should get some opinions on this just in case...:)

oh and I have used disk diagnostic tools from the manufacturers of the various HD's I have, and on none of them were there any errors of any kind.


I don't know if you've resolved this issue yet but...

I had similar behavior in one of my drives after rebuilding my machine.  It turns out I'd set the jumpers on the drive to "auto spin enable" or something like that.

Might check that?
Title: A slight harddrive problem?
Post by: Zuljin on May 11, 2004, 03:07:49 pm
Quote
Originally posted by IceFire
Loud clicking noises generally equals hard drive failure imminent.

Having a tight array of HDD's is usually a bad idea unless you have some serious cooling (and maybe an alumninum case).  You've probably killed the top one with heat death.

Check on it...


Also done that, all the HD's are at acceptable temperatures.
The Chieftec casing is made so you can easily place fans for cooling of the HD's, or atleast I think they are.
None of them seem especially overheated or such, and all of them are working just fine as I said earlier.

Could be an idea to get stronger fans for the cooling though.

And yes, about the hard drive failure imminent, that was what I was told.
It has been going this way for...atleast 3 months now, and it's still working fine.
Title: A slight harddrive problem?
Post by: kasperl on May 11, 2004, 03:07:55 pm
Quote
Originally posted by Zuljin


Not much to clean actually...I have done that, the stuff that can be cleaned are no more than 1gb or so, spread over all 5 disks, so it isn't much.

And I used to be on DC, but it strained my upload a little bit too much, since I can't limit the max upload :(  (if you give me a way to limit it, then I'll gladly get back on DC :D)

And unless someone has a solution to this I guess I'll spare some hours later on tonight and try to disconnect the drives..


Download DC++ (google for direct connect, second or third link from top), It allows you to limit quite some stuff, IIRC.
Title: Re: Re: A slight harddrive problem?
Post by: Zuljin on May 11, 2004, 03:09:52 pm
Quote
Originally posted by ionia23


I don't know if you've resolved this issue yet but...

I had similar behavior in one of my drives after rebuilding my machine.  It turns out I'd set the jumpers on the drive to "auto spin enable" or something like that.

Might check that?


hmm....that might be worth checking out, I'll be sure to check the jumpers then when I start ripping out power cables later on tonight.
Although most of the HD's are set to Cable Select I think, except for the boot HD which I set to master
Title: A slight harddrive problem?
Post by: Zuljin on May 11, 2004, 03:12:36 pm
Quote
Originally posted by kasperl


Download DC++ (google for direct connect, second or third link from top), It allows you to limit quite some stuff, IIRC.


I have DC++ and I never quite figured out how to limit the upload...
But I'll mess around with the settings a bit and see if I can get some results