Drive reliability

[juliaatpcgp]

I'm having a few problems with my hard drive and need some advice please. It's a Toshiba Satellite Pro A10 which I've had for 3-5 years.

Most times on startup I get "your drive needs to be checked for consistency" but it finds no errors or problems.

When the PC is running the temperature sometimes creeps up from 44 degrees to 48 degrees and one of my alert sensors sounds a siren to warn me this is not right - is 48 degrees too high ?

I am using it to remotely connect in using Remote Desktop and it will listen to my connection for a while then randomly lose the connection and not let me connect back up again for ages.

The drive is formatted to FAT instead of NTFS. Would converting it (there's a button on the desktop to do this - but I'm worried about it if goes wrong having to reload the OS and all the software) resolve the problems I'm having ?

Or do I have to buy a replacement hard drive ?

I would really appreciate your help.

Regards,
Julia Evans

 

[kestrel1]

It could be a heat issue or your drive may be failing. 48 degrees isn't that bad though. Is this the system temp or the CPU temp?
If your drive is failing it could be increasing the system temperature.

 

[juliaatpcgp]

It's the hard drive temperature, no problems are being reported in the system or CPU temperatures which were also being monitored.

Since posting, I installed another temperature monitoring software on there and it registered the same temperature - but when I returned about 20 minutes later it had gone up to 57 or 60 degrees and it too was complaining it was over the threshold.

So I've managed to remove the drive, ordered a replacement and when it arrives tomorrow I will fit it, reinstall Windows XP Pro ......... and see how the PC goes.

Do you know what would cause the drive temperature to increase when the SMART status indicators are still showing fine ?

Thanks for your input.

Regards,
Julia

 

[kestrel1]

For a detailed of what may be causing your drive to overheat look here:

http://www.ezinearticles.com/?Let-Your-Hard-Drive-Cool&id=158935

I am not even sure that this is really your problem though. My HDD is currently being reported as running at 54degrees & I have not noticed any problems.
Many sites give differing information on recommended drive temperatures, but a lot of this depends on the speed of your drive. The faster it spins the hotter it will get.
It could be that the drive has some sort of physical problem that is not being detected by SMART. Changing the drive is probably a very wise move. Instead of a complete install, why not use some cloning software to get XP running quicker. Ghost or Acronis True Image will do the trick.

 

[juliaatpcgp]

Thanks for your reply.

I've now replaced the hard drive and the new one is running much cooler and within normal limits.

However, it still won't accept Remote Connections using Remote Desktop - I thought this might be related to the drive, but obviously not.

I guess I'll need to post this query over in the Windows XP forum .....

Regards,
Juila

 

[kestrel1]

Yes, probably best to repost on the RDP connection issue. I have forgotten how to set this up at present, but from what I remember you need to give access permissions. I will have a look & post back if I figure it out.