Hard disk strange activity

[Crystaimeth]

Every once in a while (maybe 1 per 2 weeks, on a computer turned on 12/7) the hard drive light will go on and win98 will freeze momentarily. The sound heard is a aweful whining noise and in 5-10sec it stops. If I exit windows normally the noise will restart on boot and my autoexec.bat files will run very slowly (normally they get processed very quickly). I can get back into windows it just so slow. the only way to fix it is to turn off the computer and turn it back on again. Hitting the reset button on the case does not help. From the other posts Ive read here ppl are saying its a hard drive going bad. Only thing with mine is it works fine when I turn off the comp and on again. Think its the same?

Secondly I know I should backup my comp. I have ghost 5.1. Does anyone know if this version would works ok ghosting Win Xp partitions on the same drive.

My final question, I have a pioneer 106s and liteon 481248 on a ata33 cable. Do you think using a faster cable would improve performance on those drives?

 

[wolluf]

1. Time between turning off and on? (I'm thinking about heat - are cpu/case fans working properly? does the drive get very hot?)

2. Not sure what you mean - take an image of one XP partition and write it back to another partition on same drive?

3. What speed connections do these drives have (without looking them up I don't know but you should)? If they're capable of ATA66 for example, then an 80 pin cable would speed them up (presuming mobo also capable) - but if they're on ATA33 anyway, no.

 

[gargouille]

To elaborate more on a couple of points Wolluf brought up...you can readily check heat with one of the free utilities...
SpeedFan and MBM come to mind...then during a slowdown you'll know if this is in play.
Yes, ghosting an image on another partition is a possibility, but you'd be better off with it stored on a smaller (maybe slower) drive in case the hd fails completely. A used one may be had for very little that would do the job fine.

 

[Tagalongee]

About question number 1. You mention a whining noise, which could be the fan in the power supply, but that shouldn't affect autoexec.bat. Overeating could affect rebooting, but doesn't explain the whining noise, nor why hitting the reset button doesn't help your problem. When you hit reset, it doesn't shut off power to the hard drive. It only temporarily interrupts power to the motherboard.

Sounds to me like the hard drive is having trouble synchronizing its speed. How big is your power supply?
And is it supplying the proper voltage to the hard drive?
Too many devices plugged into a weak power supply can cause the problem you described. (Too many devices could mean external USB devices getting their power from the power supply.)

 

[mainegeek]

A failing cpu fan will cause both problems. Whining
sound from worn bearings and slow performance from
heat build up. You might want to pull the case cover off so you can pin piont the exact location of the sound.

 

[tialoves]

Hello:
I am having a problem with my hard drive. It is a 20gb hard drive, but is registering as 2.99gb. Please help!
Tia

 

[wolluf]

tialoves,

registering where? eg, is this the size the bios shows at POST? Or is it what windows sees (what version of windows, what type of filestore)? How did you set machine up in the first place? Are you sure you've partitioned all the free space?