IBM Travelstar - oh so slooow...

[G0AOZ]

This is 30Gb drive in a Dell laptop. Machine takes nearly fifteen minutes to boot a squeaky clean system. Imaged to another drive, which is fine and boots quickly. Ran drive diagnostics (Hitachi [full] Fitness Test), which showed no problems. This drive shows slowness whatever it's attached to. I can only conclude the on-board cache is not working, or something similar.

Any comments or ideas?

ROGER - G0AOZ.

 

[roland63]

And this is a good reason to back it up and no longer count on it as fully reliable...

 

[wahnula]

15 minutes to boot!!! Who has that kind of time???

I agree w/ roland63 get thee a new drive. Strange that the diagnostic app does not show anything, but the argument can be made that it's a less-than-thorough app. Perhaps all the sectors are there and reporting as OK but maybe the motor or bearing is shot. I doubt whether the measly 4-or-8MB cache would have that drastic an effect.

Tony

"Buy what you like, or you'll be forced to like what you buy"...me

 

[G0AOZ]

Thanks guys. Yes, all backed up nicely, and new hard disk already ordered.

Tony, you made the comment about the Hitachi software probably being less than thorough. In view of the problems with this drive, I'm inclined to agree with you. Not that I'm intending to waste a lot of time on this drive, but can you suggest some diags that would give it a better workout?

ROGER - G0AOZ.

 

[RADCOM]

Speedfan includes a nifty detailed hard drive analysis and drive fitness test.

 

[wahnula]

I always think the drive maker's diagnostic apps are designed to make their drives look good...and less likely to need replacement. I'm not a big conspiracy buff, but it's possible.

I like SpinRite, but it's an expensive tool:

http://www.grc.com/sr/spinrite.htm

but nice to own, especially if you have a lot of drives. Great for data recovery, too. It will also read and report on the S.M.A.R.T. data.

Tony

"Buy what you like, or you'll be forced to like what you buy"...me

 

[G0AOZ]

Tony, thanks for reminding me about SpinRite! Old age is obviously catching me out - my memory is getting terrible. A colleague has got that prog so will bung the disk over to him for analysis...

ROGER - G0AOZ.