Computer hardware (PC) question.

[rnln]

Hope someone has the experience.
My PC is kind of old. It has 2 hard drives. I have 2 problems, one is minor and one is not.
Problem 1: some times the HD make some noise. Sometimes the noise goes away and everything is fine. Sometimes it does and the screen goes into the "green mode" with memory dump.
Problem 2: Many times I can't see the slave HD in window manager nor in DOS. Sometimes reboot works, sometimes doesn't. Some times re-installing hardware drivers works, many times don't.

I think these 2 problems are different problems. Problem 1 is the primary HD or mother board. Problem 2 can be the mother board, or the slave HD.

On the problem 2, do you think it's the mother board problem, driver problem, or the HD itself problem?

[MBAtarga]

My advice - get a new PC - QUICK! And transfer over anything you want to retain to the new drive. When buying the new PC - also buy an External Drive case (about $20), and via USB, transfer needed files of the old drive.

[svandamme]

IDE controllers are terrible at isolating disk problems
if both disks are on the same controller, it's normal to have one disk, crap out the controller, and as such the second disk with it...
Once the controller craps out, it will bring down the entire OS with it, even if the OS isn't running of one of the disks on that controller... This was the main reason for using Scsi for servers back in the days.. Scisi controllers were "stupid" and the disks were "smart".. one disk goes out, and it would not affect the rest of the system, hell, you don't even need hot plug hardware to hot plug a scsi drive...

New pc, well, maybe, depends on how important it is to you
if you can do with the occasional downtime, don't have important data, or you have it backed up... you might try to isolate the problem...

Try running without the slave disk... , disconnect it completely, power off, then see if the noise and hangs still occur... if so , retest with just disk 2...

if both act up, try the secondary ide controller on the motherboard... that is , if your bios allows you to use that one to boot from

[rnln]

MBAtarga,
as this point, I don't plan on buying another PC. I think I would buy an external drive but I wonder if USB is fast as internal IDE?

svandamme,
I swap around, using different ways in the past for no reasons. Which of the below do you think is better.
1- Right now IDE1 for 2 HD, Primary/slave. IDE2 for DVDR.
2- in the past I had IDE1 for HD as primary and DVD as slave. Second HD on IDE2
3- Or should I dedicate the IDE1 for OS HD. IDE2 primary for the backup HD, and IDE2 slave is for DVDR?

[Halm]

If you are sure that it is the IDE Contoller, pick up a new PCI based unit. NewEgg, for example has one that will improve your throughput and costs less than $20.00.

[Sapporo Guy]

If your HD is making noise and you have important information on it or even just pictures. Get a new drive quick. Noises from a HD normally means drive failure and loss of data due to recovery costs.

IDE should be faster than USB. I could be wrong but normally internal connections are faster.

[MBAtarga]

I suggested the external hard drive case with USB connection for ease of transferring files off the old disks onto the new. His "new" PC would probably have SATA drives and no IDE connectors. I've been through this with 2 PC's over the past 2 years - transferring the data and files was cakewalk compared to the previous methods of swapping Master/Slave designations on the old IDE drives.

[rnln]

Halm, are you talking about the HD drive adapter for PCI?

Sapporo Guy, I think you are right. THe internal always faster.

MBAtarga, yeah. I swapped around and had sonflict here and there. While having a external HD enclosure laying around (I bought a while ago but never use), I ran only the primary HD and the DVD drive internally (both are primary), and plan on the enternal HD enclosure for the secondary HD. Let's see if it works better.

Thanks guys.

...........
Oh no my HD is bad. After got it into the external enclosure, it asked me to format the HD => HD is bad. OMG, this is my files HD contain all my everything in more than 10 years. Argg... I am crying.
I when and search for the ultra DMA HD and found none. Does that mean I have to get a more expensive sata or pata and get PCI adapter to downgrade it to DMA to have a HD? This is bad.
MBAtarga, is this why you told emto get a new computer? :cry:

[svandamme]

put it back where it originally was
get another disk in that external enclosure

pray to Murphy to give you a break

copy in small batches

[rnln]

vandam,
that is what ai ma going to do, pray pray.
If I can get it back, I promiss to post some rare pics of my wedding in a 1951 Mercedes, all stock... well the steering wheel is not.

[slodave]

How much is your data worth to you? You are a bit of a drive, but if you want help, PM me and we'll work out a deal.

[svandamme]

Dude, you being slow and all, i think distance is not the issue

[Mule]

Stick the drive in the freezer for a while then try again.

[svandamme]

that only works for disks that have stuck/crashed heads
which is very uncommon these days...

those kinds of disks wouldn't make any sound , or run at all
they go from working, to very silent clickclickclick, hardly audible inside a running computer

Also, when you recommend the freezer trick, do make sure to mention a sealed bag and as little as possible air in that bag... vacuum would be ideal if one has a vacuum machine at hand(prolly not)

you don't want the condensation effing up the circuit board, and damaging the disk even more then it is...

[Mule]

I've seen the freezer fix hosed up chips, motors, all kinds of things. The internals are sealed up but a zip lock bag cant hurt.

[Sapporo Guy]

+ 1 on the zip lock
+1 on the freezer (warning: this will not fix the drive but might buy you a window of time to backup your data)


COSTCO has those airsuction zip lock thingys ... you might want to consider it and then pass it along to the wife when finished.

But as Stijn says it's a gambit.

Disk recovery is possible my recommends this place www.duplinet.com contact guy's name is John Daly.

[rnln]

sloDave,
PM sent

Thanks guys. I will do the zip lock and freezer trick.
Thanks again.

[slodave]

I PM'd my number. Give me a call.

Dave

[rnln]

Alright, finally I can have time to get my butt off to Frys to get a SATA 500GB and a hard drive enclosure. Hook them up together and stick the USB cable into my computer port. Some driver install automatically. A USB icon appear on the bottom right corner... and that's it. I wait for a while and go to window manager and refresh many times but I don't see any new drive, not even a new folder. I do see a Mass Storage Device driver in the Device Manager though.
I restart the computer then plug and unplug many times with no help. This is a 2002 built mother board with window 2000 server on it.

Then I tried the same on my Dell laptop with window XP Pro and same result.
Anyone know what step that I missed?
PS: I tried to plug my dig camera (USB) into the computer and it works fine.
Thanks.

[slodave]

You need to format the drive. Right click on 'My Computer', choose 'Manage', select 'Disk Management'. You should see the drive. Right click on it and select 'Format...'