OK, figure this one out: Hard drive acting up - Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community

sailor · 12-26-2004, 09:16 PM

I just bought a new 300GB Seagate drive. I take it home, pull the smaller drive out of my external enclosure and pop this one in. When I turn it on however, I am greeted by the wonderful sound of the drive repeatedly trying to start spinning and failing. To make sure it isnt a bad drive, I stick it into two different computers--both work just fine, and I even formatted and copied a bunch of data over for more than three hours. When I put the drive in the external enclosure though, it does the same thing, despite the enclosure working fine with its old drive (its a third party enclosure meant to do just what Im doing with it). A few more points, to cover as much info as possible:

--the new drive is ATA100, the old is 133, so I dont think its a compatibility issue
--the new drive draws significantly less power than the old, so I dont think its a powering issue, despite what it sounds like
--it isnt a jumper issue, I made sure the jumpers were set the same on both drives and even tried other jumper settings just to make sure
--it isnt a formatting issue; the enclosure would work fine regardless of what it is formatted as, and anyways, it still does it after formatting

Im really stumped on this one. I would very much like to be able to use this drive externally without having to buy a new enclosure. Any ideas on what the hell is going on here?

bal8664 · 12-26-2004, 09:34 PM

Sounds to me like the enclosure doesnt support drives that large, likely when it came out 300gb drives wern't around. I noticed while shopping for enclosures myself last week that some stated "supports 300gb drives". So i guess that means not all do, and your is probably one of those.

qweds · 12-27-2004, 01:29 AM

Have you tried the 300gb inside that same computer?

cyrnel · 12-27-2004, 03:17 AM

what kind of enclosure is it?
What was the old drive?

You could test if it's a power draw issue by powering it from your desktop power supply while it's still in the enclosure. I agree it's doubtful, but it might need mucho startup current.

I've run into something similar where external USB/FireWire controllers didn't like the capacity or some other characteristic of the IDE drive and would keep resetting it, including power up/down. Annoying. The two I own have hard-coded capacity limits that weren't disclosed until I asked their tech support people. One of them does this endless power up/down loop. Argh. You might want to send the mfg. a quick email about this.

sailor · 12-27-2004, 09:48 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by cyrnel

what kind of enclosure is it?
What was the old drive?

You could test if it's a power draw issue by powering it from your desktop power supply while it's still in the enclosure. I agree it's doubtful, but it might need mucho startup current.

Excellent suggestion. I did just that, and guess what? It worked. So apparently it *is* a power issue (which is still kinda baffling given that the drive draws less, but I guess it needs more to spin up). I just threw the drive inside the case for now; Ill go get another enclosure sometime down the road.

Thanks for the help, yall.

12-26-2004, 09:16 PM	#1 (permalink)
sailor beauty in the breakdown Location: Chapel Hill, NC	OK, figure this one out: Hard drive acting up I just bought a new 300GB Seagate drive. I take it home, pull the smaller drive out of my external enclosure and pop this one in. When I turn it on however, I am greeted by the wonderful sound of the drive repeatedly trying to start spinning and failing. To make sure it isnt a bad drive, I stick it into two different computers--both work just fine, and I even formatted and copied a bunch of data over for more than three hours. When I put the drive in the external enclosure though, it does the same thing, despite the enclosure working fine with its old drive (its a third party enclosure meant to do just what Im doing with it). A few more points, to cover as much info as possible: --the new drive is ATA100, the old is 133, so I dont think its a compatibility issue --the new drive draws significantly less power than the old, so I dont think its a powering issue, despite what it sounds like --it isnt a jumper issue, I made sure the jumpers were set the same on both drives and even tried other jumper settings just to make sure --it isnt a formatting issue; the enclosure would work fine regardless of what it is formatted as, and anyways, it still does it after formatting Im really stumped on this one. I would very much like to be able to use this drive externally without having to buy a new enclosure. Any ideas on what the hell is going on here? __________________ "Good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly, while bad people will find a way around the laws." --Plato

12-27-2004, 01:29 AM	#3 (permalink)
qweds has been Location: Chicago	Have you tried the 300gb inside that same computer? __________________ tim(mah)

12-26-2004, 09:34 PM	#2 (permalink)
bal8664 Crazy Location: Rochester, NY	Sounds to me like the enclosure doesnt support drives that large, likely when it came out 300gb drives wern't around. I noticed while shopping for enclosures myself last week that some stated "supports 300gb drives". So i guess that means not all do, and your is probably one of those.

12-27-2004, 03:17 AM	#4 (permalink)
cyrnel Adequate Location: In my angry-dome.	what kind of enclosure is it? What was the old drive? You could test if it's a power draw issue by powering it from your desktop power supply while it's still in the enclosure. I agree it's doubtful, but it might need mucho startup current. I've run into something similar where external USB/FireWire controllers didn't like the capacity or some other characteristic of the IDE drive and would keep resetting it, including power up/down. Annoying. The two I own have hard-coded capacity limits that weren't disclosed until I asked their tech support people. One of them does this endless power up/down loop. Argh. You might want to send the mfg. a quick email about this.