wat casing are u using?
if its those biasa stainless steel casing it will effect ur whole cpu temperature lor coz it absorbs heat....if its an acrylic casing...lagi worse...those casings are just for show...get a big spacious aluminium casing...not those server type lar....tower atx casings will do...
if ure using more than 1 hardisk i suggest u space them 2 or 3 rows between it and put a vertical powerful 90cm fan to blow on it...though it might be a bit noisy...but itll help last the harddisk lor...just my 2 sen!

This post has been edited by lex: Feb 13 2006, 11:49 AM

40 degree is consider average la. i think there shouldn't be any big deal on the hard disk since you're not cranking up its load unless you play games and use the hard disk often la. try not to use damp cloths. cause really risky. easily short circuit. even if you're sure that the water has evaporated, it might cause harm to the circuit board. corrosion on the circuit joints.

akane soma has provided some nice details. but i think the most practical way for orcagal is to do regular maintenance. means once a month or twice a month like that on cleaning. Girls are always hard working in the aspects of cleanliness.

alternatively some of my friends suggested alcohol and cotton bud to clean all those dusty circuit boards. erm. haven try it but i think its safe la.

This post has been edited by lex: Feb 13 2006, 11:50 AM

Vervain : I found the problem to my hard disc problem. Interestingly enough it had nothing to do with the hard disc!

I was using an open-casing with a 400watt power supply. It frequently died (as in no power) and I thought I'd finally get it changed yesterday. I bought a 600watt power supply with a big-ass fan in it and did the switcheroo.

To my absolute horror the computer wouldn't startup at all.

Checked the power connections, checked everything replaced everything and finally.. decided to change the 3-socket extension with built in fuse. And what do you know, it worked. My 3-socket extension was the culprit for causing these frequent crashes! Something was wrong with one of the sockets and wasn't providing enough power for a 600watt power supply but working intermittantly for a 400watt one.

How the heck does that work?

Thanks for the tip on the fan. Will try it out a little later today. Any opinions on those heat sinks for hdds?

This post has been edited by lex: Feb 13 2006, 11:51 AM

Hello forumers, I really got a weird problem which I found it ridiculous. I never experience or heard about cases like these before.

I recently bought a Western Digital 2.5" 60GB HDD. I use the HDD in a cheap external casing mainly for storage porpose with use with my laptop. After a few days, I found that the HDD will seem to stop responding if I touch(i mean gently touch) the casing. Moreover, the data will be badly corrupted if I transfer files while touching the HDD's casing. The data will be 1-5% corrupted if I do not touch it. Then I checked more in detail. The HDD will not be detected if I place it on the floor. Once in a while, a "Delayed Write Failure" message will popup in the taskbar and I need to reconnect the HDD to the computer.

Out of all these problem, I went to the shop and I complained. After all the checking, I was amazed that HDD worked as if it is the best in the world without a problem even on my own laptop(which I am using). Conclusion, the HDD and its enclosure is 100% working.

To make the story short, I found that the HDD works perfectly if I use batteries only on the laptop. Whenever I use the adapter, the HDD gives problem. It is against the myth that batteries may not provide sufficient power to the HDD.

I know my problem is lengthy but give me some suggestions. I never seen such weird problem for all these years of computing. Sorry for being lengthy and thanks for helping...

I got a even more strange issue... SATA cable died!!!!

To make the long story short, had some data corruption on a strictly data only disk ( WD 250GB KS ). Upon many reboots...HDD is detected but doens't boot to windows even on safemode..tried sata spread spectrum, thought it was o/c related, then fishchicken suggested could be a NF4 issue....after the whole morning. WD's lifeguard tools showed cable error...replaced the SATA cable..chkdsk...surface scan...yada yada...no problem di.

sniper on the roof,
hmm... quite amazing... I tried using WD diagnostic tools when problem occurred and it also showed Cable Test Failed. But now I found that the laptop adaptor is causing problems. Crap.... I don't know if this is a related problem, all the CDs that I burned using the laptop is corrupted. I sent the burner for RMA(using batteries too) and the same thing happened. It burned CDs without a single error. I was wondering if it is problem with my CDs or the adaptor. I feel like opening the adaptor. Grall....

Btw, is there any suggestions or is it I have to dump the adaptor into the bin?

This post has been edited by mengsuan: Feb 3 2006, 12:24 AM

wha....

My HDD temperature now is 59'C... damn... really scary...

Why does this happened?? Casing problem?? I use another PATA HDD in the same casing and the temperature never gone up 50'C.

Did I put the wire wrongly?? The power... IDE and SATA right?

Do you guys feel that the new batch of maxtor hard disk drive quality have been downhill rather lately. My 6 yr old maxtor perform better than my 1 year old new maxtor diamond max 9. No wonder they sold out to seagate...

hitachi bought IBM hdd manufacturing and design.. quality still the same..

maxtor bought quantum.. quality got worst and slimlines were one of the worst.

seagate bought maxtor.. if the design wise is going to be done by seagate and the manufacturing by maxtor, then i guess everything would turn out well within the next 1-2 years once their joint models are released.

This post has been edited by lex: Feb 13 2006, 11:43 AM

long live my 6.4GB quantum.

heck, long live my 10GB samsung as well... survived a drop. ;;) so now around 8GB still usable.

2 bad with my 20GB quantum which got fried... now if i could juz scavenge a working PCB for it n c. hmm...

quantum PCBs are widely available nowadays as unwated scrap that are resold for quite a profit

My personal experience is that lack of power does kill drives. It doesn't have to be a total power loss, but running drives in a machine which is short of power kills. I had 2 drive losses and also a number of friends who lost their drives due to insufficient power. After I changed my PSU to a higher capacity Antec, I have not had a single drive loss since (touch wood).

Also bear in mind that USB casings are a potential drive hazard. USB supplies a maximum of 500 miliamps per port which is sometimes short of the power required by the typical laptop drive. The infamous ICN25 series from Hitachi (i had 2) requires about 900 at powerup, which is above what most USB ports can supply and an average seek power of 500. To be safe, get one with dual USB leads or even better one that supports an external power brick.

Just my RM0.02..

This post has been edited by lex: Feb 13 2006, 11:44 AM

Hi, I am new here and this is my first message. I confirmed that that putting a magnet doesnot wipe out yr HDD. I accidently put my notebook next to a speaker driver (woofer) overnight, in my desk drawer. Note : I had to change the driver due to some speaker problems. Didn't realise that till the next morning. When I took out the notebook and the driver was directly beneath the HDD part of the notebook

Notebook still working and I still have my data.

All modern HDD has resistance to magnet to many thousand gauss. At most time, HDD will never be affected by magnets.

This post has been edited by lex: Feb 13 2006, 11:44 AM

Magnets are fatal to hard disk platters.. it depends on how strong the magnet is and how strong is the resistance of the hard disk.. we have a device that destroys the PCB, platter and head of the hard disk, it some basic principals of magnets in it.

This post has been edited by lex: Feb 13 2006, 11:45 AM

i use those biasa casing...icute 1...i tink its stainless steel...aluminium casing? wow...wat abt those icute plastic casing? da 1s tat luk like iPod 1...

ok....thnx...i wil do regular maintenance...hehe...

This post has been edited by lex: Feb 13 2006, 11:45 AM

i'm just noe all about this.. but still dont hav prob with my pc..!! so scared

haiz HDD cannot ,multithread 1. last time when i was BTin', i try to install my zip program to new-format system and O&O also defragmenting. guess wat happen? winXP me bluescreen, HDD down, can't even read it from BIOS. have to do low-lvl format to bring it back(damn it, that is verry very time consuming). now dare not to heavyload my HDD anymore.

questions go through my mind: how those newcoming multitask processor to work fine with those single tasking HDD?

Quite often I discourage defragmenting hard drives because the defragment process places more stress on the HDD in a short period of time. And you were putting your drive for downloading AND defragmentation simultaneously! No wonder!

Hmm.. I've been using my HDDs for BT+eMule+ Filetopia+Soulseek (sometimes WinMX+DC) all SIMULTANEOUSLY for 24/7 (for several years) and had no problems at all.

hey,im new here n just interested in hdd problems.my previous seagate 80g sata hdd kong after 6 months use,what the heck! before it died i heard loud and continuous ticking noises...hdd screaming in pain eh? hehe

now using maxtor 80g sata hdd n as what i read in the 6 pages of this thread i know maxtor is no good as my fren said maxtor diamondmax 10 hdd chip easily burns. as for now i`ve done fdisk two times to my disk n since them i can sometimes hear a short ticking noise whenever the hdd runs a full operation. my cousin once told me fdisk can never be done to a hdd more than 8 times,is it true?

and which is the best brand of hdd? hitachi or wd? maxtor and seagate can bungkus into tong sampah already~