This PC fault is hanging my system on accessing files on the hard drive thats making a strange noise and when it kicks off has trouble booting windows.

 

The drive is a 1tb Seagate 7200rpm and is only around 8 weeks old. I have tested in dos using seatools and nothing is reported even using the long through test no faults also with S.M.A.R.T or any bad sectors which I cant understand. It can work fine with no problems then all of a sudden does this strange noise which initially led me to think hard drive. What else could it be? and what  else could cause these symptoms?

 

Here is the video of what is happening...

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iyntdKfi5JI&feature=youtu.be

 

 

The drive has also been back to the shop and tested to be told the drive is fine - Am I right in thinking this is a hard drive fault, Nothing is even reported in event viewer only kernnel power failure due to me having to press the power button off when the PC hangs.

 

Cheers.

Might shed some light on the issue Justin.

 

http://www.techpowerup.com/forums/threads/seagate-hd-infamous-chiriping-figured-out.164015/

 

I would try it with just that drive cabled up. If it is silent then I assume it is a cable issue.

 

Hmm, googling brings up a right nest of vipers on this issue.

 

You looked at the firmware version and a newer version?

http://forum.wegotserved.com/index.php/topic/24776-seagate-chirping-noise-firmware-fix-bye-bye-random-high-pitch-chirp-sounds/

 

 

More.

http://community.seagate.com/cso_community_zones?catName=&qid=90630000000hmZJAAY&search=chirp&searchFilter=All+Results&zone=Desktop_Storage

Edited 30 April, 201412 yr by nellyboy

Sata drive... Sounds like drive spin up / landing and potentially a sata reset issue.

What is the motherboard and how many sata ports do you have.

It could be the firmware has one interpretation of the sata iii spec (new) and your motherboard a much older and more variable interpreted one.

I have checked on seagates website and there is no firmware update for my drive, the motherboard im using is an ASROCK N68C-S UCC here is a link; http://www.asrock.co...dia/n68c-s ucc/

I have a 60gb solid state connected and an older Hitachi drive using ribbon cable along with dvd re-writer which is also a sata drive.

Cant even get my data backed up from this drive as it keeps spinning up and down. Then it wont reboot and I get a sad blue face (windows 8.1) telling me my pc has ran into trouble and the error is watchdog violation.

When I can get to the desktop there is nothing in event viewer that points to anything, thanks for the posts guys. Think I just might take the drive back to shop and ask them to test it again in the hope that something may show.

Thanks.

http://www.hdsentinel.com/hard_disk_sentinel_trial.php give that program a try, seems to detect anything! Also double check the power schedule windows is set to. had massive spin up lag on my seagate hdd, till i found out it was down to the power mode windows had selected!

Thanks - So far I have moved the sata cable to another input on the board and it seems ok for now. Come to think of it I had a similar problem around 2 months ago and took the hard drive back as it was only 5 days old at the time, this was changed then I have the same issue now.

 

Just wondering if sata inputs on a board can go down, also could a power supply cause this sort of thing or would it effect other items within the system also as this is just specific to one drive only. Will check out the points raised above - Thanks everyone

Right... have a look at the manual for your motherboard:

 

ftp://europe.asrock.com/manual/N68C-S%20UCC.pdf

 

You'll see that you have a pair of SATAII and a pair of SATA ports.

That means they're on two different controllers.

 

Looking at the manual (Page 11), can you tell which port you were connected to previously and which you are connected to now?

Also worth checking the info against some SATA II disks on page 24.

 

Also have a look in the BIOS and see if you're SATA controllers are all in IDE/ATA mode

Also check that spread spectrum clocking turned off for the sata controller.

You shouldn't need it in a home environment and not every drive will expect it.

 

It's almost certainly going to be either a weak solder connection on the board to that specific port, or a SATA version/device on the motherboard rather than the drive.

I had the drive plugged into the Secondary SATAII Connector (SATAII_2 (PORT 0.1)) I now have it plugged into the Primary SATAII Connector (SATAII_1 (PORT 0.0).

 

Ever since I have done this its been ok and run without any issues? Could this have been what was causing the drive to keep spinning up and down? Cheers for the help with this.

I had the drive plugged into the Secondary SATAII Connector (SATAII_2 (PORT 0.1)) I now have it plugged into the Primary SATAII Connector (SATAII_1 (PORT 0.0).

 

Ever since I have done this its been ok and run without any issues? Could this have been what was causing the drive to keep spinning up and down? Cheers for the help with this.

 

Sounds like either:

 

1) A fault on that port, possibly poor soldering

2) That port is on another controller device, which talks sata very slightly differently from the sata drive. (It was common in the early days).

 

I'd try a CD drive or another older hard disk on that port and see if it behaves on there.

If not, then you have a dead port, but if it does, then it's option 2.

 

To be honest, I'd look at investing in a motherboard/CPU/RAM bundle to replace it all when you have a little bit of cash, because that's a very old chipset on there.

 

To be honest, I'd look at investing in a motherboard/CPU/RAM bundle to replace it all when you have a little bit of cash, because that's a very old chipset on there.

 

Cheers - I agree and will be changing the board very soon with more ram - My sons 20th Birthday on Sunday so spent a fair bit on upgrades for his system I would have his board but its the same one lol. Must be the longest I have kept the same setup but agree its getting old.

Forgot about that.

Have a look at an AMD apu (a10-7600 or 7850 are handy chips with a good graphics chip on board), suitable motherboard, 8gb ram and an SSD. Should be plenty for day to day.