Troubleshooting Hard Drives

Your PC’s hard drive affects nearly everything your computer does. It stores your operating system, your applications, your games, and your personal files. If it “forgets” a few bytes of data, you’ll get errors, hangs, and possibly a loss of any documents or photos you haven’t backed up yet. In addition, your PC hits your hard drive for data much more often than the slower CD/DVD drive or Internet connection. In a very real sense, then, your hard drive is your computer’s main bottleneck, because it’s the slowest data-moving device your system commonly accesses. If your hard drive slows down, your entire computer becomes less responsive and fun to use. And if it breaks, nothing else works. This article delves into basic troubleshooting for these mass storage devices. We’ll get into solutions for some common maladies for single (non- RAID [redundant array of independent disks]) hard drives, as well as a few relatively uncommon ones. Drive(rs) License Or Other Form Of ID Before you start to research a potential problem, jot down the model numbers of the parts involved, such as the hard drive and controller chip or card. You may be able to ID all the parts involved without cracking open your computer case. If your PC uses a controller card rather than a controller built onto the motherboard to run your hard drive, however, you may need to open the case to check the card’s brand and model number. In the Device Manager (right-click My Computer, choose Properties, and click the Hardware tab), look under Disk Drives for your hard drive’s model number, such as HTS 548040M9AT00. A Google search of that number will likely lead you to the drive manufacturer’s site and an ID of the drive’s advertised name, such as Travelstar 5K80.

Consumer desktop hard drives come with either IDE (Integrated Drive Electronics, also called ATA [Advanced Technology Attachment], PATA [Parallel ATA], EIDE [Enhanced IDE], or DMA [direct memory access]) or SATA (Serial ATA) interfaces. An IDE drive is easy to spot because it uses a wide ribbon cable instead of SATA’s skinny cables. In the Device Manager, look under IDE ATA/ATAPI Controllers for your IDE or SATA controller chip’s name. If an expansion card handles data flow to your hard drive (the drive’s data cable connects to a card instead of the motherboard), it might be listed under SCSI And RAID Controllers instead.

Universal Troubleshooting Steps When you suspect your hard drive is having problems, before you do anything else, open your computer’s case and make sure that its power and data cables (both ends) are snugly attached. Back up your personal data to another hard drive, a DVD, or a CD. Try not to replace an earlier backup if that’s your only copy of the data, as you don’t want to overwrite a good backup with possibly corrupted files. Next, update your controller’s drivers in case there’s a later bug fix you need. If you’ve combined hard drives in a RAID, make sure you download and install a RAID-compatible driver. Scan for errors. In Windows Explorer (right-click Start and choose Explore), right-click a partition on your hard drive, such as C:. Select Properties, the Tools tab, and Check Now under Error-Checking. Click both options’ checkboxes to enable a longer, more thorough scan of your drive, including every bit of its disk surfaces. Finally, click Start. A scan of your C: drive may require a reboot. If the scan turns up errors on your drive, or if Windows runs erratically or not at all, restart your PC and enter the BIOS (Basic Input/Output System) setup, usually by pressing the DELETE or ESC key during the boot process. Enable SMART (Self- Monitoring Analysis and Reporting Technology) monitoring, if your hard drive supports it. This setting can be in several places in the BIOS, but it’s usually in menus having to do with the hard drive, SATA, and/or IDE settings. Save your changes and exit.

Next, use a different computer to download Seagate’s SeaTools (www .seagate.com/support/seatools) and install it on a bootable CD-R or floppy diskettes. Boot your problem PC with SeaTools in the CD or floppy drive. Use a PS/2 (Personal System/2) mouse instead of a USB one to avoid having to navigate SeaTools with the TAB key, the Spacebar, the arrow keys, and combinations of ALT + underlined letter keys, such as ALT-N for Next. After the utility loads, run a full scan of the suspect hard drive. Click View Report to read the results, should a yellow or red circle icon indicate trouble. If your drive has some bad sectors, you’ve lost the files stored on them. SeaTools will offer to overwrite the bad sectors, which will erase the data stored on them but will also prompt the hard drive to map out the defective areas so that they’re never used again. Allow the overwrite, and then run another full scan afterward. When your drive has a clean bill of health, eject the Sea Tools CD or diskette and reboot.

Drives are disposable. Most drives develop a few bad sectors over time. This isn’t a big deal. On the other hand, if your drive accumulates more bad sectors every time you run a scan, it’s probably gradually failing. If so, replace the drive. Like power supplies and RAM modules, hard drives are replaceable, not fixable, commodities. If your drive gets wiggy on you, it’s time to buy a new one. Hard Problems If error and surface scans come up clean, your hard drive probably works fine. Of course, some of the data stored on it could be at fault. Rolling your PC back to an earlier time with System Restore or uninstalling and reinstalling a troublesome application may help. If not, read on for some possible fixes for various problems. Many hard drive maladies and remedies overlap, so it’s worthwhile to try everything listed here.

Problem: Your computer seems to run slower over time.
Solution: After checking for errors, run Disk Cleanup (in My Computer, right-click C: or another drive letter, then choose Properties and Disk Cleanup) to free up storage space. Make sure there’s at least 1GB of unused space on the drive, or Windows won’t run as fast as it should. After Disk Cleanup, defragment your drive so that it stores data in a more orderly manner. In Windows XP, right-click the drive letter, choose Properties, and click the Tools tab and Defragment Now. The nice thing about third-party programs such as Diskeeper (www.diskeeper.com) or Raxco PerfectDisk (www.raxco.com) is that most can move the apps you use most to areas of the hard drive that take less time to access. This can shave a second or two off the time it takes to launch an app. Watch out, though on rare occasions, defragging the partition with the currently running OS (operating system) on it, such as the C: drive, can cause problems such as file system errors.

Problem: Your hard drive is suddenly much slower.
Solution: To check an IDE hard drive, launch the Device Manager. Under IDE ATA/ATAPI Controllers, right-click Primary IDE Channel (this may be called Parallel ATA Controller on some motherboards, such as those using nForce chipsets). Next, choose Properties and click the Advanced Settings tab (or the Primary Channel or Secondary Channel tabs, if present). Make sure that your hard drive’s Transfer Mode is some variation on Ultra DMA. You may first need to set the Transfer Mode to DMA If Available or uncheck the Let BIOS Select Transfer Mode box, depending on the settings available to you. SATA drives can run slightly slower without certain settings enabled, too. Under IDE ATA/ATAPI Controllers in the Device Manager, right-click a SATA Controller entry and choose Properties. In its Advanced Settings, Primary Channel, or Secondary Channel tabs, as applicable, make sure that read and write caching are enabled, as well as Command Queueing.

Problem: Your computer suddenly doesn’t recognize a drive previously in use.
Solution: If you’ve recently worked inside your computer, you might have inadvertently bumped a data cable loose. It’s very easy to nudge a SATA data cable out of place, so check that these are snug. In one isolated case, we once found a drive’s SATA power connector to be unreliable. If your SATA hard drive has both SATA and Molex (4-pin) power connectors, unhook the former and connect the latter. You should never attach both types of power hookups to a drive, however.

Problem: Your computer doesn’t recognize a new hard drive you’ve just added.
Solution: For an IDE drive, verify that you’ve moved its plastic jumper near the power and data ports to the correct pins. Set the drive on the end connector of the data cable to Master (a boot drive may work best as the Master device on the Primary Channel), and any other hard drive or CD/DVD drive on the middle data cable connector to the Slave setting. Don’t use the Cable Select jumper setting unless it’s necessary to solve a drive problem. However, if you’ve just built an external drive out of a spare hard drive and an enclosure kit, the kit manufacturer might recommend Cable Select for best results. You may also need to update your motherboard’s BIOS to the latest version. Follow the manufacturer’s instructions to the letter. Often, installing a SATA or ATA/ 133 controller card solves a lot of compatibility issues, especially on an older motherboard. After you install the controller card according to its instructions, connect the hard drive’s data cable to the card instead of the motherboard. To get a recent, high-capacity IDE hard drive to work on an older motherboard without a card, try limiting the drive’s capacity to 137GB with a jumper setting, if present. If it works after changing the jumper setting, install a controller card that circumvents the motherboard’s 137GB limitation. For a 3Gbps (gigabits per second). SATA hard drive, you might need to set a jumper on it to change it to 1.5Gbps (150MBps [megabits per second]) mode to get an older controller to recognize it. This will limit the drive’s speed negligibly, if at all, but it may solve a compatibility issue with a 1.5Gbps controller.

Problem: Your PC doesn’t power on or occasionally crashes after you add a hard drive.
Solution: If your power supply unit doesn’t have enough amperage on the 12V and 5V rails to fire up your PC with the addition of a new drive, consider removing less important devices or upgrading your PSU (power supply unit). Flip forward to “Basic Troubleshooting: Power Supplies” in this issue for some tips.

Problem: After a hard drive is disconnected from and then reconnected to your PC, the computer won’t load the OS and reports that there’s no boot device.
Solution: When some BIOSes detect that a hard drive is removed, they automatically change the devices in the boot priority list. However, most of these BIOSes don’t reverse the changes when the missing device is reattached. During your PC’s POST (power on self test) when you first turn it on, press DELETE or the indicated key to enter your BIOS setup. Find the boot priority device list, adjust it, and save your changes when you exit. If you have multiple hard drives, you may need to choose which drive is the boot device in a separate setting.

Problem: A drive is noisy.
Solution: If it’s a new noise, especially a loud or unusual one, the hard drive could be failing. Make sure it’s not just a fan or an imbalanced disc in your DVD drive that’s whining or howling. If your hard drive is only noisy during periods of heavy seek activity, check to see whether the manufacturer offers a download that can change your drive from its performance mode to a quieter mode with acoustically optimized seeks. The drive will act slightly slower after the change, but it shouldn’t be as loud. Certain drives such as the Maxtor D740X with standard bearings are audible even when idle. Most current drives use fluid dynamic bearings, which help eliminate the whine that older drives can emit. You can replace the drive with a quieter model, such as a Seagate drive. Look for a maximum dB (decibel) rating in the 28dB or lower range for near silent operation.