Hard Disk drive alarm? What the hell?

japanjapan Registered User regular
edited March 2007 in Help / Advice Forum
My fileserver box uses a Maxtor Diamondmax ATA hard disk. The last time I tried to power it on, the BIOS didn't detect it, and it seems to be generating some sort of alarm. It's like a siren kind of sound, that alternates with a really loud buzzing noise.

I'm absolutely certain that it's not the PC speaker (I disconnected it, plus when I pull the molex connector for the disk it stops). What the hell is it? I can't seem to fnd any documentation that mentions this, and it's a really difficult thing to google for (I may not be using the correct terminology, because it's the first time I've ever come across something like this).

Help?

japan on

Posts

  • ffordefforde Registered User regular
    edited March 2007
    Does it sound like it could be the drive head scraping against a platter? ><

    (Metal on metal grinding)

    fforde on
  • japanjapan Registered User regular
    edited March 2007
    fforde wrote: »
    Does it sound like it could be the drive head scraping against a platter? ><

    (Metal on metal grinding)

    I don't think so. It sounds like your typical PC speaker buzzer noise, and it's very regular. Siren sound - buzz - siren sound - buzz - etc.

    EDIT: It seems the drive is proper fucked (I suspected as much anyway). This Youtube video shows exactly what it's doing. This is the second hard disk I've had fail on me in a month, guess who I won't be buying disks from again?

    japan on
  • SmasherSmasher Starting to get dizzy Registered User regular
    edited March 2007
    If you read the thread linked from the above linked youtube video, apparently tapping the drive will sometimes fix the problem. Check the thread for more details.

    Smasher on
  • japanjapan Registered User regular
    edited March 2007
    Smasher wrote: »
    If you read the thread linked from the above linked youtube video, apparently tapping the drive will sometimes fix the problem. Check the thread for more details.

    I did, but there's nothing important on the drive. All my data is on another hard disk in the same machine, the maxtor disk was just the OS and VMware server with an image of my webserver. I have a copy of the VMware image on my desktop machine for development.

    I could try the tap fix, but I have a spare disk lying around anyway and I'll never trust that particular drive again, even if I got it working again.

    EDIT AGAIN: In the interest of general advice, I make a point of always having a (tested) spare drive hanging around for situations such as this. I have a few computers, most with mutiple drives, so I do get the occasional failure.

    japan on
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