One of my new Seagate 120GB SATA drives is clunking

[Paddy]

I only notice it when playing CS, but the drive clunks and everything pauses for about two seconds. After that everything carries on as normal. I dont have a floppy drive here, so running DFT is gonna be difficult, but I'll see what I can do...

Isn't it odd that it only happens when playing CS:S?

[dbdg]

That will be the spyware thrashing your drive.

God is trying to tell you not to play CS:C.

[cjolley]

That's what happens when you install CS across that bad sector.
At least it's not the OS.
Chuck

PS Maybe it's just something in that game and not the drive at all.
Like a bit of info it needs is all the way across the drive from the rest of the game.
If you can back up then I would sugest you try a defrag.
cwj

[Wombat]

Re: One of my new Seagate 120GB SATA drives is clunking

Originally posted by Paddy
I only notice it when playing CS, but the drive clunks and everything pauses for about two seconds. After that everything carries on as normal. I dont have a floppy drive here, so running DFT is gonna be difficult, but I'll see what I can do...

You can run that off of the CD I think. www.ultimatebootcd.com

[Paddy]

Cheers! I will run it ASAP.

I've just updated O&O Defrag and am giving that a whirl first.

[Wombat]

That sounds like a bad idea. If you suspect a drive might be failing, the worst thing to do is move data around.

[KvHagedorn]

Unless it's off the hd and onto a DVD-R

Do that, then format over and over til it dies, and you can RMA it.

[Paddy]

cheers! The drive did need defragging which I've done. Now I need to try CS:S and see if I can replicate the problem.

[Kooldino]

Right right, gotta "bug test".

[Paddy]

nah, drive is still clunking.

I can't find my receipt (probably in a box in the attic waiting to be unpacked) but I have emailed the company (overclockers.co.uk) to see that if in the event that DFT reports an error, they can confirm my purchase.

Assuming the HD can be replaced, i'd rather not have any downtime, so I would consider buying another 120GB disk, ghost the image and then RMA the faulty one. If I do this I will need to buy a SATA RAID controller as I have used all the ports on my mobo. Any problems with this?

[Tjalfe]

why not just disconnect the other drive while you do the ghosting?.. you can run ghost from a floppy ot CD

[Paddy]

If I buy another drive, then I will need to be able to use all three at once.

[Tjalfe]

nah .. leave the buggered drive along with the new one connected... boot from a floppy and run ghost from another floppy.. the executable is small enough for that. Ghost your drive, take out bad drive, reconnect other original drive and you are golden

[Wombat]

Originally posted by tjalfe
nah .. leave the buggered drive along with the new one connected... boot from a floppy and run ghost from another floppy.. the executable is small enough for that. Ghost your drive, take out bad drive, reconnect other original drive and you are golden

I think he might have to sysprep the drive, too. I've had issues moving the main windows partition.

[Jon P. Inghram]

If it's clunking occasionally be sure you've got a good IDE cable and power plug, I've had a HD act like it was on it's last legs when it was actually just a bad cable and/or connection.