New hard drive problems (INFO)

[Oldgit]

Hi All
I had a set of rather unusual problems on installing a new 500Gb hard drive on my F14 system, I've solved them, but they were that unusual that I thought I should share them in case anyone else gets the same thing!

I'd been experiancing intermittant faults on one of my drives, (lock ups for no reason, ocasional boot ups that failed due to ' disk unreadable errors' and other odd errors). I assumed that the drive was failing, but it always showed 'Heathy' on disk utility! This was the disk with the OS on, plus my main 'data' disk had some bad sectors, so I thought I'd buy a nice big 500Gb and reinstall the whole system.

I backed up all my data to an external 'USB' drive, opened the case, (a big old under the table 'desktop', why do they still call them 'desktops'?) shoved in the new SATA drive and rebooted, intending to format the new drive to EXT4 and partitioning it before installing F14 again! OOOOOOOOOW! :mad: Major drive failure, missing OS, whole list of SDB errors! Control D, to reboot, BIOS only sees one drive; SDA (I have three, two IDE and one SATA) plus the one I just put in makes four. I go into BIOS and discover that it not only cant see any of the other drives, but my two DVD drives are missing too!

Now I've been building my own systems and mucking about with computers since before you could buy them, and Ive never seen a problem like this one! At first I thought the new drive had screwed my system, for on removal, the problem persisted! Then I noticed that the IDE connector in drive SDB, (the long 40 pin job) was just slighly out of line with the back of the drive, pushed it firmly in and what do you know, everthing works!
:D:D:D

We moved recently and I think the vibration was enough to loosen the connector to give intermittent faults, and pulling the cables about to get the new drive in, pulled it out further......

Anyway, I hope it helps someone else with visions of 'new motherboards, drives, etc.' to check all connections very carefully!!!

[glennzo]

Hmmmm. I have a Fedora box that is locking up suddenly too. It was physically moved a week or two ago. Wonder if the same thing is happening with the IDE cable. The thing has run for a long, long time without trouble. Actually, I installed Debian on it the other day and the same behavior persists. Takes about 10 minutes from boot up to lock up with the drive access light staying on steady.:eek:

[DBelton]

Yep. I have fallen victim to the loose connector on several occasions myself. Usually after I have been in the case doing something, like installing a new drive, or cleaning out the dust bunnies.

I have learned over the years to check EVERY connection as the last thing I do before turning on the machine after I have been inside it, or moved it for any reason.

Happens to everyone :D At least you got it sorted out and figured out the problem :)

[Oldgit]

Hi Guys
Never had it happen to me before, but I guess there's a first time for everthing!

I think the symptomes will vary dependent on the connection involved, My lock ups always flashed the 'caps lock and scroll lock' lights and no resonse from anything, had to do a hard reset!

[glennzo]

Yep. I have fallen victim to the loose connector on several occasions myself. Usually after I have been in the case doing something, like installing a new drive, or cleaning out the dust bunnies.

Good point. When I moved my computer I did it to take out the slave drive. The evidence mounts.

[Oldgit]

I notice most people post their system details at the bottom of their post. Do you keep them in a seperate file, or is there a special way of doing it? Stupid question I know, but I think I might be going senile!!!!

[DBelton]

the system details people post like that are in their signature.

You can create one if you wish, and it will be added to every post in here.

Go to you user control panel and on the left side there are links to edit your avatar, edit your signature, etc...

http://forums.fedoraforum.org/usercp.php

and yep, glennzo.. the evidence is adding up in favor of loosening a cable during your moving.. worth a quick check anyway.

[glennzo]

In your User Control Panel, the UserCP link near the top left of the page you can edit your "signature".

[Oldgit]

Hey, Thanks Guys

I'll do it later, its been a busy day for me, gonna watch a video and chill...

[glennzo]

Opened the case on my problem computer, pushed a bit on the cable where it plugs into the mainboard, unplugged the cable from the hard disk and plugged it back in and the issue seems to have been resolved. The box has been up for 12 hours of so without lockup. Sometimes the simplest things ...

[DBelton]

It's that penguin crawling around in there! knocked a cable loose! :D