easy way to work out duff harddrive?

ok, i've got 2 maxtor 60gb ata133 harddrives in my machine, raided. now one of them is definately buggered, as windows corrupted itself again today, and one is making a wierd clicking noise now and again... without leaving them plugged into individual machines for a day, is there a way to work out which is duff? by running some test on them? scandisk was ok, but defragged BSODs me..

mark

edit:

to add a point to this thread

i've just found that they are less than 1 year old (by about 3 weeks) so i need to find which one is gonna die on me so that i can RMA it back to ebuyer and hopefully get a refund :) but i dont think i can send both harddrives back as i'm sure one works?

also should i wait til next week (when a nforce2 board and a 80gb sata drive arrives) before i start fiddling about with these drives (dont want to lose any more data iff poss)

edit 2:

just found that that sound upto the job?

i believe maxtor have their own testing program that will give you certain error codes.

Go to Maxtor's site and download Maxblast. It runs from a floppy and I'm fairly sure it has diagnostic facilities.

Also, you could 'fly' the two HDD's on their cables and listen to which one's making the clicking noise.

Or, as you're going to have to format the good drive, do that, one at a time, I think that will show you which one's faulty.

Good luck with the RMA.

ran the test last night.. both passed the 'quick' test.. so i ran the advanced test, and told me one of them was buggered and that i should contact a systems administrator or something.. so at least i know that one is broken (the other tested fine) so i shall start the RMA process with ebuyer.. fun fun :)

mark

edit:

submitted RMA, couldnt get a refund as it was over 30 days old (??) so had to go for a replacement one.. except that Sorry, this product is currently unavailable / discontinued. so i am not sure what they are going to give me instead... a 80gb SATA maxtor would be nice (seeing as i ordered one yesterday) so that i could raid them for uber speed :)

mark

hmmm.. ebuyer now tell me that they cant replace the drive, so i have to go send it off, so i've got to run that powermax thing to get the exact error code before i can submit the RMA..

do you get to ask what hdd you get back - ie could i hint that i want a 80gb SATA one like the one i have just bought :)

mark

Mark,

Nope - maxtor will replace like for like, unless they have none of that particular model available at the time.....fingers crossed but I'm fairly sure you'll get a std IDE one tho'

Ebuyer should offer you a refund when they no longer have items : they allways have with me.

Anyway, just goto Maxtors site, have an Advanced RMA, and get your drive within 2 days UPS'ed to your door :D
You have to pay postage to Ireland, which costs about £6 :)

Quote:

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Originally posted by CrimsonAvenger
Mark,

Nope - Maxtor will replace like for like, unless they have none of that particular model available at the time.....fingers crossed but I'm fairly sure you'll get a std IDE one tho'

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They (Maxtor) defiantly will not replace a IDE drive with a SATA one. Too many customers wont have SATA at the moment, they wouldn't run the risk of giving a drive to one of them.

Maxtors drive checking program is useful not just for Maxtor drives, but for any manufacturer even on a RAID array. It can run all the tests on any manufacturers drive and it can do it to drives on RAID controllers too.

well thats swell, looks like the maxtor drive test cant see either of my raided disks, unlike the ibm one can, any ideas guys? will the ibm one produce the same error code as the maxtor?

shame about the IDE/SATA drive, tho i guess i can just sell it and put the money toward another sata drive...

ah well gonna copy down the error code from te IBM one and see whats what.


cheers

Mark

Quote:

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Originally posted by Agent
Ebuyer should offer you a refund when they no longer have items : they allways have with me.

Anyway, just goto Maxtors site, have an Advanced RMA, and get your drive within 2 days UPS'ed to your door :D
You have to pay postage to Ireland, which costs about £6 :)

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is that the southern ireland place?? as when i sent mine cost me a fair bit

I think the actual place was Dublin.

Don't take that as being 100% certain though, Ive sent loads of stuff to Ireland and may have it confused with somewhere else.

those 60gb maxtors must have had a few dodgy ones, because I had exactly the same model replaced last year. they replaced it with the same model drive.