HDD Help

[SickBoy]

That seems to be a really dirty solution for a simple problem. I used to have a couple of 1 TB Western Digital Greenpower's that I had issues running as internal drives, as soon as I threw them in a dual-drive USB2.0 case and ran them as external, no issues. Recording/playback of HD content from my HDHR was never an issue after that.

I kind of like the external drive solution anyway - makes it easy for me to disconnect them if I need to throw a few files on my laptop to take somewhere.

[imilne]

That seems to be a really dirty solution for a simple problem.

Indeed. But the simple solutions to the problem didn't solve it

It was either dirty hack or endless complaints from the wife.

[imilne]

Ok, the problems with this HDD keep on coming, although this time I think it's a Windows7 and/or chipset driver issue.

This drive is d:\, with c:\ being an SSD. Now, pretty infrequently (about once a week, if that), and always after resuming from S3 sleep, d:\ will disappear from Windows, obviously playing havoc with any scheduled recordings that were meant to run. A reboot doesn't bring the drive back; only a full shutdown and cold boot seems to do it.

I've seen a few references to similar problems on the intertubes, but nothing with a proper solution. I've updated the bios, updated the Intel sata drivers, installed the intel management tools, etc. The only thing left to try is to go back to IDE mode rather than AHCI, although I'm not keen on that because of the SSD.

Is there anything else I've not thought of?

Iain

[wtg]

Have you tried the drive in a USB enclosure? Not ideal of course, but it may rule out whether it's the drive vs the system's chipset.

Also, have you checked the system's temps? Any possibility the drive or chipset is overheating?

[imilne]

Have you tried the drive in a USB enclosure? Not ideal of course, but it may rule out whether it's the drive vs the system's chipset.

It's not something I have access to unfortunately, and the drive now has more data on it than the 500GB model it replaced so I can't try with that one. The 500GB one never had a problem originally, but that was with XP and a different motherboard.

Also, have you checked the system's temps? Any possibility the drive or chipset is overheating?

It vanishes after being in S3 sleep so I'd doubt it.

It's actually pretty similar to a problem I had with my work laptop (a Dell) that has an eSATA disk attached to it. Worked like a charm in XP, but after moving to Windows 7 it kept losing it - and while running and accessing it too. I ditched the eSATA cable and switched to USB and it's been fine ever since.

Iain

[Lao Pan]

Have you tried the Samsung Firmware Update - the F4 2TB drives have been having data corruption issues - the Unraid forum is recommending to keep clear of them - luckily I saw it about 10 mins before I ordered a pair. WD EARS caviar green are now working fine.

Just remembered a year ago a Samsung 1TB drive kept disappearing or taking a minute to spin up - went back under warranty and replaced by a Seagate. The other 1TB Samsung is still going fine as my recordings drive.

[imilne]

Have you tried the Samsung Firmware Update

Yep, have applied that too. I can't win can I

Iain

[Lao Pan]

Is there anything else I've not thought of?

back under warranty

Hard Drives seem to be getting more & more shoddy!

[imilne]

Thought I'd dig this thread back up to report that changing the PC's bios settings from AHCI to IDE (along with the required registry hacks to do it without reinstalling) seems to have cured the disappearing 2nd hard drive after resumption from S3 sleep.

It made no difference to the drive going into idle regardless of Windows' power settings, but that was cured with my program to constantly write little packets of data to it.

Technically running IDE vs AHCI isn't ideal as my primary drive is an SSD, but it's an Intel one, so comes with management tools to schedule TRIM operations over it as often as I want anyway.

Iain

[BrettB]

@smajor - sounds like a power thing to me too but the weird thing is not just why it would spin down during playback, but why it only does it with HD stuff.

I've seen similar hangs during playback at times. Basically all of my recordings are HD, now, so I can't confirm/deny any difference there. But when others have mentioned similar problems only with HD content, I've wondered if the drive might be behaving the same way with either SD or HD content, but for SD content (with lower bitrate/data size) the caching was able to handle the spindown/spinup, but with HD content the cache was running out and playback was pausing.