grantemsley
asked on
EMERGENCY: Dying Fujitsu hard drive
I have two Fujistu MPG3204AT E hard drives. My system drive seems to be dying. About five times in the last 3 days the system has hung with a BSOD, I think the error was a kernel page fault, but I'm not sure. The hard drive started making a clicking sound (the one that all dying hard drives seem to make). After rebooting the drive continued to click, and wasn't detected by the bios. It worked after completely shutting it off.
Then windows started complaining about prefetch files being corrupted.
And then a couple movies I had (that worked before) were corrupted badly enough to crash media player.
chkdsk revealed that about 50 files were either crosslinked or had invalid sizes.
I downloaded fujitsu's diagnostics program and ran it on both drives. My second drive passed both the quick and comprehensive tests, but the main drive failed during the quick test, giving the error code A131G8. I ran it four times with the same result. The only significant part of that error message is the 31 part, which means "smart log error". I haven't been able to figure out what this means.
There are several other things I've considered. I just added a GeForce4 MX440 card, so I am wondering if an overloaded power supply could cause this problem? Also the drive has been running far too hot. I moved them to the larger bays using mouning brackets so they could cool off a bit. Right now they are running at 43 C according to MBM5. Before they were running at around 57, in cold weather with a fan in my open windows. I have no idea how hot they were this summer.
Do I need a more powerful PSU? Would that cause these problems (and make the drive work fine again)? Or is it time to buy a new hard drive? Or should I go out and buy both (Money is a BIG issue at the moment).
Also, does anyone know what that error means? Any suggestions or ideas are greatly appreciated.
Then windows started complaining about prefetch files being corrupted.
And then a couple movies I had (that worked before) were corrupted badly enough to crash media player.
chkdsk revealed that about 50 files were either crosslinked or had invalid sizes.
I downloaded fujitsu's diagnostics program and ran it on both drives. My second drive passed both the quick and comprehensive tests, but the main drive failed during the quick test, giving the error code A131G8. I ran it four times with the same result. The only significant part of that error message is the 31 part, which means "smart log error". I haven't been able to figure out what this means.
There are several other things I've considered. I just added a GeForce4 MX440 card, so I am wondering if an overloaded power supply could cause this problem? Also the drive has been running far too hot. I moved them to the larger bays using mouning brackets so they could cool off a bit. Right now they are running at 43 C according to MBM5. Before they were running at around 57, in cold weather with a fan in my open windows. I have no idea how hot they were this summer.
Do I need a more powerful PSU? Would that cause these problems (and make the drive work fine again)? Or is it time to buy a new hard drive? Or should I go out and buy both (Money is a BIG issue at the moment).
Also, does anyone know what that error means? Any suggestions or ideas are greatly appreciated.
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CrazyOne
If you can put this disk in another machine to test if it misbehaves there. Plus the fact the diagnostic test failed is also a good indicator that the drive is failing.
ASKER
That's pretty much what I figured. I don't think putting it in another machine would help because it's an intermittent problem, and I'd simply have to wait too long.
I'd still like to know what that error means. I posted the results of a smart report at http://members.rogers.com/grante/report.htm
I don't really understand what all of it means, but maybe it will give some clue as to what is wrong with the drive.
I'd still like to know what that error means. I posted the results of a smart report at http://members.rogers.com/grante/report.htm
I don't really understand what all of it means, but maybe it will give some clue as to what is wrong with the drive.
I think fujitsu OEM's Ontrack's DIsk Manager, so while you might be able to track down that error, the symptom's you describe, especially the noises, are a pretty reliable indication the the drive is on it's last legs. I'd concentrate on getting data off it and planning on how to migrate to a single drive or replacing that drive.
If SMART is enabled on the PC and the drive is capable, it logs disk errors and alerts (you when a certain threshhold of certain error types is reached) that the disk is dying, and will reduce the access speed of the drive to try to compensate for poor cabling, etc. If you've been experiencing errors they may be recorded in your event log.
If SMART is enabled on the PC and the drive is capable, it logs disk errors and alerts (you when a certain threshhold of certain error types is reached) that the disk is dying, and will reduce the access speed of the drive to try to compensate for poor cabling, etc. If you've been experiencing errors they may be recorded in your event log.
Actually I don't know what that error means either. But because of the clicking sound this drive is almost assuredly unrepairable. And that link you just posted all I got was this
Report creation time 10/20/2003 12:48:23 AM
No devices founds
Report creation time 10/20/2003 12:48:23 AM
No devices founds
ASKER
Alright, I'm going to go get my new hard drive today. Hopefully this one will hold out until I can transfer everything.
>>>Hopefully this one will hold out until I can transfer everything.
I have my fingers crossed :)
I have my fingers crossed :)