Thinkpads Forum

For those of you with Active Protection, you'll be familiar with the sound that is made when the hard drive parks itself having sensed movement.

Well, for some reason, my X40 just started to regularly park itself even when it is motionless siting on my desk. It will do it every 3 minutes or so, remain parked, and then release itself. It will also release itself if I go to open a new program or do something within an already-open program.

First thing I tried, of course, is disabling Active Protection, but that didn't work.

I'm familiar with the regular sounds made by the HDD as Windows does it's thing, but this is exactly the same sound made by Active Protection. Unsure why the HDD is parking itself for no reason.

Anyone else experiencing/experienced this?

David

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Hmmm...If you mean in the BIOS, under AC power everything is set for max performance, so in theory the HDD shouldn't spin down.

The spin down setting in my BIOS only applies if you set the overall performance under AC power to 'customize', as in the X40 bios simulator from ibm: http://tinyurl.com/cyote

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Oh, I see what you mean. Tried that first, actually. Under Thinkpad Config, my advanced power options only include CD-Rom speed, CPU power management and PCI power management. No option for hard drive power down.

Haven't tried a SMART program yet. Good idea. Not convinced there is actually something wrong with the HDD, but rather just some obscure setting that may have been inadvertently changed. I think.

nooooo. . .

In control panel, open "Power Options", then go to the "Power Schemes" tab. What's it say next to "Turn off Hard Disks"?

Sorry - plugged in: "never"; on battery: "after 20 min". That was the first or second thing I checked.

I'm starting to think that it's not a big deal. The drive seems fit (PC Doctor clean bill of health) and I haven't had any real problems lately (aside from a curiously sluggish system, after reboot even, the other night which was recitified via system restore).

Thanks for the ongoing help everyone...

Update: well, i'm convinced I've got a faulty accelerometer.

To recap: the problem is when the machine is motionless. After a short period of time (between 33 sec and sometimes 1.5 minutes), the hard drive parks itself. It doesn't swing back into action until a running process/program need drive access. Here's a link to an mp3 (less then 2mb and narrated by yours truly) where you can hear the problem:

http://s4.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=1XWL4 ... A231VZTM9G

I've run the full PC-Doctor test on the hard drive (from bootup, not from windows), have tried the Features Tool from Hitachi (doesn't work with this hard drive, even though Hitachi NZ told me it should), and have run a full systems diag (again, from bootup). Everything seems fine. Drive integrity seems good. Haven't tried the SMART tool yet, even though Rick highly suggested it.

I've even tried uninstalling the APS software completely, but no change. That ruled out a problem with the APS software, at least.

So, I re-installed APS 1.31, and set it so it showed the icon/status in the system tray. You can see where I'm going with this...

Laptop is sitting there, and as expected, on cue, the hard drive parks itself. The status icon remains unchanged. In other words, stays green. Curious me lifts the lap suddenly (and remember, the drive has parked itself already), and the icon goes yellow, indicating that the accelerometer has sensed movement (as it is supposed to). But, there's nothing to park because the hard drive is already parked.

So, my thinking is that I've got a faulty accelerometer that is, for some reason, sending signals to the motherboard. But, it's not sending 'movement' signals because, in theory, the icon would change to yellow even when the computer is motionless.

Anyway, am in discussions with a mate at IBM in Australia about it. We're all puzzled. Next step might be going back to pre-load.

David

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Your accelerometer is not faulty. It signals the software application, the application tells the hard drive to park. You can see that it signals the application when you move the machine, therefore it works.

OK, ran the S.M.A.R.T. test - all clear, so doesn't seem to be a problem with the drive itself.

I think you might be right, SeanM. If it was a faulty accelerometer, you would expect it be sending out 'false' signals any *any* time, i.e., in the middle of an intensive period of HDD access (say, when I'm opening a Photoshop document). It's not doing this. It's only parking itself when access to the HDD by any open programme or service doesn't require HDD activity.

So, my new theory is that a programme or service (whether Windows or IBM) is telling the HDD to park. Have tried rolling back using system restore to a few weeks ago, but no luck.

Still stumped,

David

Have not experienced this on any programs running. I do here my hard drive clicks but the the park is a for sure different sound as you said. Slap me if you already posted about this but have to tried calling IBM?

Although I currently probably have near the amount of programs etc as you do since I just got this great machine. Hope that info helps you.

Hey mate (and welcome to the forum!) -

Yep, am chatting with a mate of mine at IBM Australia about it. He's stumped as well.

It's not driver-related either: have booted in safe mode, same thing. I don't think it is Windows-related, either (i.e., nothing in the event or system logs that would suggest a problem as far as Windows is concerned).

I don't think it is causing damage to the drive, and it really is sporadic. I can re-post the mp3 file from above, although my IT guys at work spent a week making fun of me for what they called 'the geekiest thing they've ever heard'!