7k60 Problem on T40

[atct86]

I bought a new Hitachi 7K60 for my T40 last Feb. It has been great, besides the occasional heat issue. I always leav emy computer on, and when its idle it is never really doing anything, and the hard drives are supposed to shut of.

The other day i returned home, lifted my LCD and got a DOS screen saying "Hard Disk cannot mount"; in addition it was making a very loud scratching sound. So i restart and get the error saying disk cannot be read and that OS not found. I flipped out. I tried and tried but nothing worked. The disk would not even mount in an external USB case. So as a last resort i pulled a Homer Simpson and tapped the hard drive and shook it. To my amazement it Worked.

What could have happened?

Is the hard drive reliable?

What should I do?

PS, I backup to my Lacie 200gb drive every night.

[GomJabbar]

Sounds like your hard drive is definitely on it's way out. It appears you're prepared with your backups. So start shopping for a new hard drive right away.

[atct86]

It seems to be runnng perfect no, no noise, perfect performance, good heat.

Maybe it was fluke?

[pae77]

I solved a similar problem with the micro hard drive on my mp3 player the same way. It totally stopped working after I dropped it. I guessed that the drive head actuator mechanism might just be stuck and I figured I had nothing to lose so I gave it another sharp bang and I think that freed the head actuator mechanism and the micro hard drive at least has been working fine for months. But I would be very leery of entrusting important data to a hard drive that has had those kind of problems. You should at least run the drive fitness test on it.

[christopher_wolf]

You do seem to be very well prepared in the case of any drive emergency with all the Backups

Just FYI: I had a 2.0GHz laptop that had the 7k60 Drive in it. It had very similar issues. At random times, it would start a very characteristic clicking/scratching noise, then over time it would increase for days, weeks, or even months until it finally didn't boot up and gave me the "Operating System not found" screen whilst making that noise. This happened to me, on and off, over the course of a year. One time, I simply left the Laptop alone for about two months and the next timed I tried to boot it, after many unsuccessful attempts, it booted up fine. It did this at, apparently, random times. This was, however, my Old HP Laptop...which hung on startup from the very instant I turned it on at the Store I got it from; there was much more wrong with my old laptop than what met the eye; namely, the HP Logo

I used to pull it out and tap on it every now and then, and I did hear something rather "loose" in it that I didn't hear in other Hitachi Drives. So it could be a problem with the actuator arm since the sound that it made near failure was repetitive and sounded like attempts at disk read/write access.

[Aroc]

I would echo the other comments and run the drive fitness tests on it. It seems to me that you are fishing for confirmation that everything is alright

It seems to be runnng perfect no, no noise, perfect performance, good heat.
Maybe it was fluke?

I don't think it would be wise to assume that. Statistically I would think that the likelyhood of it failing soon has just increased significantly. I would not trust the drive. At the very least I would run the fitness test on it (backup first!, just in case!). What *I* would do is also probably see about getting the drive RMA'ed. If you are the type of person who does not like using RMA'ed drives (which is fine if you don't), then RMA the drive, and sell the replacement to someone else, then buy a new drive. I've done both on occasion.

[atct86]

RMA?

[jdhurst]

Returned Material Authorization. Most vendors require an RMA *before* they will take anything back. ... JDH