PCTech Forums

Hi, I have a computer That gets ridiculously hot all the time I have 7 fans in it but that doesn’t seem to do much at all. Anyway this morning turned the computer on and it loaded fine then I installed the new catalyst for my x800 graphics card. It said restart computer before use. So I was going to but then I saw that the control panel was there all ready and so didn’t need a restart so I moved the graphics up quality settings and the went to play a game it loaded fine. But then I thought better restart, so I quit and then restarted the computer, it starts to load windows, and it keeps showing the xp home screen for a good ten mins. So I clicked restart and it did it again, then again then again. So it clearly wasn’t loading then on the fourth restart it said insert a boot disk. So I thought Oh drat I have lost the hard drive and sure enough next boot it says hard drive SMART failure primary slave fail.

Now, to me that says that my lead to the primary slave was un plugged but it wasn’t, can a primary slave lead melt? Can a hard drive melt?, I can request new leads form the company that build the comp or I can request a new Maxtor hard drive, what is up with my computer?, I have had loads of computers never happened before this is my gaming/work machine and I really need it. I am typing this on my friend’s laptop.


The pc is custom build no make like dell ect, it is less that half a year old

Thanks guys

I just looked in the bios and it says that it cannot detect the primary ide but can the secondary,,,,what is going on any one..please tell me?

u tried the hard drive on another pc to check? or try use another ide cable and make sure its pushed in the right ide slot on the motherboard firmly if you havnt already ? sometimes they get a bit lose and come out slightly.

I just tested it on another computer and yes dam error again--

So is this a internal hard disk problem

1. why did it fail randomly?

2. This is my second maxtor drive in 5 months r they really that crap?

3. Do I have to send it back again? is there anything else I can do, I have checked all slave/master cables any other possibles?-- why does it see the primary and not the slave? i am confused

thanks loads and p.s dude from uk that posted do u find yer x800 generates way to much heat?

To be honest... and maybe no one will agree with me but i think maxtor are crap... their drives do tend to overheat very quick well their older models did anyway...

I always stick to western digital hard drives or Seagate i find them the two best hard drive makes but this is just my opninion...

Well when i turn my pc off and check my x800 doesnt seem to produce much heat but sometimes it does get hot if i have it on a while yes.

cheers man


oh well yet another hard drive how fun, it is a combo of x800 on max settings and a intel 3.2ghz ht that makes my pc hot enough to cook with oh well still sweet performance but I wish i had yer cpu.lol

Why does it detect the master adn not the slave..how can it do that??


thanx

check the jumper settings on the drive itself it should tell u what to set it to on the drive, then put it as master IDE 0 when putting it into ur board. Then it should me primary master.

Shouldnt really push it on max settings all the time you can always put anti aliasing and af on the game settings itself normally pushing it to full quality will slow down ur gaming a bit on games like hl2 etc., But up to ya

asus P4800D i am sure that is the make, it flahes for about 1 second so i cant be sure but then again it looks right, and that model does exist lol.

It does seem like you have a bad drive. If this is your second drive that has gone bad, you are probably familiar with the return process.


If its still under warrenty, go to the Maxtor site

and download the floppy test disk and run it for the error code. This is the normal procedure.

From your description of how it has gone bad, I would try to skip that part of the routine and not even boot the system with that drive. Usually that bios warning gives you some time to possibly recover your data. Don't power up the drive.

Most of my experience is with Western Digital and they will drop ship you a drive after you give them an error code and a Visa card number. If Maxtor does the same thing, you want to contact Maxtor at this and advise them that you are getting a SMART drive warning on boot.

Get them to send you a replacement. When you get it, install your operating system on it and then hook up the other drive using the connections to the cdrom (let it hang out of the case proped up on a box or what ever) and hopefully you should have a good shot at some data recovery on the drive.

Copy the data off of the bad drive (You might have to boot the system several times, it might or might not see the drive, its going to act flakey). Recover your data (hopefully) and shut down, disconnect the bad drive and ship it back to them.

Good luck