Did my HDD die?

palmer · Guru Joined: 17 Nov 2004 Posts: 322 Location: Berkeley, CA

I have a laptop that is ~2 years old
I rarely move around with it (not a head crash)
It is in very good condition, but used a lot
The computer is also very hot (~170F)
The drive is a Toshiba MK3021GAS in a Dell Inspiron 5150

One day, it froze
When I rebooted it, it complained that there was no IDE drive recognized
The next boot failed at "mounting /sys"
After that, it worked fine for a few days

Now, strange things happen
After a few hours, the drive activity light goes on, the drive spins up and reads a lot (makes noise)
Nothing new can be read off the disk (but cached in RAM programs can be run)

hdparm -tT fails (when the disk fails)
hdparm says 0 for everything
No crazy settings are on in hdparm (just DMA)

The reason that I think the drive is dead is that it cannot read from it (no console programs will run, not even shutdown)
I am not sure though, because KDE keeps running, and the drive works at startup

I cannot replace the drive right now (it's my only laptop drive) to see if it is a motherboard issue or a drive issue

-palmem

smitty_one_each · Posted: Mon Aug 01, 2005 1:41 am Post subject:

Boot from a live CD to eliminate the motherboard.
While the live CD has you working, ensure your data are backed up, possibly via a USB device.
Then start looking at disk diagnostic tools.
Best,
Chris
_________________
I'm just looking for clues at the scene of the crime.--Walsh

Headrush · Posted: Mon Aug 01, 2005 1:46 am Post subject:

If the BIOS stops recognizing it, it is a good sign the drive could be going.
Backup as much as you can, while you can.