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Possible bad drive on 8890

post #1 of 11
2/21/05 at 1:55pm
Thread Starter 
Well, It looks like one of my 60gb Toshiba drives is going bad... I had it in a RAID configuration before, and started getting bluescreens. It was about time for a refresh anyway, so I began the process of rebuilding the system. All my data had already been backed up, so no loss there. But XP simply wouldnt format the drives - either setup as a RAID or just as UltraATA's. I removed the drives and brought them into work today with me, and heres the odd part: They both formatted fine on an EZ-Gig connection to another laptop. The first was emmitting a strange buzz noise while formatting, so I'm assuming thats a symptom. Its just is very strange to me that it formatted okay on an existing WinXP laptop, but when I tried to format it on the 8890 with the XP boot setup CD, it failed.

After talking to PCtorque and discovering that I purchased my laptop >1 year ago and I only had 1 year of warranty through Sager, I'm going to try calling Toshiba to see if they have a manufacturers warranty. Anyone ever dealt with toshiba at this level? Theyre closed for presidents day, so it will have to wait till tomorrow...

Also - out of curiosity, I read a bit about putting HD's on cable-select for the RAID config, but only one of the drives has a jumper on it...
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post #2 of 11
2/21/05 at 3:41pm
Unfortunately I have had to deal with Toshiba and it wasn't a great experience. I bought a second 60gb drive for my 8890 and when it arrived, it worked ok, but everytime I shut down, I heard a multi-pitch whine coming from it - starting at a higher pitch and going down over a period of about 3/4 second.

I emailed Toshiba tech support and they said it wasn't normal and it needed to be repaired, so I sent it in and almost 3 months (yes, 3 months!) later and a lot of hassling, I got a replacement which did exactly the same thing.

I was just fed up with them at that point and just kept the drive anyway. So still to this day it whines when I shut down. Just keeping my fingers crossed it doesn't die out on me.
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post #3 of 11
2/21/05 at 4:53pm
Hi, If we are talking about the same thing, I too went through the mental torment of this sound (I have a WAV file of it) If your sound and my sound are the same thing, it is normal according to both the Toshiba and Hitachi people I talked to (I sent them the WAV file). I currently have 2 Hitachi drives and had a Toshiba (it had other problems and I asked for a Hitachi replacement/upgrade) but all of them make/made the same noise when powering down (although my 8890 is a 24/7 computer except those times I do air flow maint on it or an evil program locks up the entire system. TELL ME WHY PORTABLE COMPUTERS DONT HAVE RESET BUTTONS, I NEED ONE!!!!!!!!!!!!). So either they don’t want to deal with a noise until the drives die (and we both have drives ready to blow up ), or it depends on who you talk to and whether they know if this noise is normal. Since I had a Toshiba 60Gig 5200RMP, have a Hitatchi 80Gig 5400RPM and a Hitachi 60Gig 7200RPM and all 3 make/made the same sound I feel confident that it is a normal noise (and could be wrong and will pay the price down the line )
Take Care
Andy
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post #4 of 11
2/21/05 at 6:36pm
Thread Starter 
well... now I'm really concerned. Both harddrives perform fine on other computers. Formatted okay, ran Drive Fitness tests on them - all good.

This does not bode well for the 8890. Anyone have any experience with controller failure with this model? Does it happen often? Symptoms?

I'm gonna try another harddrive - see if windows can format it on the 8890... Figures this would happen - a bit over a month after the warranty is up.
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post #5 of 11
2/21/05 at 7:04pm
Wow, thanks ARW - that helps relieve some of my worries. Do you still have that .wav file? Would you mind sending it to pyrobob83 AT hotmail DOT com? I'd like to see if it's the same. Also if you still have emails from whoever told you it was normal, could you forward those too?

vvalerio, I wish I could help. If they both format and are fully functional on other machines, maybe it is your 8890. You tried contacting Sager?
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post #6 of 11
2/21/05 at 10:26pm
vvalerio you may have a problem with the RAID software.
My suggestion is when the system boots go into the RAID management software and blow away the RAID array then reconstuct it.

What may be happening is that the RAID software has got is knickers in a twist. Reinstalling Windows *may* not reinitialise the RAID setup. I am not sure about this but it may help.
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post #7 of 11
2/22/05 at 12:01am
Pyrobob, I send the email with wav files to the address you gave. Hope this helps!

Vvalerio, I would like to add something that may or may not help. Although I never had data corruption or hardware issues related to data corruption, I had some weird stuff happening in DOS that was fixed by going to the ver 9 BIOS (I don’t need ver 10 as I just never had the video playback problems even with the official ATI Embedded 4.12 drivers). In DOS I could never run the same test or program and get the same result (in context of time it took). I accepted it as laptop quirks as I came from an all desktop background. I think I had the ver 3 BIOS originally, but after I updated to ver 9 I have had consistency up to the second every time, no matter heat, time of day, etc. Before the update, no matter what I did (battery removal, CMOS drain/reset by removing battery for at least 15 minutes) nothing would happen with consistency (although again, Data integrity was NOT an issue) but after the update flawless computer function (DOS or Windows). What BIOS version do you have? Just thought I would throw this into the thread although I think Aussie's suggestion is a more logical try to continue your trouble shooting. Take Care!
Andy
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post #8 of 11
2/22/05 at 12:06am
Well picked Andy.
I have several of the BIOS versions if you need them. Just email me.
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post #9 of 11
2/22/05 at 12:23pm
Thread Starter 
Thanks for all the input. It looks like it might have been the 'knickers in a twist' scenario that you mentioned, aussie... I swapped the HD positions when I got home and set it up as a ultra 100... the second harddrive (the one I seemed to be having troubles with) I'm just using as a swap drive for the moment... That might end up being its final use - I intend to use this system for audio/video and it might be nice to have all the temp files on one drive... But everything seems to be working okay for now. XP is working fine. I don't think the RAID configuration gives me any remarkable performance increase - but correct me if I'm wrong.

But on to the bios thing... I'm not sure what version number, but I'm using the version PCtorque posted that swaps the Fn and Ctrl keys... Don't know if that has any bearing, but thought I'd mention.

Quick question beyond that. I have a 3.0ghz proc in it now, but I can pick up a 3.2ghz real cheap - is there anything I need to do beyond swapping the processors? Any switches/bios settings?

Thanks again for everyones input.
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post #10 of 11
2/28/05 at 10:39am
Just talking about Toshiba drives, I had a Toshiba drive that I purchased as a secondary drive when I bought my first 8890. It had been removed from the 8890 and stuck in an external USB case (one from Bason that Myrkat recommended). Well if you can imagine the sound a cat would make if it were being drowned under water, the Toshiba drive was making such a sound.

By the time I off loaded any critical stuff the disk had died. 18 months. Snuffed it. Crapola. Neit. No longer. Shuffled off this mortal coil.

Funny thing was I rang Toshiba service to ask them about warranty. 12 months. That's it. No more. Final. I pointed out the industry is offering 3 - 5 years. No not interested was the reply.

Well people I am hereby swearing off Toshiba drives. Obviously they can't offer longer warranties because their drives just don't last that long. You have been warned.
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post #11 of 11
3/5/05 at 2:27am
Hi Aussie,
Thanks for the 8890 manual. Well I had the exp. with toshiba hard disk. my 8890 is >1 year old and the hard disk came with it died on me. It actually not really died it made a very loud sound and after that it stoped working then i take it out and connect that as an external drive and it was showing the data but was very slow in response. since 1 year warrenty from sager is gone so i contacted toshiba on the recommendation of powernotebooks.com (from where i bought my laptop). I got the RMA number on the next day. and I send the hard disk and i got it this week after about one and half months. It looks like a new drive to me I still have to check if it have the same serial no. as the old drive. I've not tried it yet.
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