Registered: Mar 2001
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Posts: 54

How to diagnose A Drive??

I have an upgraded Tivo with an 80GB Maxtor that was working fine for several months. Recently I ran into the dreaded "stopple" problem. I get frequent pauses and display problems (nasty MPEG artifacts) while I hear the drive click away as if it's trying to recalibrate itself. Today I ran PowerMax on the drive using the long test. The Maxtor passed.

So the obvious next question is, what utility do I use to check out the A drive?

I'm afraid of running the Quantum equivalent because of these sentences: "This latest release of QDPS is capable of repairing recoverable media errors (bad sectors) on the hard drive (however it cannot perform data recovery). It is highly recommended that you have a full backup of your hard drive before running this utility."

I do have a 1.3 backup if all goes to hell ... but ...

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Registered: Sep 2000
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Posts: 422

Isn't there some sort of "check only" switch you can use? Most utilities allow you the option of auto-repair or not...

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Registered: Mar 2001
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Posts: 54

Thanks Worf,

I didn't encounter it to tell you the truth. After getting frustrated I just tried the software anyway with no switches or anything. Within 5 seconds it said the drive failed, that I should bakcup data and "consider replacing" it.

After this I popped the drive back into the Tivo and I only got the initial "starting up" screen.

Now I have two 80gb drives in there and am going through initial setup. So far so good. Unfortunately, the FAQ tells you how to make a byte swapped backup. I didn't realize this and restored using DMA and wasted many hours.

Ah well!

Thanks for the comment.

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I was having freezing problems on my Phillips 212 with a backup A Quantum drive nad an 80 GB Maxtor. Did extensive test on the 80Gig and it passed. Then I used Quantum's tests for the A drive and sure enough, this brand new drive failed it's basic random seek tests. Needless to say, I replaced it and things work fine.

So, in short you've got nothing to lose by running the tests on your A drive.. Well almost nothing.. You may lose the studdering!

HTH
Rob

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Registered: Jun 2001
Location: Chicagoland
Posts: 7

I have a Sony SVR-2k, and when I replaced the A drive w/ a brand new Maxtor 80GB disk, stutters & stopples happened almost instantly. I used the utility CD-ROM with dma enabled and bs=32k. I turned off the accoustics mgmt & write verify before copying and did a 2 times over powermax burn-in test. No problems reported by the maxtor utils. So, I think this drive is going back to the RMA desk. I think I might try my luck with a WD 60GB drive.

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Registered: Mar 2001
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Posts: 54

Well that did it. Another 80GB drive, restore, software upgrade and a dead Fireball later things appear to be going well.

Tivo is *faster* now too. This drive must have been dying for a long time.

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quote:

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Originally posted by rdangel:

...snip...
Then I used Quantum's tests for the A drive and sure enough, this brand new drive failed it's basic random seek tests. Needless to say, I replaced it and things work fine.
...snip...
HTH
Rob

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