USB hdd problem

[lee551]

i have a usb hdd enclosure. i had one drive in there for awhile and it ran perfectly. i then switched another drive into it. this one was twice as large (40GB) and was also partitioned. now i've noticed that after the enclosure being on for awhile i'll hear clicks like when you're computer is restarting, and they'll happen more and more if i leave it on. pretty soon, i can't read anything from the drive and i have to turn it off and wait awhile before i can do anything to it.


what could be causing it to fail like that? :wacko:

[tesco]

overheating most likely.
Could be power issues maybe.
but probably the first one.

does this thing have vents/fans and where is it (like, is it under a stack of papers or something. :P) Make sure it has some room to get a bit of fresh air.

[lee551]

no its not buried under anything. it's in a vertical holder, and i tried laying it down flat for awhile, that didn't help.

ok, if its overheating, would it help if i didn't download anything to it? i've been trying to download torrents straight to the external drive. maybe thats too much work for it?

[tesco]

well it would be giving it extra load, but probably not too much. ;)

You might want to try speed fan or some other temp monitoring program to see if the drive has a temp sensor on it, and find out the temp.
If it doesn't then you could try unplugging the drive and immediately taking it out of the casing to feel how hot it is.

[lee551]

ok ross. i'm running it now without the outer case on it. its just a harddrive plugged in now. i'll wait and see. :ermm:


edit: nope, didn't help. and the drive is barely warm! i checked all the power cables and made sure they were properly connected.... :wacko:

[spudmessy]

i have a usb hdd enclosure. i had one drive in there for awhile and it ran perfectly. i then switched another drive into it. this one was twice as large (40GB) and was also partitioned. now i've noticed that after the enclosure being on for awhile i'll hear clicks like when you're computer is restarting, and they'll happen more and more if i leave it on. pretty soon, i can't read anything from the drive and i have to turn it off and wait awhile before i can do anything to it.


what could be causing it to fail like that? :wacko:

I've encounted similar "clicking" issues on my Maxtor, they are IDE thou. The source of the problem as it related to my case was due to the power supply. I had too much extra wiring going internally unused (power splitter cables), apparently (at least what I suspected was that the power was somehow drained even though not used by any hardware attached to them). Prior to removal it constantly caused hdd lockups and I've had serious hdd failures and permanent damage done to 2 of my hdd because of that. You might want to increase your power supply.

Hope this helps.

[lee551]

I've encounted similar "clicking" issues on my Maxtor, they are IDE thou. The source of the problem as it related to my case was due to the power supply. I had too much extra wiring going internally unused (power splitter cables), apparently (at least what I suspected was that the power was somehow drained even though not used by any hardware attached to them). Prior to removal it constantly caused hdd lockups and I've had serious hdd failures and permanent damage done to 2 of my hdd because of that. You might want to increase your power supply.

Hope this helps.

this one also connects by IDE. i can't really increase the power supply because its one little unit and has all its own wiring for that stuff. only one power plug and one IDE connector. i'm going to switch to the other drive soon and see if it still does it. if it doesn't, i'm blaming the hdd.

[jetje]

heat is not to be tested without equipment, a normal HD can go up into 70 degrees celsius... That's not to messure with any bare hand cause yes that feels hot.

[3RA1N1AC]

clicking and stalling may also be the result of an HD having damaged sectors. sometimes they are present on brand new drives, which would qualify as a defect... but they can appear after a while, through completely normal use. that's normally how hard drives wear out: the surface of the disc developing dead spots, rather than the motor wearing out.

so you might wanna run a disc-checking program on it to look for damaged sectors.

[clocker]

The source of the problem as it related to my case was due to the power supply. I had too much extra wiring going internally unused (power splitter cables), apparently (at least what I suspected was that the power was somehow drained even though not used by any hardware attached to them).
Swapping out your PSU might have solved your problem, but NOT because power was "draining" from unused connectors.
Unless you saw arcing from a Molex to a nearby ground then you weren't leaking power...more likely, the original unit was either getting old and degrading or just plain defective.

[lee551]

clicking and stalling may also be the result of an HD having damaged sectors. sometimes they are present on brand new drives, which would qualify as a defect... but they can appear after a while, through completely normal use. that's normally how hard drives wear out: the surface of the disc developing dead spots, rather than the motor wearing out.

so you might wanna run a disc-checking program on it to look for damaged sectors.

thanks for the tip. i'll run a disc-check when i get home.

[spudmessy]

Swapping out your PSU might have solved your problem, but NOT because power was "draining" from unused connectors.
Unless you saw arcing from a Molex to a nearby ground then you weren't leaking power...more likely, the original unit was either getting old and degrading or just plain defective.

Yeah I couldn't figure that out too, It works prefectly fine now. I took out 1 spare IDE cable, 4 power splitters. The "ticking" sound went away after that.

Weird... :wacko:

[lynx]

The molex power conectors are good for the first connection, but because of their construction they have a resistance penalty compared to simple copper wire. If you had several splitters in series there's a good chance that the voltage reaching the drive was well below specification.

Refering back to the original problem, it is likely that the cause is either a faulty drive (test it in the pc directly if you can) or a faulty psu in the external unit. You can check the basic voltages with a multimeter (with the drive connected), but it is almost impossible to check for voltage stability without some very expensive equipment.

Unfortunately very small psu's are notoriously susceptible to voltage instability (more accurately known as line ripple) and digital equipment certainly doesn't like that.