2nd harddrive not starting up

[kvigorous]

I am using OS 9.2 and I have a 2nd harddrive ( 10000 RPM SCSI ). When I first boot up the computer in the morning, the 2nd HD doesn't show up. Then I reboot, and it shows up and functions fine. Does anyone know what's going on? Does this mean that the harddrive is putzing out slowly? Please help. Thanks.

[thehuncamunca]

unless it continues to do that i wouldn't worry about it

[sonofslim]

are the jumpers set correctly? incorrect jumpers can cause all sorts of mysterious problems.

[krimson]

check your cables too, if nothing else is wrong, i had weird problems once, and i swapped to another cable, and the problems dissappeared.

[kvigorous]

I tried changing the cable, but I'm still having issues. It's been happening very consistenly for the last few months now. If I restart my computer, everything is fine. It's a pain, though, and I'm concerned that this means my harddrive is giving out. I don't know, though. Anyone else have any ideas? Thanks.

[krimson]

any out of the ordinary noises? clicks, stutters?

[bpatrick]

There is a jumber on must drive that will delay spin up untill it is polled. check the specs and see if it is set for delay.

[kvigorous]

No out of the ordinary noises, but I'll check for the jumper. I've had the computer for 2 years, but this has only been happening for the last 2 months or so. Does that sound a jumper issue? I'll check on that, though. Thanks.

[superbovine]

Originally posted by kvigorous
No out of the ordinary noises, but I'll check for the jumper. I've had the computer for 2 years, but this has only been happening for the last 2 months or so. Does that sound a jumper issue? I'll check on that, though. Thanks.

check your power cables. what is sounds like is your drive isn't getting power all the time. did you install something new recently that may suck down a lot of power? weird stuff happens to hardware when power supplies get overdrawn. i don't think its a jumper issue. your drive maybe going bad. i'd least back up the drive just incase. the easiet way to check all this jazz is stick the drive in another computer, or switch another drive into the same chain postion see if the problem is still there.

[sonofslim]

if it's only just started happening and you haven't physically done anything to your hard drive recently, it's probably not a jumper issue.

is the drive internal or external? if it's external, i'd look at the enclosure next.

[kvigorous]

The harddrive is internal and I haven't done anything to the harddrive. There is one thing I didn't mention because I can't remember if this happened before or after the hardrive started doing this:

I couldn't boot my system for a while ( I got a Mac with a flashing ? on the screen ), so I used Disk Warrior to boot up, then I installed OS 9.2 on the second disk ( the one that is having the problem ). I was able to boot up fine after this, and since then I can boot up no problem.

It is possible that I starting having the problem at this point, but I'm not sure. Does this give anyone any ideas? OS 9 is still installed on the other HD.

Thanks.

[sonofslim]

if it failed once (when you had to run diskwarrior on it) and you're still experiencing problems, you're probably still seeing the effects of whatever problem it had in the first place. you might want to run some more hardware diagnostics on it to see if you can turn up any problems.

also, i would try changing the startup disk to your 2nd drive and starting from a clean powerup. if you get the same problem as before, it might indicate a hardware or power problem. if it boots fine, you're probably seeing a software/OS problem.

if it's a hardware thing, try running your 2nd HD in another mac to see if it's actually the drive, or a bad connection somewhere. but like i said; if this drive failed in the past, it might be connected to that.

[cpjakes]

Since you're on OS 9.2 and using SCSI, here's what I think:

It seems that your drive isn't available when the system loads. Upon Restart, the drive has already been spinning, just not mounted.

Check and see if you can mount the disk after a startup using Drive Setup. If it mounts, I would guess that the drive just isn't turning on in time for the OS to see it.

I'm not sure that it's a sign of a faulty drive, especially if it regularly returns after rebooting. But it may be related to the disk problem you mentioned earlier, like a boot block or something.

If you can backup the data and wipe the drive (a good old low level/zero data format), I would guess that would solve it for you.

[kvigorous]

Thanks for all these ideas. I think I'll start with formatting the drive and I'll let everyone know how that goes.

[kvigorous]

Hey all,

I initialized my second harddrive, but nothing changed. Now, I am admittedly a Mac dummy, but when I initialized my harddrive, it only took about 20 seconds. My other experiences with formatting drives (on PCs) have been that it takes 45 minutes or more to format a drive. So, I'm thinking that I didn't do something quite right. Is it just quicker on a Mac?

Any other ideas about this harddrive not starting up? Thanks all.