Hard Drives randomly Disappear

[MatthewLTL]

2 of my HDDs in the MDD will just disappear from the system, no icons on desktop, Disk Utility doesn't see them.

What can be the reason for this? One of the HDDs does random clicks like mad, but why would this make BOTH HDDs disappear?

 

[bunnspecial]

An easy and quick check would be to replace the ribbon cable. It wouldn't hurt to completely kill the noisy one, either(i.e at least pull the cable if not the power plug and cable).

Do they disappear while the computer is running? My experience is that killing any internal drive while the computer is running without unmounting will cause the computer to KP pretty much every time. I think this is more true with IDE drives, which-unlike SATA-have no provision for hot swapping.

 

[MatthewLTL]

An easy and quick check would be to replace the ribbon cable. It wouldn't hurt to completely kill the noisy one, either(i.e at least pull the cable if not the power plug and cable).

Do they disappear while the computer is running? My experience is that killing any internal drive while the computer is running without unmounting will cause the computer to KP pretty much every time. I think this is more true with IDE drives, which-unlike SATA-have no provision for hot swapping.

In Leopard, it will click when running and booted. It will Simply disappear. In Tiger, It locks up the whole system.

 

[Altemose]

In Leopard, it will click when running and booted. It will Simply disappear. In Tiger, It locks up the whole system.

Is this only occurring after the new video card was installed?

 

[MatthewLTL]

I really don't think there is any relation, The MDD hasn't been used for months prior to this card and when I went to boot it up yesterday to install the Driver it just sat at the apple screen with the spinner. put the old IDE HDD back in and it booted right up. It's on my list to get a Tempo SATA card

 

[Altemose]

I really don't think there is any relation, The MDD hasn't been used for months prior to this card and when I went to boot it up yesterday to install the Driver it just sat at the apple screen with the spinner. put the old IDE HDD back in and it booted right up. It's on my list to get a Tempo SATA card

The reason why I ask is that if the PSU is having internal issues then powering the new GPU and the HDDs may overload it and it can cause not enough power to hit the HDDs to run properly. I would try putting the old GPU in and seeing if the issue occurs still. Just a thought...

 

[MatthewLTL]

The reason why I ask is that if the PSU is having internal issues then powering the new GPU and the HDDs may overload it and it can cause not enough power to hit the HDDs to run properly. I would try putting the old GPU in and seeing if the issue occurs still. Just a thought...

If it matters any, the HDDs will dismount once one starts clicking, once they are gone from the system they never click again......

 

[Altemose]

If it matters any, the HDDs will dismount once one starts clicking, once they are gone from the system they never click again......

That sounds like a power issue to me!

 

[MatthewLTL]

That sounds like a power issue to me!

This thing is meant to power a ADC Monitor but not a GPU? don;t make much sense

 

[Mnowell69]

If the drive that's clicking has the OS then when that dies it is losing it's connection to the second disk.(no longer addressed by the system) i would replace the clicking drive

 

[MatthewLTL]

If the drive that's clicking has the OS then when that dies it is losing it's connection to the second disk.(no longer addressed by the system) i would replace the clicking drive

The OS Drives are on the back ATA100 bus. The drive that is clicking is the Music HDD on the ATA66 bus. Damn Maxtor HDDs! And just think, I used to have my mind set on maxtor HDDs

 

[Mnowell69]

I still think that when the (music) drive fails it is taking the other drive on the bus with it because the system is unable to address the 2nd drive on the bus without rebooting( as BUNNSPECIAL said earlier!) If you remove the music drive all should be well

 

[MatthewLTL]

Thanks for all the tips. I have the PowerMac powered off and letting it cool off after running all night. I will either replace the HDD or disconnect it.

 

[bunnspecial]

This thing is meant to power a ADC Monitor but not a GPU? don;t make much sense

The ADC circuit is completely separate.

 

[A.Goldberg]

It sounds like your hard drive is dead. Is this your boot disc or for storage? Checking the SMART status is disc utility is a good predictor to see if a drive is failing.

Remove the clicking drive. See if the problem continues.

 

[LightBulbFun]

I dunno? Maybe sticking your hard drives up with magnets was a bad idea (it does sounds like one of your HDDs have died)

 

[MatthewLTL]

LOL The drives are mount in the caddies. and it is a data drive clicking. It's either the 80GB Maxtor TiVo HDD or the 80GB Western Digital TiVo HDD I put in the system.

 

[A.Goldberg]

LOL The drives are mount in the caddies. and it is a data drive clicking. It's either the 80GB Maxtor TiVo HDD or the 80GB Western Digital TiVo HDD I put in the system.

Haven't you mentioned problems with this TiVo drive before? It sounds like its toast Matt. Get your information off it if it's not too late and dump it.

If it's clicking, it's more than likely failing. If I remember you had this in your eMac and it caused problems as well.

Maxtor was bought by Seagate in the mid 2000's. For a while Seagate sold their products branded as Maxtor. I think they stopped doing that. When Maxtor made their own drives, they generally had the reputation of making cheap, low quality, low preforming drives with poor reliability.

 

[MatthewLTL]

Haven't you mentioned problems with this TiVo drive before? It sounds like its toast Matt. Get your information off it if it's not too late and dump it.

If it's clicking, it's more than likely failing. If I remember you had this in your eMac and it caused problems as well.

Maxtor was bought by Seagate in the mid 2000's. For a while Seagate sold their products branded as Maxtor. I think they stopped doing that. When Maxtor made their own drives, they generally had the reputation of making cheap, low quality, low preforming drives with poor reliability.

The Tivo HDD i used in the eMac was a different drive.
Funny, I find Seagate HDDs to be total garbage too.

 

[A.Goldberg]

The Tivo HDD i used in the eMac was a different drive.
Funny, I find Seagate HDDs to be total garbage too.

Where are you getting all these TiVo hard drives?

I prefer Western Digital (and their other brands, like Hitachi) myself. The statistics shows Seagate currently has a substantially higher failure rate than other brands. But hard drives quickly becoming a thing of the past...

 

[catzilla]

LOL The drives are mount in the caddies. and it is a data drive clicking. It's either the 80GB Maxtor TiVo HDD or the 80GB Western Digital TiVo HDD I put in the system.

I had a couple of "TiVo" drives that worked flawlessly in a DVR for around 10 years. I think they are constantly powered, I wonder if power cycling leads to their demise.

 

[Altemose]

This thing is meant to power a ADC Monitor but not a GPU? don;t make much sense

Well, if you have multiple drives and then add a new GPU it may push it over the wattage allowed by the PSU. Since PSUs in the MDDs were notorious for issues, I would not be surprised if it isn't putting out full power capacity. Try replacing the potentially failing drives first and then look into PSU issues.

 

[MatthewLTL]

Where are you getting all these TiVo hard drives?

I prefer Western Digital (and their other brands, like Hitachi) myself. The statistics shows Seagate currently has a substantially higher failure rate than other brands. But hard drives quickly becoming a thing of the past...

I bought a couple of Series 2 TiVo's. The plan was to use these instead of VCRs to record my shows/movies. Little did I know these were completely useless without a subscription........

Well, if you have multiple drives and then add a new GPU it may push it over the wattage allowed by the PSU. Since PSUs in the MDDs were notorious for issues, I would not be surprised if it isn't putting out full power capacity. Try replacing the potentially failing drives first and then look into PSU issues.

The CPU temps went up from 94F to 108F after the GPU install it has much more heat now....

 

[Gamer9430]

As much as I would love to say it's the magnets, but I think it's a power issue. I have a USB Backup hard drive for my MBP. It's plugged into a powered USB Hub. If for some reason the wall power was to be disconnected, yet USB still connected, the power would be limited. I constantly have a keyboard, the hard drive, and iPod nano connected all at the same time. If the power was disconnected and the hard drive goes to turn on, it starts clicking and the motor sounds like it's trying to turn on, but doesn't have enough power to. The second I reconnect the external power, the hard drive turns on fine.

Anyway, the point is that with limited power, the hard drives may not be functioning correctly because the power to them may be limited because all the priority is going to that supped up new GPU.

 

[Gamer9430]

I bought a couple of Series 2 TiVo's. The plan was to use these instead of VCRs to record my shows/movies. Little did I know these were completely useless without a subscription........

They require a subscription? Mine worked without one I think, and I believe it was either a series 2 or 3 model.