[PLUG] Resolved: Disk Hardware Problem

[Richard Steffens]

AthlonRob wrote:

> On Mon, 2003-01-13 at 10:31, Richard Steffens wrote:
> > Yesterday, my mother-in-law's machine developed a hard disk problem.

> That's almost wierd - my grandfather's machine just had the same
> problem.  Don't suppose they lived in Redmond, OR?  lol

No, the Mountain Park neighborhood of Lake Oswego.

> > ...I exited BIOS and waited for the
> > error message (so I could give you a direct quote). Of course, the
> > machine booted just fine!
> 
> But of course.  This is always the case.  Somebody needs to type it up
> and make it into a law.  *Whenever* you want to show somebody else
> exactly what your computer is doing wrong, it works as it should!

It's probably out there in one of the set's of corollaries to Murphy's
law.

> > My questions is, should I be concerned that something is about to fail?
> > What should I be looking for, if it is? Has this happened to anyone
> > else?
> 
> It could well have been a loose cable.

Now that you mention it, that is the first thing I checked. I wiggled
the connectors at both ends of the IDE cable, and pressed them home.
They seemed to be snug. Same with the power connector.

> It could also be the hard disk going out, the cable being broken, the
> IDE controller dying, etc, etc, etc, etc....

Hmm. Broken, or weakened and about to finish breaking, cable. I'll have
to keep that in mind for the future.
 
> You said the serial port plugged in to a
> card - ouch... old system?  If so, does the drive plug in to a card, as
> well?  Make sure that card is in securely.

What I tightened is the bracket that holds the serial port connector.
The serial, parallel, and IDE controllers are all on the mother board.
It's a few years old (Pentium 166), but it's not _that_ old.

Thanks for the advice. I'm hoping this was a fluke. I'm reasonably sure
that it wasn't, and that I'll have to address this again someday. I'll
take a closer look at the cable. I think I've got some others in a
drawer, so I can replace it, if necessary.

-- 
Regards,

Dick Steffens
http://rsteff.home.attbi.com/