[PLUG] Is this a disk crash?

Robert Munro ramunro at speakeasy.net
Fri May 18 23:57:31 UTC 2007


On Fri, 2007-05-18 at 12:00 -0700, plug-request at lists.pdxlinux.org
wrote:
> Date: Fri, 18 May 2007 11:31:05 -0700
> From: <tkubaska at charter.net>
> Subject: Re: [PLUG] Is this a disk crash?
> To: PLUG <plug at lists.pdxlinux.org>
> Message-ID: <1208061411.1179513065497.JavaMail.root at fepweb11>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8
> 
> Thanks for the input, guys.. I cannot mount hda ... there is no hda
> in /dev. Only hdc and hdd neither of which appear to be the hard
> drive. fdisk -l /dev/hda returns nothing.
> 
> I checked the voltages you specified and they are fine. The cables are
> good.
> 
> I booted to DOS from a CD. If I issue an fdisk it says "No fixed disks
> present." This doesn't look good.
> 
> I dont have another hard disk to try and boot from. I will get one.
> 
> You know even at my advanced age, I've had only two hard disk crashes.
> So it doesn't happen very often but it's painful when it does.
>  -ted
> 
This is a flat ATA/IDE cable, right?  You might tweak the cable routing.

I have two SCSI disks (I know, old...) that use a similar flat, 50-pin
cable.  Every few months one or more drives start throwing parity errors
and I have to reseat connectors and mess with the configuration to solve
the problem.  I've found that the SCSI subsystem is _very_ sensitive to
cable routing.  A half-inch one way or another around the power supply,
fans, even steel case sides, makes a difference as to whether it works.

Don't know if it will help, but you might try.  Keep the cable as far as
possible away from the power supply, and away from fans and case metal.

BTW, you've inspected all of the connector pins' alignments too, right?

Best of luck,
Robert
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