Internal HDD problems ... Windows 7 x64

[JayB]

Hello all ,

I got a Seagate 1.5 TB internal HDD drive in December.

[ame]http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00066IJPQ/ref=ox_ya_os_product[/ame]

It worked great until I got Windows 7. I finally got Pro Tools 8 working on Windows 7 , and now Windows keeps giving me a message that says my hard drive is failing , or a different one that says it is having problems. If I try to reformat it , windows tells me it cannot finish the reformat. I emailed their tech support , which I estimate will respond in about 2 years. So in the meantime , has anyone else experienced this or know of a fix? Thanks in advance guys.

 

[kev]

No experiences on w7 mate. I have however, experienced it on a laptop I fixed for a friend. You might want to perform some drive analysis with a tool such as speedfan, which is freely downloadable.

I'd do some serious googling with the model to see if there is some kind of w7 with that particular drive firstly. If nothing comes up, get the drive RMA'd. Unfortunately you'll never get a brand new drive again though, and there is a high chance seagate will send you another duff drive. The company are shite, they send out refurb drives to customers when their brand new drives have failed.

 

[abt]

I got a Seagate 1.5 TB internal HDD drive in December.

If you got the drive in December it will still be under warranty. Seagate will make you run the following software to test the drive before they will do any sort of warranty or support:

http://www.seagate.com/ww/v/index.j...toid=720bd20cacdec010VgnVCM100000dd04090aRCRD

If you run this test you will have a better idea if the drive is failing or there is a problem with windows.

 

[JayB]

Thanks for the help guys ! I am downloading the Sea Tools thing now. I will be sure to get a Western Digital drive next time , this is ridiculous.

 

[abt]

Thanks for the help guys ! I am downloading the Sea Tools thing now. I will be sure to get a Western Digital drive next time , this is ridiculous.

Seagate is no better or worse than any other drive manufacture. I wouldn't worry about it too much. Although drive failure rates are much better than they used to be they're still pretty common.

Perform regular backups!

 

[JayB]

I do backups regularly. My data is safe , the only problem is I need that drive working for my secondary Pro Tools Drive , Photoshop also.

 

[arvoitus]

Hard drive's are fragile ... Seagate is (one of) the best hard drive manufacture, they have an excellent support/RMA (and a 3 year warranty). As long as you use hard drive's you will always have the problem of random failure's (wait, that happens with every (electronic) device ... or even anything that is created by humans/machines/nature). SSD's are a huge improvement when you look at reliability and stuff.

Try the tool from seagate, or a random smart monitor tool: http://www.ntfs.com/disk-monitor.htm

 

[JayB]

I tried the Sea Tools thing , tried to run every single test they have , and every single one failed instantly. I ran it on my other two seagate drives and they tested fine. This drive is seriously f'd up. I guess I'm just gonna have to get a refurbished one or some shit , unless Seagate pulls a miraculous fix out of their ass. Thanks for all the input everyone !

 

[Wolfeman]

You should get a direct replacement for free. Just RMA it.

 

[JayB]

You should get a direct replacement for free. Just RMA it.

Yeah , maybe I'll just do that. This damn thing won't reformat for shit. I opened up my computer and checked all connections, it's gotta be the drive because the other drive in there has had zero problems. Although now that I think of it , could that be because Windows 7 reformatted it when I installed Windows 7 on that drive? Maybe all drives have to be formatted by Windows 7 to work with it properly ? Wish I could reformat the drive to find out ! Speaking of which , do any techies here know the command prompt for formatting a drive ? Because that's my last option ATM , since I can't format it under disk management or My Computer.

 

[abt]

Yeah , maybe I'll just do that. This damn thing won't reformat for shit. I opened up my computer and checked all connections, it's gotta be the drive because the other drive in there has had zero problems. Although now that I think of it , could that be because Windows 7 reformatted it when I installed Windows 7 on that drive? Maybe all drives have to be formatted by Windows 7 to work with it properly ? Wish I could reformat the drive to find out ! Speaking of which , do any techies here know the command prompt for formatting a drive ? Because that's my last option ATM , since I can't format it under disk management or My Computer.

Don't waste your time on this drive, it is dead or dying. Yes it is possible that there is some other anomaly that is causing this behavior but it is unlikely. If you can see the drive in windows then the cable connections, bios settings, etc must be okay. You ran the seagate tools and it failed the drive. I only recommend this because that's what seagate will make you do before they will take the drive back.

Although now that I think of it , could that be because Windows 7 reformatted it when I installed Windows 7 on that drive?

No. If it has a valid partition on it then windows will let you format it. If the partition table was not windows compatible you would still be able to delete it and create an new one, format it, etc.

Wish I could reformat the drive to find out ! Speaking of which , do any techies here know the command prompt for formatting a drive ?

No you don't. I've seen peaple force format failing drives, then they think the drive is alright, it's not. If the drive's failing it will fail.

I believe the command for formatting under windows 7 is still the same ie FORMAT drive letter:\ eg FORMAT D:\ - DON'T GET IT WRONG. I recommend that you don't bother.

 

[JayB]

Thanks for the info abt. When I get a response from the Seagate dudes I will just request a new drive I guess. Sucks though , I have to put all my Pro Tools work on hold for 1 damn drive.

 

[abt]

Sucks though , I have to put all my Pro Tools work on hold for 1 damn drive.

I'm lucky I've got hundreds of drives at my disposal. If seagate are going to take ages then go to the local computer store and buy the cheapest drive you can. I'm assuming you are just going to use it for the second pro tools disk not the system drive? You don't need a huge drive just one big enough to hold the session you're working on. My PT partitions is only 80GB which is plenty. I copy my sessions back to my system drive which is backed up.

 

[JayB]

My secondary drive is 1.5 TB , I'd probably go for another of that size. And no , it is not the system drive. But if I am going to get a free replacement from Seagate I will just wait.