Beige G3 Eats HD's

Posted:
in Genius Bar edited January 2014
Two hard drives stopped working this month, after years of use. One was a IBM 28Gb, the other was a Maxtor 80Gb, both ATA/133 and 7200 RPM. Yes, I know, ATA/133 in a beige G3. But it's worked for a year, so that's not the problem. I was able to back up my data because I noticed the main drive acting up. I removed the old drive, but now, after almost a week of using it, the backup drive won't boot. Both drives sound like they have a mechanical problem, lots of loud clicking immediately after spin-up, and the Maxtor spins at lower RPM after the clicking. Has anyone heard of a problem that would cause this (Ventilation in a beige G3, software incompatibilities, etc.), or is it just coincidence? <img src="graemlins/hmmm.gif" border="0" alt="[Hmmm]" /> Two HD"s in 1 week!



PS: I do have NAVirus utilities and TTPro. Both could not find anything wrong when I scanned between drives.

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 10
    eugeneeugene Posts: 8,254member
    Just a question...Are you using a 40 pin ATA cable or one rated for ATA 100/133 drives?
  • Reply 2 of 10
    ebbyebby Posts: 3,110member
    Ah, 80 pin cable. Came with the drive.



    Edit- Well now, actually I have a 80 pin for the main HD, but I just saw the 40 pin I used for the second drive.



    [ 05-24-2002: Message edited by: Ebby ]</p>
  • Reply 3 of 10
    powerdocpowerdoc Posts: 8,123member
    Do you have an electrical protection device : each time there is a microcut of the electricity it's damage the HD : the heads of the HD hit the plate and destroy a small part of it.

    If you want to protect your HD you need a n electrical protection.
  • Reply 4 of 10
    ebbyebby Posts: 3,110member
    Yes, a APC 350 battery backup. However, my house has frequent power spikes. Although I trust the company somewhat* I will check the device.



    *APC can't program squat if their life depended on it, but their hardware is good.
  • Reply 5 of 10
    ebbyebby Posts: 3,110member
    Nope. The APC device works OK. I ran an 15Amp air compressor, that dropped the line voltage from 110VAC to around 60VAC. (BTY I normally have the compressor on a different circuit.)
  • Reply 6 of 10
    ebbyebby Posts: 3,110member
    Oh my gosh. #3 blew today. This brings the total to 188Gb of data lost. I'm beginning to suspect power spikes again. Thanks for the help, but I never won fighting my bad luck. I'll stick with my laptop for a while. Again, thanks for all the help.
  • Reply 7 of 10
    rogue27rogue27 Posts: 607member
    That problem sounds familiar with a beige G3 my family owns.



    We had a power spike (actually the transformer outside our house actually exploded one day) and after that point, our CD ROM drive started functioning poorly, and we thought it or the controller on the mobo was damaged, so we bought an SCSI drive and a cable and used that. It worked fine for a while.



    Then we started seeing menus open at random and strange errors would come up on the computer. Sometimes it appeared that someone else was controlling it. It eventually reached a point where it was hard to turn on (we usually left it on though) and one day, we turned it off and it would not reboot.



    It got into a 4-stage cycle.



    Power on - Crash Sound

    Reboot - Hd Clicks hard and whirrs like it is broken

    Reboot - Crash sound

    Reboot - Starts booting and then says there is a PCI Error.



    We sent it to be repaired.



    man on phone: "bad mobo $700 to fix"

    Us: "are you sure?"

    Man on phone: "I'll check again"



    Call back:

    Man on Phone: "Some ram was bad, remove it and it works fine."



    It's been good ever since then, and even the old CD ROM drive we thought was toasted still works and has since been swapped back in because I think the new SCSI one was getting slow.
  • Reply 8 of 10
    alcimedesalcimedes Posts: 5,486member
    hmm, i was going to suggest you might have a problem with your power supply. if there was something wrong between the UPS and the computer, then there's nothing the UPS could do about it.



    it could be sending all the clean power in the world to no avail if your power supply is crapping it out on the other end.



    the RAM suggestion is interesting, not sure why they would cause the problem, but i've heard of bad RAM doing weirder stuff than that.



    do you have an extra power supply around that you could swap out? or know of any way to test it?



    that would be the first place i'd be looking if i were in your shoes.



    -alcimedes
  • Reply 9 of 10
    ebbyebby Posts: 3,110member
    [quote]Originally posted by alcimedes:

    <strong>hmm, i was going to suggest you might have a problem with your power supply. if there was something wrong between the UPS and the computer, then there's nothing the UPS could do about it.



    it could be sending all the clean power in the world to no avail if your power supply is crapping it out on the other end.



    the RAM suggestion is interesting, not sure why they would cause the problem, but i've heard of bad RAM doing weirder stuff than that.



    do you have an extra power supply around that you could swap out? or know of any way to test it?



    that would be the first place i'd be looking if i were in your shoes.



    -alcimedes</strong><hr></blockquote>



    Well, this never occurred to me. And so simple/obvious. <img src="graemlins/surprised.gif" border="0" alt="[Surprised]" /> I do have a spare power supply that may work. I'll try it.
  • Reply 10 of 10
    alcimedesalcimedes Posts: 5,486member
    let me know if it works. although it will probably be tough to tell for a while.



    -alcimedes
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