Hardware problems show up at two different times in the hard drive's life cycle. You will often see hard drive errors after initially adding a new drive. Problems at this stage are usually caused by incorrect cabling or jumper selections. The first thing to do is to review your installation steps and verify that connections are properly seated, master and slave drives are jumpered and cabled properly and that your drive geometry is correct in your BIOS.
However, another common cause of hardware errors on new installations is that sometimes different brands of hard drives don't play nice together in a master/slave relationship. Try keeping drives from different manufacturers on separate hard drive controllers. Some techs find that it is beneficial to keep all hard drives in any one system the same brand. I have had good experience mixing different brands in my systems, but I don't slave one brand of drive to a master drive of a different brand.
The other time hardware errors show up is when there is a component that is failing. Typical hardware problems for hard disks have symptoms such as:
1- A dead drive (you can't even hear it spin up)
2- Frequent errors during reads and/or writes
3- A "No Fixed Disk Present" error
4- Numeric errors 1701, 1780, 1781, 1790 or 1791 on startup
5- "Hard Disk Controller Failure" message
Some of the same rules apply as with a new drive. First, remove the case and verify that the data (ribbon) cable is properly seated at both the hard drive connection and the motherboard connection. Then check the power cable. If all cables are seated properly, try replacing the ribbon cable with a new one.
If the drive doesn't seem to be getting power, try replacing the power cable. If the drive is connected using a Y power cable, try using a straight through cable instead.
A hard disk controller failure is usually just that. You can substitute an inexpensive expansion card containing a hard drive controller in most OS' or you can replace the motherboard. Be sure that you have tried a new ribbon cable, though, as sometimes a bad cable can cause the system to think there's a problem with the controller.
It's okay to call in the professionals if you feel a bit over your head with any of this. The most important two things you can do as an ordinary user to minimize your risk of data loss due to a hard drive problem are:
1- Back up regularly
2- Run maintenance utilities on a regular basis
Author Resource:
Samet Bilir is an expert in computer and internet technologies. You can read more about his work at www.ucuzlaptopfiyatlari.com , a great website for laptop and netbook computer tips and reviews.
![[Valid RSS feed]](http://www.look4articles.com/images/icon_Rss.png "XML Feed For RSS"){kind=icon}
Category Rss Feed
Print This Article
Add To Favorites
![[Valid RSS feed]](http://www.look4articles.com/images/rss.jpg "XML Feed For RSS")