Re: Unexpected Hard Disk Spin Down

Atlas wrote:
Check BIOS setup and see if there is a setting to clear NVRAM one time for the next boot. See if the problem persists. Note that the disk should be set to Automatic mode in BIOS setup. Anything else can cause problems.

It is a very restricted BIOS compared to Desktop's... and there's no setting neither for NVRAM nor about disk's power management......

In Device Manager, check the disk controller, primary IDE channel and verify that the setting is DMA if available, and the current mode is Ultra DMA Mode X where X is probably 5 for the disk.


Yes it is set to Ultra DMA Mode 5....

Otherwise, I think you are going to have to bite the reinstall of the OS to eliminate the new board. If your OS disk allows a repair install, do that if you can.


Why then the same problem arises when booting from DOS???



Well, I, umm, cough, snort, sort of overlooked that, if it is a true dos boot. How did you determine that the drive actually went into standby in DOS? What did you do to power up the drive in DOS or did it suddenly spin up on the next DOS command, noticeably delaying the command execution?

Did Toshiba supply you with a BIOS update to correct the original problem or was that a technician's setup disk for the mainboard/CPU that you used?

You might want to get a diagnostic like Everest, Sandra, etc, and see what you actually have in that new mainboard. If this board supports many different CPUs/displays, etc., it could well have been set up incorrectly by Toshiba(that bank of DIP switches particularly - although they usually only affect the display).

The reason I discount HD failure is that the Hitachi diagnostic showed nothing wrong. Does your BIOS support SMART, and did the BIOS or the Hitachi diagnostic show any SMART failures? What happens if you reinstall the OEM drive? If the original drive shows similar behavior, then the mainboard might not have been set up properly by Toshiba or has errors.

Does the drive shut down under load if you copy large files taking more than a minute, write a CD from a disk image, etc? And, how does the drive spin up during Windows boot if it is spinning down at some point?

Lastly, I suspect (but don't actually know) that once Toshiba service asked that the OS be reinstalled, you are going to have to do that anyway to satisfy your next call to Toshiba to make any progress with them. IOW, you might just do a repair install, if you can, and get that over with and out of the way.

OTOH, you can also try updating just the chipset drivers, if you haven't already, just to be sure the board drivers are correct.

Q
.

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