Re: Unexpected Hard Disk Spin Down


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?


I made two tests:
1) Boot from a DOS bootable CD, and wait at command prompt the infamous
minute to state the spin down
2) Booting normally afterwards the BIOS splash screen , but before Windows
XP boot loader; same beheaviour

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?


If you are referring to the CPU stuck @ 600 MhZ, I've used a disk with the
utility that updates the CPU table: The BIOS was allready the latest
version.

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).

I did used Everest to detect mainboard changes: the only two I've found were
the mobo name and the graphic adapter's memory that now sports 64MB instead
of 32. I've asked the service if that could be a problem and I've been told
that Toshiba's service would only replace 100% compatible parts; they've
said that the mobo name could have changed due to newer parts.


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?

Yes, and Hitachi's proprietary utility shows "GOOD" SMART status.

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.

This could be a good idea. Unfortunately I'm using that drive as a backup
unit, but I still can reinstall it and boot from the bootable DOS cd and see
what happens....


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?


The drive spins down only on 1 minute idle. It never stops if in use.

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

I did, installing the latest one straightfully from Intel's site.

I'll go for the drive swap and see what happens, and let you know. Thanks.


.

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