Barracuda XT, Barracuda, Barracuda Green, DiamondMax and other desktop SATA and IDE drives

[sadgemoon]

I purchased and installed an ST9500421AS (Momentus 7200 FDE.2 500-GB) hard drive into my laptop in September 2009. The drive has the "click, beep, freeze" problem widely reported with the ST9500420AS(G). It sounds and acts exactly as in this example video on YouTube: MacBook pro 7200rpm click + beep + freeze.

My system:

Dell Latitude D820

Intel T2500 @ 2.00GHz

4GB DDR2 SDRAM

The drive I replaced was a Toshiba MK6037GSX. It had Windows XP SP3 with the latest D820 BIOS and drivers from Dell. It ran perfectly (well ... as perfectly as any Windows install can). I cloned the Toshiba to the ST9500421AS using Acronis True Image Home v11. I experienced the click-beep-freeze problem within five minutes after booting to the Windows desktop. Otherwise, it ran fine.

I wiped the ST9500421AS and did a clean install of Ubuntu 9.10 with current updates on it. The click-beep-freeze problem was still evident. Otherwise, it ran fine--although the Palimpsest Disk Utility noted bad sectors; eight, if I recall.

The click-beep-freeze problem is random, i.e. not reproducible by anything other than having the operating system running. It occurs approximately between 4 and 12 times an hour. 

I ran SeaTools v2.17 for DOS and all tests passed.

I have put the Toshiba drive back in and everything is running without error or incident.

Before I request an RMA for the ST9500421AS, is there a fix for this problem?

[Cantbecanit]

Doh, not the problem upon reading again, I don't really know what to suggest tbh, if you still had Windows on it I'd say go the the HDD properties and optimise it for performance, but I see you've put UB on it now and it's still playing up, does it do it when the laptop is running off the wall socket power, or is it a battery only scenario?

Message Edited by Cantbecanit on 01-19-2010 02:44 AM

[sadgemoon]

Thanks for the reply.

The problem occurs both when on wall socket power and when on battery power. 

[Cantbecanit]

In that case I'd be looking to test in a PC, if it works ok there, I'd say either the laptop isn't suitable to run it, or the laptop itself is on it's way out.

[fzabkar]

The clicking and freezing you are reporting appears to be symptomatic of weak read heads or bad sectors. If you zero-fill your drive and run the long test in SeaTools for DOS, any bad sectors may be reallocated.

There is a thread that discusses a Dell firmware update for a clicking issue, but I suspect it relates to the clicking sound during head loading and unloading, ie a power management (APM) problem.

See http://forums.seagate.com/stx/board/message?board.id=ata_drives&thread.id=13411&page=7

[sadgemoon]

Zero-filled, ran the long test, and reimaged the drive.

Still click-beeped.

There were no noises during the three hours or so of zero-filling and testing and reimaging, which leads me to believe there is some interaction with the OS that is causing the problem.

I shut off hard drive power management in Windows (Control Panel>Power Options>Power Scheme>Turn off hard disks: Never), and.it still click-beeped.

As the drive is not Dell OEM, there is no Dell firmware to be had in my case. 

I did see several people on the thread you linked mention RMA'ed replacement drives solving the problem.

I'll give this post a few days and then go for an RMA if no solution is posted. 

Thanks for the suggestions.