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

[JavaDancer]

Ever since I have installed a 320GB Seagate ST3320620AS, I have noticed mysterious sudden Power Offs. APC Powerchute does not report any power problems. Luckily Iconverted to NTFS and the system comes up as if nothing had happened. The disc shows no problems with CHKDSK or Defrag. I even ran a long test with SeaTools. --------------- SeaTools for DOS v1.09PH --------------- Device 0 is Seagate device ST3320620AS 6QF1Q804 On nVidia nForce4 SATA Device is 48 Bit Addressed - Max LBA 625142448 ( 320.073 GB ) This drive supports Security Features SMART Is Supported And ENABLED SMART Has NOT Been Tripped DST Is Supported Logging Feature Set Is Supported POH 68 Current Temp 42 Worst Temp 46 Start Short Test on 11/27/2007 @ 6:33.49 Starting Short DST Short Test PASSED on 11/27/2007 @ 6:35.3 --------------- SeaTools for DOS v1.09PH --------------- Device 0 is Seagate device ST3320620AS 6QF1Q804 On nVidia nForce4 SATA Device is 48 Bit Addressed - Max LBA 625142448 ( 320.073 GB ) This drive supports Security Features SMART Is Supported And ENABLED SMART Has NOT Been Tripped DST Is Supported Logging Feature Set Is Supported POH 68 Current Temp 43 Worst Temp 46 Start Read Scan on 11/27/2007 @ 6:45.13 [LBA 422101471 Repaired ] Read Scan Repaired 1, Skipped 0 and 0 Failed Repair Read Scan PASSED After Repair on 11/27/2007 @ 10:48.23 PowerChute reports I am now using between 90 & 93 watts as opposed to 96 to 99 watts before the change. The telling evidence is the System Event Log. When it 'crashes' there is no entry: Event Type: Information Event Source: EventLog Event Category: None Event ID: 6006 Date: 12/1/2007 Time: 12:34:14 AM User: N/A Computer: PREFERRE-69E7F1 Description: The Event log service was stopped. For more information, see Help and Support Center at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/events.asp. Data: 0000: ff 00 00 00 ÿ... Which normally appears before the next: Event Type: Information Event Source: EventLog Event Category: None Event ID: 6009 Date: 12/1/2007 Time: 11:05:19 AM User: N/A Computer: PREFERRE-69E7F1 Description: Microsoft (R) Windows (R) 5.01. 2600 Service Pack 2 Uniprocessor Free. For more information, see Help and Support Center at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/events.asp. and Event Type: Information Event Source: EventLog Event Category: None Event ID: 6005 Date: 12/1/2007 Time: 11:05:19 AM User: N/A Computer: PREFERRE-69E7F1 Description: The Event log service was started. For more information, see Help and Support Center at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/events.asp.

[joekrahn]

You should check the drive's SMART data, i.e. using smartctl (http://smartmontools.sourceforge.net/). You can look at the attributes for evidence of reallocated sectors, or logged I/O errors. However, it would be surprising for a drive to cause a power-off unless you are already close to your power-supply's maximum output. In that case, I expect that it would happen when the drive spins up. If so, is the drive set to save power by spinning down, and causing a power-off when it spins back up?

[JavaDancer]

I don't think there is anything seriously wrong with the drive.
There is a complication with the original HD being under control of
Phoenix FirstWare Recover 2004.
There is a 10.23GB FAT partition labled cME (Core Managed Environment) on the original HD.
See: http://www.phoenix.com/NR/rdonlyres/349940B9-A6F5-424F-B705-71F574A2221D/0/fw_rec_pro_faq_2004.pdf
or
http://linuxdevices.com/products/PD7672938373.html

Unfortunately I don't think I have the Install disks, so as far as I know, I can't stop or modify the software.

This made it very hard to Clone the drive.

--------------- SeaTools for DOS v1.09PH ---------------
Device 0 is Seagate device ST3320620AS  6QF1Q804      
On nVidia nForce4 SATA
Device is 48 Bit Addressed - Max LBA 625142448 ( 320.073 GB )
This drive supports Security Features
SMART Is Supported And ENABLED
SMART Has NOT Been Tripped
DST Is Supported
Logging Feature Set Is Supported
POH 68  Current Temp 43  Worst Temp 46
Start Read Scan on 11/27/2007 @ 6:45.13
[LBA  422101471 Repaired    ]
Read Scan Repaired 1, Skipped 0 and 0 Failed Repair
Read Scan PASSED After Repair on 11/27/2007 @ 10:48.23

So, I bought an EVEN BIGGER Maxtor Sata.
It runs a little hotter.  Seems to draw a little more power, but I cloned it from the Seagate 320GB!
I was able to get rid of the cME partition
BUT, I was able to recover the original setup from Nov 2005!  That is not exactly what I wanted, or very valuable.

--------------- SeaTools for DOS v1.09PH ---------------
Device 0 is Seagate device MAXTORSTM3500630AS  6QG0Y1G1     
On nVidia nForce4 SATA
Device is 48 Bit Addressed - Max LBA 976773168 ( 500.108 GB )
This drive supports Security Features
SMART Is Supported And ENABLED
SMART Has NOT Been Tripped
DST Is Supported
Logging Feature Set Is Supported
POH 21  Current Temp 51  Worst Temp 52
Start Read Scan on 12/5/2007 @ 1:17.52
[LBA  230836437 Repaired    ]
Read Scan Repaired 1, Skipped 0 and 0 Failed Repair
Read Scan PASSED After Repair on 12/5/2007 @ 3:55.41

The Maxtor seems stable and I don't recall it suddenly powering down.
But when I try to run both at the same time....
It boots r....e....a.....l....        s......l.....o......w.................
and CPU utilization goes to 100%

This machine has a relatively small power supply rated at 350W while APC never reports more than 120w being used, it idles around 96w.
Changed how the power cables connect.
I'm wondering if there is some way the Seagate suddenly draws enough power to cause the CPU to stall or
maybe the power supply to power down?
mobo is K8N Neo4-F v1.9 090905 9:45;55 /w AMD 3200+ 1GB PC3200 DDR400