I have a relatively new drive installed in a new computer I just built. I bought the drive about a year ago, but haven't used it until recently. It has been sitting in a box awaiting me and my finances. Finally, a month ago, or so, I have built this new computer to be a Linux fileserver and after running into a series of rather strange problems. Eventually, a pattern has emerged where the MOBO (an ASUS M2N-SLI board) doesn't recognize the drive during a reboot POST. If I cycle power rather than CTL-ALT-DEL then most times the drive shows up. But, no matter how I try, I can't get the Linux bootloader to properly reboot an install. I've tried at least 5 different Linux flavors from Ubuntu, Fedora, OpenSUSE, Slackware, and Mandriva - all having EXACTLY the same problem. Manually reconfig of GRUB doesn't help - and using Linux disk tools shows that the MBR is correctly set up.
Finally, after a number of diagnostics and a huge amount of time digging with a "Live" disk and a number of posts on Linux forums, I and others started suspecting the primary drive as the culprit. I downloaded the latest STD. Sure enough, it reports "SMART has been TRIPPED !!!" and when trying the Long Test - a popup dialog warning is thrown complaining of a overheating issue reported in SMART. The STD shows current temp of the drive during the test to be 33. The drive sits directly in front of an awesome 120mm fan - there is no way it should be overheating, now or ever. After about 52% into the long test, progress area is showing that errors are evident... Therefore, I believe I have a bad drive!!! I shouldn't be too upset, I've had hundreds of drives over the years - many of them Seagates - and I have never had a lemon until now - I consider Seagate as one of the best! According to my invoice from NewEgg (where I bought the drive), this drive has a 5 year warranty.
Anyone have similar experience?
da Lizard
