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Western Digital Caviar 21200 going bad?

T

Tr3vor

Experienced Member
Joined
Feb 7, 2012
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Jerome, ID
Well, I have a WD IDE hard drive, a caviar 21200. its 1.2GB and I have MSDOS 6.22 on it.

It's my favorite drive, just because of how it looks and sounds, its just cool... but lately when it does its start up seek test it makes a clink noise and the seek test goes longer. The first time that happened I thought it died, but it still booted and I ran scandisk. the surface scan didn't find any bad sectors or anything wrong wrong with it. I can still use it and nothing unusual happens.

do any of you know if this a sign of failure?

Also, I have this IBM model M keyboard, and the lights on it doesn't work, and when I use the keyboard test in a computer diagnostic/benchmark program thing called PCPRO, it fails. my other keyboard is just fine, so it isn't the computer... but the keyboard works just fine when I type with it. Sometimes the Caps Lock light will work, but just for a few seconds, then shut off again. IDK whats up with that. I was gonna take it apart and take a look, but I don't have the right screwdriver for it, and none of the sockets for my dad's ratchet will fit inside the small holes for the screws.

EDIT: I made a video of it and the keyboard: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cIcrcmNqfgw the third time the drive starts up in the video, it works normally.
 
Tr3vor said:
the surface scan didn't find any bad sectors or anything wrong wrong with it. I can still use it and nothing unusual happens.
Click to expand...
FWIW, this drive does not show bad sectors. It automatically replaces known bad sectors with sectors that are reserved at the end of the drive for just such a purpose. Not until all these 'reserve' sectors are used up will it actually show a bad sector. So, if you do see bad sectors, it's only one of very many and you may consider the drive ... shot!
 
I have a Maxtor hard drive that has bad sectors, that one used to be my dos hard drive, then I switched to this one. But I don't think that bad sectors would mess with the seek test. But that click/ting sound just makes me cringe every time it starts up.
 
that sucks, I really liked this one... might have to copy everything back to the other maxtor 1 gb drive that has bad sectors.

I guess I'll be looking for another western digital caviar drive of around that size :p :(
 
Also, why does Maxtor have a bad reputation, I see tons of people on the internet/youtube dissing on maxtor, I've had quite a few maxtor drives, and none of them failed on me.
 
Some Maxtors had issues with the power control circuitry, leading to interesting "singing" noises, eventually leading to failure. Google "singing Maxtor" for details.
 
Huh, that's odd. That sort of reminds me of that alarm sounding noise that IBM HDDs, that are in laptops (like my Dell Latitude), make when the heads get stuck to the platter (I think).

Do you know how far back this issue goes? does it affect IDE drives like around 2-3 GB? I've had this 3gb maxtor thats been in my computer since it was made, and it still works.

Failing hard drive are kinda creepy, you never know when they will strike...
 
the 3gb one is probably around '97. I also have one thats like 2gb from 2000, but that one has bad sectors so I tend to not use that one...

but if there are MFM drives that do that, I'll bet that mine would be in the singing-prone area, hopefully that never happens...

what would the most reliable HDD maker be for hard drives around 1-3gb? I want reliable stuff :p
 
I've got an old Maxtor 1924 SCSi that sometimes just maked no attempt to spin up and sometimes spins up fine. Any advice?
 
marcoguy said:
I've got an old Maxtor 1924 SCSi that sometimes just maked no attempt to spin up and sometimes spins up fine. Any advice?
Click to expand...

What else is in the system? My first thought is a heavily loaded system would not be supplying sufficient power at the time the drive checks. If so, many older SCSI models had jumpers to delay drive startup until the other components stopped their initial startup surges. Check that the power connector isn't pulling loose; resolder it if it is. Other causes are more complex to fix and I will defer to people who have succeded at it. Also, double check termination.

Are you sure that the drive is from Maxtor? Is it 2GB full height 5.25"? Maxtor doesn't seem to have any drives numbered that way in my records but Micropolis does. Micropolis drives were not well made when a 2GB drive would have been released so having your drive work sometimes at close to 20 years old is impressive.
 
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Oh, my mistake! It is Micropolis. It is in my 5160 with an IBM HH floppy drive and a HD floppy drive. I just looked at it a second ago. It is very similar to the drive Chuck linked to. He linked to the 1924-15. This is just 1924. It is 2.4GB and sounds like a jet plane with sort of a whine when it starts up. The only two older hard drives I have are this and an ST-225. This thing is in an ST02 SCSI controller with BIOS 3.2 that does support non-Seagate drives.
 
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Chuck(G) said:
leading to interesting "singing" noises, eventually leading to failure. Google "singing Maxtor" for details.
Click to expand...
Yep, that's the infamous "Maxtor Music" you'll see in some videos. I've got three Maxtors that do that. They sound really neat when they're all plugged in and turned on at the same time.

I may have a WD drive that is around the 1-1.2gb mark. I'll check later, and I really do think at one point I did have a Caviar 2100.
 
Tr3vor said:
What's the general price range for those sizes of WDC drives?
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Then or now? I don't recall them as being expensive back then--your typical consumer-grade IDE drive, along with the Seagates and Maxtors. I've got a shelf full of various sub-4GB IDE drives--they just sort of accumulated like lint. I suppose that I ought to get rid of some of them, seeing as how they're not used.
 
I'm foreign, but I got 2 boxes of sub-20Gb drives (from 100Mb to 20Gb, lots of 1-4Gb drives) for $10.
If I was closer I'd just send you one.
 
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