Uncreative Labs

Joined: 04 Jun 2006 Posts: 23 Location: Poland

Maybe someone here will help...

Drive at start don't propetly.
When it don't work propetly I can't boot from it and I can't run some files from it
('Data error reading...') but I can dir directories and acces them.

I have done all tests by SpeedStor utility (including various media analise tests), and low level formated.
I made partition and formatted it. Still no bad sectors.

Joined: 19 Apr 2006 Posts: 261 Location: WisConSin

That can be caused by one of two things
1. You MUST park your hard drive (and your not)
2. Your hard drive is tired or suffering from minor stiction and needs to heat up before it will operate reliably.

If you have a problem with the drive even when it is properly parked. Your best bet is to boot off a floppy disk with a disk parking utility.

Access the C: drive once booted it may give garbage then run the disk parking utility and reboot using the C: drive (not the floppy this time).

Your machine should run OK after that. If not repeat until it does, some worn hard drives need to warm up 5-10 minutes before they will work properly.

Good Luck

Joined: 04 Jun 2006 Posts: 23 Location: Poland

I forgotten to say, that after 'warm up' drive is 100% OK.
I have tried parking, and reebooting but this help only for ~20 mins after shuting down the computer.

Joined: 19 Apr 2006 Posts: 261 Location: WisConSin

Yep, your drive is "tired"

There is NOTHING that can be done within reason except live with the problem.

The cause is that the drive is getting "Sticky" hence sticktion and needs to warm up enough so the old grease allows the platter to spin at its rated speed. What will eventually happen is the drive will become stuck and not spin up without help.

Sorry but there aren't many good solutions to sticktion

Joined: 28 Feb 2006 Posts: 127 Location: LI, NY

That's basically what happened to my 2 MFM drives. The one I can get started if I manually spin it and then turn the computer on. The other one? A big heavey paper weight.