Things were going too good

Ken Lang · From: Simi Valley, Ca

Dell 8300, XP.

When I booted up this morning got a blue screen. It said IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR EQUAL. Then a bunch of numbers and contact administrator.

Rebooting it said checking G file system. It also said the volume is dirty. It hung after about an hour.

I have 3 drives connected to the computer. The internal C drive. An external maxtor drive named G,
and another external I use only for backup and is normally turned off.

Rebooting again, it went thru the normal paces and my desktop screen is up. However, checking in system restore it says the G drive is off line. In (my computer) it says it needs to be formated.

Any ideas on a fix, of have I lost the drive and what it holds?

Wiz Feinberg · From: Mid-Michigan, USA

The drive (G) may have failed terminally. You can try a few things to be sure. First, unplug the power plug it for a while, leaving the USB cable connected. Turn the power back on after it has plenty of downtime and see if it gets recognized. If not, remove the external drive and freeze it for a couple of hours, inside a large ziplock bag. Take it out after 2 hours, connect it to the power and USB cables, then try again. If it works while cold you'll know that it is suffering from thermal failure, probably in the bearings, and should be replaced. All data will be lost, unless you can copy it to another drive while it is still cold. You may have 10 to 15 minutes before it seizes again, so work quickly.

If freezing the drive doesn't help try a forceful tap on the case, with the power off. Sometimes the heads jam and a sharp tap may free the pickup arm.
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Ken Lang · From: Simi Valley, Ca

Thanks Wiz. I'll give those things a try.

Ken Lang · From: Simi Valley, Ca

1. Hard drive gone. It was a Maxtor. Any ideas for the best brand as replacement. 120 GB would do. 2. I noticed a windows update (1 of) came thru today. I use Mozilla. Now if I hit the enter key computer locks up and says Mozilla not running. I have to get out because nothing works after that. Any Ideas? I had to do this 4 times to hopefully have it work.

Jack Stoner · From: Kansas City, MO

Judging from the many posts on the Dell users forum, the Western Digital drives seem to have the best record.

Joe Harwell · From: "I've never been bad." ........ Many, LA

Yep. Dell had a bad run of Maxtor's for sure a couple of years back.

Did a lab with 25 units. All 25 hdd died within a year.

In warranty, but it is mighty inconvenient.

I don't know exactly when the 8300 was dropped from production but I suspect it might be older than the latest, notorious bad run of Maxtors.

Bad motherboard capacitors is the latest production snafu I've encountered with Dell. But it was across the industry for all brands whose mobo's used a certain suppliers cap. I had 50 units affected by the bad caps.

Quality and quality control...where has it gone.
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Joe in LA

"How far you go in life depends on your being tender with the young, compassionate with the aged, sympathetic with the striving, and tolerant of the weak & the strong; because, someday in life you will have been all of these".

Ken Lang · From: Simi Valley, Ca

I bought a Seagate 250 MB drive today. Hook it up and plug it in, bingo.

Both the Maxtor and the Seagate are external drives. My son stripped the Maxtor down to just the drive and is going to see if he can recover anything.

I like to run 3 drives on my computer. The C drive built in and another to work in and keep active files in. The third drive I keep as a place to backup files now and then. It's too bad I didn't get the recent files on the Maxtor backed up in time. Live and learn.

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