This is not enough specs to make a definite diagnosis. However,
a couple things I would try.... reduce the memory to 64 meg or
disable external cache ram. On almost all motherboards using Intel
chipsets like a vx430 or tx430 you can't use more than 64 meg of
ram and still enable external caching. Definitely try the disks
in another computer. Use fdisk and format on the other pc to clean
them up. Really serious disk thrashing (write heads jumping around
a lot) can occur in a PC when the system keeps corrupting its own
memory because it tries to access addresses that don't physically
exist, or it is assigning two addresses to the same physical memory
location, and so it constantly overwrites its own data. Once the
drives have thrashed around for a while, the system may start reporting
disk problems, which can lead sometimes to a lot of disk testing
when the memory should be tested. If the disks check out in another
pc, but won't run in yours after the memory is reduced to 64meg (or
external cache is disabled in cmos setup), I would begin testing
my ram sticks. I usually do this by the brute force R&R method, remove
and replace simms until I find two that work.
As for Maxtor drives, I prefer them actually, especially for small (by
today's standards) sizes like 5 and 6 gig, for their reliability and speed.
I did replace my 5.4 maxtor in my desktop with a super-quiet IBM, though,
because I believe the 5400 rpm maxtors are noisier than most in that class,
(not the noise you describe).
Tom Turak
-----Original Message-----
From: PCBUILD - Personal Computer Hardware discussion List
[mailto:[log in to unmask]]On Behalf Of Sean Jeffries
Sent: Sunday, April 09, 2000 10:07 PM
I have an old Pentium 233-MMX machine that has a bad habit of killing hard
drives. Twice now hard drives that I have put in the machine have gone
bad. The drives run fine at first, but after a couple of days of normal PC
operation, the drives start making a funny noise when I power the machine
on. Both drives were Maxtors.........
When the PC did run, prior to the drives going bad,
it would run fine at first but would shortly start getting
a lot of invalid page faults. Once the hard drives have started making this
sound, I have not tried to put them in another machine to test them, but
could do this if I absolutely need to.
Here's the specs on the machine:
Intel Pentium 233-MMX
96 MB RAM
Creative 3D-Blaster PCI video card
Soundblaster AWE-32 ISA sound card
Generic 56K modem
Hitachi 6x CD-ROM
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