[plug] Failing disk drive

[Gavin Chester]

On Tue, 2008-04-15 at 13:05 +0800, Richard Meyer wrote:
> Thanks to all who replied - I'm going to try the cable replacement thing
> and then get a new drive. 
> 
> They are both WD, but they are not the same size and bought about 6
> months apart.

Richard, another option to consider not mentioned so far ...

yes, if both drives, not identical, not bought at same time, are showing
signs of read/write error, I reckon cable _could_ be the problem if on
the same channel and cable. However, even if they are it could instead
be the drive controller on the mb causing trouble. 

Have you tried a different ide channel, if they currently share the
same? 

What alerted me to this sort of problem was one mb I was using to
rebuild an older system seemed fine in every respect using two drives on
ide#1, but I couldn't get the dvd/cd drive on ide#2 to get all the way
through a burn without borking with copious read/write errors. Tried a
different drive and even a different burn application and it was as bad.
In desperation plugged in a pci pata drive controller card I was lucky
to have on hand and the dvd/cd drive just took off! No read/write error
and burning speeds were phenomenal for the age of the drive :-) Moral:
ide#2 on the mb had somehow become flaky. Worth testing in your case,
maybe.   

BTW: may not stop the annual opening of the wallet if you don't have a
controller card on hand  ;-). Sorry, mine is in use in a system, but
just trying a different box/mb with your same drives would reveal if
controller is an issue, or whether drives themselves. A friend nearby
might be able to oblige their box for testing. 
 
Gavin