Hi all!
I have 2 hard drives in my computer: o an 8GB Quantum Bigfoot that came with the computer, Win98 preinstalled (/dev/hda) o a 10GB Maxtor that I bought ~1 year later and installed myself (/dev/hdc) I also have a DVD-ROM (/dev/hdb) and a Zip drive (/dev/hdd) On /dev/hdc I have RH7 on the first half (not gone yet ;-)) and Debian potato on the second (with swap in the middle) Recently when I was in RH using X it began to drag, then just stopped responding. The hd was making a repetitive clicking noise (didn't sound good). I had to kill the power and cold reboot to get the system back. Shortly after that I was in Debian using 'find' to find a file. The same thing happened, except that I was using the console so I saw lots of hdc: IRQ timeout, Device Busy error messages and a some ide1: reset success messages in between. Some of the hdc: messages gave read or write errors on particular sectors. I was thinking that it must be a hardware problem, but my dad said that some low-level disk access programs can have a similar effect on a disk if they try to read/write beyond the end of the disk. Does anyone have any ideas as to whether it is a software or a hardware problem and what I might do to find out (and correct it!)? I'm looking for my warranty information (the drive is ~ 1.5 years old) in case it is hardware and still covered. If I do need a new drive, what would you suggest I consider? What should I flee from? Thanks for any suggestions or ideas you might have, -D
