intermittent hard drive noise?

[dhg]

I replaced the hard drive in my DirecTivo a little less than two months ago. Over the last several days, I've noticed noise from the hard drive that comes and goes (at intervals of a few hours, I think) -- a humming sound with varying pitch. At first I thought it was associated with recording, but I'm also getting it when I wasn't recording; then I thought it was associated with garbage collection or indexing, but I'm also getting it at times when the info screen doesn't report recent garbage collection or indexing. Other than that, I haven't observed any misbehavior from the DirecTivo. I'm kind of stumped. Is the drive getting ready to go bad on me already?

[WK-Michael]

It might be failing, or it might just be a little loose on its mount. Maybe reseat it and see if that fixes it.

[dhg]

If it's a mount problem, is it possible that it's provoked by or aggravated by the fact that I have a single drive but I'm using the two-drive twinbreeze bracket? If I recall correctly, the original mounting bracket is affixed by four screws, but the twinbreeze only has two.

Oddly, I notice that pushing on the top of the case changes the noise . . .

[WK-Michael]

Could be, but shouldn't be. The TwinBreeze was designed in part to reduce noise due to vibration, and was tested with both one and two drives toward that goal. But you might try tightening the screws that attach the TwinBreeze to the TiVo case.

[dhg]

I disconnected the drive from the twinbreeze and reconnected it; I disconnected the twinbreeze from the case and reconnected it; I taped the power cable to the twinbreeze; I tightened the fan and case screws; and it all seems to make no difference. The only other things I can think to try are to power it up with the hard drive disconnected (in case it's the fans) or to replace the twinbreeze with the original bracket (in case something associated with the twinbreeze is rattling that I just can't find).

[WK-Michael]

OK - those both sound like good troubleshooting moves.

[dhg]

I haven't tried to run the additional experiments yet. But in the meantime, the unit has started making periodic frog-croaking sounds.

[WK-Michael]

Bad drive, then?

[dhg]

While I'm not very knowledgeable about this, it's hard for me to imagine what else could be causing that noise. So if that's the hard drive, and that's not a noise that the hard drive should be making, I guess it's a bad drive?

[WK-Michael]

That would make the most sense at this point.

[dhg]

I've found a PC with an IDE interface that I ought to be able to use to run diagnostics on this drive. I'm a novice at this -- Does the fact that there's an IDE interface mean I can just hook up the drive and boot from a diagnostic floppy? Or are there multiple kinds of IDE cables, different voltage levels, or something else that means there's some work to do to determine compatibility?

[WK-Jeff]

You should be able to get a standard IDE cable and test your drive using a floppy.

[dhg]

While I was looking around for a PC to use, I reduced my use of the Tivo -- made fewer recordings, turned off suggestions, and started putting the Tivo in standby when I wasn't using it. The noises seem to have stopped. Nonetheless, I hooked it up to the PC and ran the SeaTools long tests. They reported no problems. I contacted Seagate via email for additional help, and after first telling me I should contact the Tivo manufacturer to see whether the noises are normal, they seem to have disclaimed any responsibility for assessing the condition of the drive (an ST3400820ACE purchased through WeaKnees):

SeaTools is meant to test standard distribution drives, not non-standard OEM consumer electronic device drives like this one. This drive was built according to the specifications given to us by another company, RCA in this case. You really need to speak with them to determine if the sound you hear is normal for this drive in their device. Please contact them for further support.


That seems like a really goofy answer to me.

[WK-Michael]

Maybe the noises are just related to mounting issues. The TiVo is always buffering, so changing the settings, and even putting it in standby doesn't change the fact that it's writing constantly.

[dhg]

Maybe the noises are just related to mounting issues. The TiVo is always buffering, so changing the settings, and even putting it in standby doesn't change the fact that it's writing constantly.

Well, the noises didn't seem to be provoked by any mounting change, and mounting changes didn't seem to make them go away.

When the Tivo is on standby, it is not buffering live TV (I take it off standby and find the buffer has zero length). I recognize that going to standby and turning off recording of suggestions doesn't prevent writing, but it surely reduces it. And it's possible that those changes in my usage have nothing to do with the fact that the noises seem to have gone away.

I'm perplexed that Seagate seems to be saying that they don't provide any tools that can be used to assess the state of this drive. What does WeaKnees use?