Start-up takes forever after adding HD's

[Jamie74]

[svcglobal]

Re: Start-up takes forever after adding HD's

Probably one or more of the added drives got some bad index. Try to do in a DOS Command Prompt a CHKDSK /F on all added drives. Usually it fixes that kind of issue.

[Lsdmeasap]

Re: Start-up takes forever after adding HD's

That and I would test the health of each drive as well >>>
HD Health

[Jamie74]

Re: Start-up takes forever after adding HD's

OK then.
Chkdsk didn't find a problem. HD Health did not work (no version available for Vista64) so I used HD-Tune instead. This gives insight in the SMART status. Found a yellow warning on both Samsung discs for an item B8, which is an unknown item so I still know nothing. However, one of the Samsungs also gave a warning on the Reallocated Sector Count, which is more serious. Since both discs are only 2 months old, I will RMA them ASAP.
In the meantime, I have done some searches and it seems like many many people are having serious problems with Samsung Spinpoint F1 discs. They are fast, they are quiet, but they are unreliable, seems to be the general experience.
The weird part is that when I booted my system this morning, it booted flawlessly. Since I had already emptied my discs for the RMA, I decided to give them both a complete format. Will let you know what I find when I get back home tonight en run HD-Tune again.
Thanks for your help so far!

[Lsdmeasap]

Re: Start-up takes forever after adding HD's

Did checkdisk run on reboot? If not you did not do it properly

That is the version I am using on my x64 vista that I linked you to >>>



But since you did find some sector issues, ya it is good to RMA now!

I buy only Seagates for sure, havent had a issue in years!

[Jamie74]

Re: Start-up takes forever after adding HD's

Checkdisk did run on startup.
Also, I managed to run HD-Health. Apparently Vista-support is not mentioned on the site, but it is actually supported. Resulted in only 86% health status for both Samsung disks... yikes!
So I sent out the disks for RMA. My supplier says it will probably take 2 to 5 weeks before I get them back, either repaired or replaced. I hope for replacements of course, I don't like the idea of refurbished harddisks. Unfortunately, I cannot exchange them for another brand or type. Oh well, I'll just wait. But I don't really like the Samsung guys right now...

Quick other question: if you could choose, which SATA ports would you use? Yellow Intel or purple Gigabyte? Or both?
Like I said, I have 4 SATA disks: 2 Western Digital 160GB disks and 2 Samsung 640GB disks. The Samsungs are the fastest, but at this moment all I have are the WD disks, and the Samsungs will be back in 2 to 5 weeks. That means, that my OS must be on one of the 160 GB disks and the other 160 GB disk will at this moment be for data (the rest of my data is on an external HD and backupped on dvd's). When the Samsungs are back, I will continue to use the first 160 GB disk for my OS, the second 160 GB will be for backup of my OS disk, the first 640 GB disk will be for data, and the second 640 GB disk will be for backup of my data.
Given this configuration, what would be the best ports to connect the various HD's to? And why?

[Lsdmeasap]

Re: Start-up takes forever after adding HD's

Well, I dont necessarily trust the "Health" aspect of it. As you can see it says my Brand new drive is 64% above, it has not even been used more then a week and is brand new you can check the serial and model number as see how new it is.

And it does work perfectly and tests out at 100% health in HDDLife in XP, so This program may not be so great, but it was the only Vista app I knew of to suggest you check with. I thought maybe it would show you 40-50 or less if the drive was bad. Sounds like your drives were fine

So that may have not been your issue at all, have you already shipped them out or just set it up?

I would use the Intel ports for disks and cd/dvd drives and Gigabyte ones for extra anything else. The gigabyte controller is much slower then the Intel one for sure. I used to think the opposite until recently I tested again with newer disks and better tests

[svcglobal]

Re: Start-up takes forever after adding HD's

I agree with Lsdmeasap about the speed of Intel ports but these two Gigabyte are much more reliable.
I was sick tired of having BSOD and errors in Raid0 mainly after sleep mode with Intel and the use of Gigabyte ports cured everything.
Maybe for the fact of been slow, Vista disk access are better managed, go figure!

[Jamie74]

Re: Start-up takes forever after adding HD's

Actually, I don't think my disks were fine. Up to date virus scanners didn't find any threads, yet files were disappearing and my Reallocated Sector Count was getting worse. According to my reseller that was enough reason for RMA, so I sent them out for replacement earlier today.
Thanks for all your comments, will keep you posted about the disks I get back!

[VorLonUK]

Re: Start-up takes forever after adding HD's

You should use WDC Diagnostics for the WDC Drive and any of the other low level utilities for other drives (ie the one's supplied by the manufacturer). The other third-party "windows" utilities are for just monitoring and don't include a repair utility.

You should always try the proper utilities, before sending a drive in for RMA - unless you enjoy the wait that is. Although with Reallocated sector count indicating that the "Spare Sectors" are now being used, is always a concern as you don't know if an area of the drive has been damaged to a point that the drives available spare sectors will cover the amount required.
Some Companies do offer Advance Replacement too.

The tool you need for Samsung Drives:-

http://www.samsung.com/global/business/hdd/support/utilities/Support_HUTIL.html

[Lsdmeasap]

Re: Start-up takes forever after adding HD's

Ahh, Well then since you say files were being corrupted/missing and sector count was going up then ya I guess that does sound bad!

[Jamie74]

Re: Start-up takes forever after adding HD's

You should use WDC Diagnostics for the WDC Drive and any of the other low level utilities for other drives (ie the one's supplied by the manufacturer). The other third-party "windows" utilities are for just monitoring and don't include a repair utility.

You should always try the proper utilities, before sending a drive in for RMA - unless you enjoy the wait that is. Although with Reallocated sector count indicating that the "Spare Sectors" are now being used, is always a concern as you don't know if an area of the drive has been damaged to a point that the drives available spare sectors will cover the amount required.
Some Companies do offer Advance Replacement too.

The tool you need for Samsung Drives:-
SAMSUNG Hard Disk Drive - support - utilities

Thank you for your advice. But the WD drives are not my problem. Also, the Samsung drives I have (HD642JJ) are not supported by the Samsung tool. So I guess there are no "proper" utilities in my situation...
And no, I do NOT really enjoy the wait. I DO enjoy security though

[godto]

Re: Start-up takes forever after adding HD's

i have the same problem with one of my WD drive ... 1 terabyte ... every time i hook that on my system boot up so so slowly ... i format and did everything to that ... still same problem ... so now i use that as external drive and only use when i need to...
you can basicly narrow it down to the drive by slowly add 1 drive at the time and see your boot up time ... also i did had 500w PSU ... and not enought when i had 7 drive , 8 fan, 8800GT .... recomended was 750w .... and switch and did help little