hi i have an ibm deskstar 40 gb hard drive sitting in my computer . it's about 1 yr old and already it's making ticking noises when i boot the computer sometimes. i have replaced the ide cable, and done other things. when the ticking noises happen, the computer boots up and says "Primary master disk fail. Reboot" I reboot and sometimes the computer boots up normally. I don't think i have any device conflicts and all my hardware and software is pretty new (<1yr old). A friend says the drive may be dying. if this is the case, what brand of hard drives should i look into?

Not much doubt about it, the drive has a problem of some sort. The key is the boot failure. It may, or may not, get any worse but the chances of a total failure at some point are pretty high. As a for-what-it's-worth on drive brands, I've used Western Digital drives for 8 years now (16 of them in various sizes and configurations) and have never had an issue with any of them. Trip

ok thanks i'll look into that. it's done this acouple times in the past and then all of a sudden recovered and performed normally. i'll make a copyof the drive just in case...

I too like Western Digital drives even though they like to be single drives preferably.

The IBM Deskstars have been prone to failures of some kind since their release. I have a 75GXP in my system and it's been in there without any problems for over two years now, but this is simply because mine doesn't get hot. Take the cover off your PC and feel how hot the IBM drive is after it has been running for a few hours, and you'll find it's almost too hot to touch, far hotter than any other hard drive I've ever had. The solution is simple. Take a fairly standard Athlon XP heatsink/fan combo, and strap it to the drive using a few strong cable ties, with a bit of heat transfer paste between the heatsink and the drive, making as much contact with the drive as possible. Make sure you power the fan too. Now, my drive is always cold to the touch.I did this after my 75GXP began to produce I/O and data errors, and on occassion would not even boot, this being only 6 months after I installed it. Since then with the hatsink/fan fitted it has been totally faultless for over 18 months, and shows no sign of problems at all.Hope this helpsChris E, ENGLANDhttp://www.circle-software.co.ukAvoid AGP texturing = Better Performance ;)

Wasn't there a class action lawsuit on those IBM Deskstar drives? I've never owned one but I thought I read about it somewhere. One thing those Deskstars really broke new ground years ago with their capacity. I can remember when they came out with 15-20 Gig storage sizes--that size capacity was beyond belief back then.I still stick with the the old tried and try WD drives. Might be some faster or a bit larger but they've always worked well for me.David

I use Maxtor, and love it. And the best part is, I have 2 maxtors running in my puter and they work just fine, unlike Western Digital. And the same in my Dads computer, he is running 2 40 gig Haxtor HDDs and hey work fine.My money(and my dads ;-)) is with Maxtor.

ok thanks guys. 1st i'll check into getting a hard drive cooler and then a new drive as a last resort.;)

Good luck to you :)And I would like to clarify my WD statement in my first post in this thread. It should have read: And the best part is, I have 2 maxtors running in my puter and they work just fine, unlike how Western Digital acts with 2 HDDs(typically).

Don't bother with an off the shelf 'hard drive cooler', they're pretty useless. Just get a bog standard Athlon XP (say 1800 XP) heatsink/fan combo and use as I described above. It costs about

okay, but the drive probably died at about 9:15 pm saturday, because i never have got it up and running since then.now let's all have a moment of silence...:(now that's over, i can maybe get a bigger and better hard drive...;)

Oh man, that sucks. Enjoy your bigger HDD ;-)

Doh! Too late. Maybe next time...Chris E, ENGLANDhttp://www.circle-software.co.ukAvoid AGP texturing = Better Performance ;)