Subject: Re: dead HD

From: [email-masked] (Bruce Perens)
Date: Tue, 20 Aug 96 12:33 PDT

From: [email-masked] (James W. Lynch)
> can a Motherboard/IDE controller (onboard) destroy a disk drive?

The sound you heard from the disk drive is probably the arm that holds
the heads seeking repeatedly to the point that it hits the stop at one
end of its travel. It can hit that stop repeatedly at 100 Hz or so if
it is persistent. Floppy disks do this as a matter of course, but hard
disks aren't expected to when they are working correctly.

What I think happened is you set the heads/cylinders/tracks differently
when you set up the BIOS in the new motherboard, or these settings got
altered just before the problem showed up. If you are lucky, you can put
them back and everything will magically get better. I suggest you test that
drive on another system if they don't get better.

And sure, a motherboard can burn out a drive electrically. It's more
unlikely that a sequence of BIOS commands to the drive could injure it.
I don't think you'd hear _that_ sound if you had an electrical problem.

	Thanks

	Bruce