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Old September 18th 09, 04:08 AM posted to comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage
Rod Speed
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Default I think I've solved my Spin Retry Count problem

Yousuf Khan wrote
Rod Speed wrote
Yousuf Khan wrote


I've also rebooted the system quite a bit more often than I usually do in that time. HD Sentinel is also now
starting to upgrade its Health rating automatically, it had gone down to 40% at its lowest and today it's at 52%.


I've never considered those numbers are very useful, what matters is the raw value.


Well, they seem to be based on the same criteria that we'd use to
judge quality: how many errors are there, and how often do they occur.


The raw numbers for that particular drive dont support those 40% and 52%
claims, particularly with a parameter like spin retry count thats much more
likely to be a problem external to the drive than internal to the drive.

Recently they've been occurring much less frequently, so it's been upgrading its rating for the drive.


It shouldnt have ever given it a 40% with the raw values you posted.

Its much more likely to be a lot more complicated than that.


What else did you change when you moved from IDE to SATA ?


Did you change the motherboard or power supply ?


Neither were changed. Power supply was obviously changed in the
previous round of troubleshooting, so it didn't need to be changed
again. Motherboard and processor remained what they were too; as a matter of fact the reason this change was done was
to eventually upgrade the motherboard and processor down the road -- it's extremely difficult to find new motherboards
with more than one IDE channel anymore, so I am preparing for the next generation. It was difficult to find a
motherboard with two IDE channels (i.e. 4 connectors) the last time too.


Sure, I wondered whether you had changed the motherboard already.

There were 4 SATA connections, and 4 IDE connections. Two SATAs were previously unused, so I just moved two IDEs over
to SATA. The only things left on IDE are the optical drives.


The old thread did say you upgraded the power supply.
Did you see the spin retry count keep increasing after that ?


Yes, it did keep increasing after that. But the PS upgrade fixed many other unrelated problems so I wasn't unhappy
about that.


The only raw value you did post wasnt that high, just 20.


Well, it's gone upto 32 since then -- and holding.


I still find it hard to believe its a cable problem before the change to SATA.