SOLVED Please Help - HD Runs Continuously After Update

[mhumm2]

My Kubuntu HD runs non-stop after booting Kubuntu. Naturally, the system is now very slow and I can hearI the read head moving from what sounds like the park position back to reading the surfaces. I can also hear the drive rpm changing from stopped or very slow to full speed. The latter sounds like a a CD Rom drive spinning up to speed. I know this is not correct, but how can I determine if this is a hardware malfunction or something else? I just installed the newest system update via Adept before I noticed this problem.

mhumm2

[Duggeek]

Re: Please Help - HD Runs Continuously After Update

In my experience, a hard drive should spin at a constant rate and only make noises during reads & writes.

My first guess would be your first guess as well... malfunction.

It could be that the drive is trying to auto-correct itself, as most modern hdd's tend to do, but if it's auto-correcting constantly, then you may have the first signs of a catastrophic drive failure.

The one thing that tipped me off was how you mentioned the drive spinning-down and spinning-up over and over. That's not normal; it's as if the drive-motor can no longer maintain the proper RPMs... but as you can see, the little bugger sure keeps trying!

It may not fail soon, but it's likely that the performance will continue to get worse before the very end.

Disk prices are very reasonable, so if you can muster up anywhere from thirty to a hundred bucks, you'd be better off with a brand-new drive. It's likely you'll get more storage than what you paid on the old drive anyway.

One of my favorite places for cheap, clean, brand-new hardware: http://www.geeks.com

If there's one nearby, some of the big outlets will test your drive for free. Even the smaller 'ma-and-pa' outfits will be glad to have a look at it. Get a second opinion from them, and who knows? Some places even give you a discount for trading-in an older drive. (they re-use the aluminum cases)

Good luck,
- Douglas

[mhumm2]

SOLVED: Please Help - HD Runs Continuously After Update

Duggeek;

Thanks so much for the quick response. Well, I figured it out and you'll never guess what the problem was? No, it was NOT my hard drive although I wonder about the stress it's been through. I'm sure it decreased it's MTBF or it's life expectancy.

I removed Mythtv from my system yesterday morning! Yep, that was the problem because not all of the program was deleted. After rebooting and bringing up the command: ps -e I found Mythtvbackend and several other mythtv files. Once I deleted them and rebooted, my system HD is calm and the OS is responding quickly to everything.

Thanks again.

mhumm2