Thread: Hard Drive not the usual

Originally Posted by saintx

I have finnaly built and tested my computer in house, brought it to my car, and i am having problems with booting.
I have done my research, however I am going to ask THE question anyways. Mounting Vert or Horz?
What I have found(basic summary)
People have had it work for both.
Horizontal leaves the potiential for disc damage.
Vert. reduces potiential for disc damage, however increases chance of skipping.
Shock mounting is bad.

My main question is, what happens when the hard drive skips? Is it like a CD player and it just starts up again, or does windows freeze. I seem to be having more problems of booting windows with the hard drive vert. I get a boot error saying it can not find operating system. Also windows freezes more when it is vertical. However both things also happen when drive is horizontal.
Is there a way of checking for hard drive damage? Just run scanDisc?
I have never had this problem happen in my house.
Any suggestions or ideas would be great.

Have you retried it in the house with the original setup you were using ?

yes i have tried it with the hard drive vert and horz.

no i have not changed hardware, i hope my hard drive isnt bad. it all works in the house. i have only tried it with the car started, would that make a difference? i have a switch so i can turn it on, or just have it start with the car, i have problems with both.

Once again, have you tried putting it back into the house ????

yeah i have put it back in the house and it works. the ide cables have not been moved.

a little background....my computer is in a home made wooden case that can be moved from the car to anywhere easily. I have made it so you can plug it into the wall or the car. i use itps with 70w mini power supply (i forgot the name of it, its not opus its the other one) Epia via 1000, i have 2 fans for cooling, one hard drive Maxtor 120GB, also have a fan controller with temp gauges. I have a dvd-rom but do NOT have it hooked up. (no power, no ide cable)

Originally Posted by saintx

yeah i have put it back in the house and it works. the ide cables have not been moved.

a little background....my computer is in a home made wooden case that can be moved from the car to anywhere easily. I have made it so you can plug it into the wall or the car. i use itps with 70w mini power supply (i forgot the name of it, its not opus its the other one) Epia via 1000, i have 2 fans for cooling, one hard drive Maxtor 120GB, also have a fan controller with temp gauges. I have a dvd-rom but do NOT have it hooked up. (no power, no ide cable)

So you move it back into the house and it works, then I would suggest that you don't have a HD problem, but rather some kind of power problem. You can mount a HD anyway you want and it will work, some people believe that by mounting it vertically you will eliminate the potential problem of the reading head bouncing off the disc when you hit bumps, beacuse it is not moving up and down. Although this is really just a theory.

If I haven't misundestood what you mean, try taking the ITPS out of the equation and seeing if that works.

Are you hardwired into the battery ??? Is your ground good ??

If your ground is weak then you may only be able to get 8 or 9 volts through....

How do i take the itps out of the equation? i need it to make a steady 12v right? or does the PW-70 cableless mini-atx dc to dc power supply make a steady 12V. i hope my itps isnt bad, i guess i will have to find out. maybe a loose connection? i think my ground is good(hard wired to car), i will check my connections to the computer (a power connector plug into computer) I dont have these things hard wired, i am using connectors i got from an electronics store, connectors much like the power plug that goes into a laptop. (dont know the technical term )

i get a good ~12V at the connectors