Oh, we'll manage it I'm sure.

On the topic of HDs, I'm about to get a new one I think. Finally replacing Parkinson, which is the one that's failed on me twice before, and is about to give up the ghost again. Found out with uTorrent actually. It's set to store downloads on Parkinson, and for a while now it's been using a lot of CPU. After searching a bit about that, I saw one suggestion that it might be because the HD may be failing. So downloaded the diagnostic tool from Maxtor, which reported that this thing may be more useful as a paperweight soon.

So time to get a new one methinks.

Edit: And yeah, after moving the torrents folder to another HD (Downs), uTorrent stopped hogging the CPU. So that was the problem.
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Still using the sick HD naming scheme I see! I'm sure your HDs keep failing on you purely because of their names!

It's interesting to hear that failing HDs can cause uTorrent to use excessive CPU time. I haven't encountered that myself yet.
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The naming scheme is a testament to how I viewed PCs back when I first moved over to them from Amigas. That's when I first named the computer Alzheimer. Later it became the HD name instead, and as I got new HDs I kept using similar names. Still do, though I view PCs in a slightly better light these days.

I would never have guessed that the HD could be blamed for that either. And the FAQ on uTorrent's homepage doesn't mention it either. It does mention that it can happen when it is used in conjunction with Avast, which I do. So looked into that dead end for quite a while before I started searching the net for answers. Eventually found that suggestion on some forum somewhere.
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Does the Maxtor diagnostic tool only test Maxtor drives? Is it called PowerMax? If so I should have it somewhere. I have quite a few Maxtor drives so really should run it on them just to check them. But I also have some Seagate and *whispers* IBM drives I would like to test too just to make sure they are all OK.
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Don't know if it does. It was actually quite a pain to use, you have to put it on either a floppy or a CD and boot into it. And performing a full scan of this 120GB HD took forever, about an hour. And when it was done, it just stated that the drive has problems and gave a code.

And, did you know Maxtor has been bought by or merged with Seagate now? I found out when I got this diagnostic code from the tool, and was told to enter that into a form on the Maxtor pages to see what it was and if any warranty would cover it. Well that form didn't exist any more "since we're now part of Seagate" it links to a page on Seagate instead. That wants you to run their tool to find the problem with the drive. Which in the end I couldn't be bothered to do.
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Yeah I did know the two companies had merged. They are still manufacturing both brands of HD though which is a slightly odd move I thought when surely they will both end up using the exact same technology? or will they?

I did just have a quick look for diagnostic tools and saw Seagate have one called Seatools. So I may give that a go. They seem to even have a version that will run from your browser and test the HD. The link to the Seatools is at http://www.seagate.com/ww/v/index.js...00dd04090aRCRD
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The browser based one is quite cool, there's an option of a 2 minute quick scan or a 20 minute detailed scan. It seems to test all manufactures HDD (or at least the ones I've tried).

I did something a bit naughty like that a while back with a motherboard.
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Sounds good. I'll be sure to check that one out sometime then.

Not going to bother now as I've allready decided to just replace the HD with a new one. It's 4-5 years old anyway, and has failed a couple of times before so it's obviously no point to keep using it.

Maybe I'll format it and auction it off. It has worked fine for quite a while after formatting before, after all.
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Sounds good. I will definitely give it a try later. The site says it works for IE and Netscape, but fails to mention any other browser. For some reason I don't feel happy letting IE7 "check" my drives.
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It works fine with Firefox, although the plugin's a bit clunky to install (it requires you to download an installer, then can't find netscape so dumps the plugin on the desktop which can then be copied into %programfiles%/Mozilla Firefox/plugins/ and then restarting Firefox)
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