Clicking Fujitsu's in AR21S

[jumbles1971]

Please forgive the rant. I'm a little cheesed off at the moment.

I'm on my second AR21S. I rejected the first one because Sony couldn't be bothered to fix it. And now this one has started clicking. All Sony eSupport can suggest is running ScanDisk and Defrag which I did before and it didn't help that time and surprise surprise it hasn't helped this time either. They took the first one in for repair and said they replaced both drives though unfortunately I didn't note down the serial numbers before I sent it away so I doubt they did because they clicked too.

I've even contacted Fujitsu who said they are unaware of any problems with this drive (MHV2100BH PL) and offered no help whatsoever.

If it wasn't under warranty I'd go and buy some new hard drives and install them myself. I'm tempted to buy them and tell Sony to fit them but at the moment I can't afford £150 for new hard drives when the ones that I already have should be working properly.

The only thing I can think of is to have something running that is constantly accessing the hard drive so I can have some peace and quiet. Can anyone suggest something.

thanks
Jumbles

[kee-lo_]

Hi Jumbles,

This was the same story on the FS series, there's a huge thread on it now, but it took a while to get Sony to see the problem: in the end they sent out firmware updates on CD, but that was due to the high volume of complaints about the clicking noise.

[jumbles1971]

I read that post and even downloaded the firmware update that was mentioned. I didn't want to risk installing it though as I didn't download it from either Sony or Fujitsu and a closer inspection of the files suggest it might only be for the MHV2160BT models.

When I contacted Fujitsu they said they'd never heard of the problem and there was no firmware update available for the MHV2100BT.

A few months ago Sony offered to send me a firmware update but it never happened. I've raised another case on eSupport but I'm not going to hold my breath. I might just run Defrag in the background constantly to stop the noise before I go completely ga-ga.

[kee-lo_]

I wouldn't install it, you might damage it.

Defragging is believed to reduce the life of the HDD if done a lot, as they only last x amount of hours.

[Vaio300554]

Hi ,
I can´t help you, but perhaps you can help me?. I have a AR21S with clean harddisk and no OS . I want install my own XP Pro OEM Version. AT POST I read that installed in BIOS? Intel Matrix Storage Manager option ROMv5.7.0.1011 ICH7MR.
I have download from costasp link the raid and sata driver (Intel (R)82801GBM SATA AHCI Controller (Mobile ICH7M) , but the winpxp-setup don´t found the installed harddisk.
When I take the Driver Intel ® 82801GBM SATA RAID Controller (Mobile ICH7MR/DH) created by the folder raid from the download of the preinstalled driver for the AR21S, than the windows-setup ist going until formated the partition C: with data system ntfs. Than the setup to require the Intel Matrix Storage Manager driver to the data medium in drive A: and enter.

The usb-drive A: is not responsive, with enter no reaction. I only can stop the setup with F3.

I think, I need exactly one floppy with data created by Intel Matrix Storage Manager option ROMv5.7.0.1011 ICH7MR.
Thanks for every help.