Hard drive problems

[ozanzac 0]

OK, a few weeks ago, I bought a new Western Digital 80 gig, 7200 rpm hard drive with an 8 mb cache.

I installed it, configured it. Got it working, and started to transfer data from my old 10 gig hard drive to the newer hard drive. Everything was seemingly rosy except the total space on the new hard drive was about 75 gig rather than 80. I thought about returning it at that point, and in hind sight, should have, but needed the space right then, right there for a gaming LAN with some mates.

Speed up time until this morning.

I went into my computer, the master hard drive was there, but the new one, which had all my games, most importantly OFP, was nowhere to be found. I checked out the Device Manager to look for a problem, and came up with 'Plus Hardcard II' in the Hard Disk controllers. It had a little yellow exclamation mark (!) and there was nothing in the resources. I never had a 'Plus Hardcard II' installed before and this was the first time I'd ever heard of it.

But my new hard drive was there, it just didn't have a drive letter assigned to it. It was physically there on the system, but not logically.

I re-booted to see if the problem would fix itself. It never did. And the reboot took unusually long.

So I downloaded some Diagnostics tools onto the hard drive that worked. And the tools OK'd the working one, but pointed to the cable as the problem on the non-working but present hard drive. I checked the cables. Switched Master/Slave settings on the hard drives to Cable Select. Restarted, still a slow boot up time. Re-diognosed everything again. Still thumbs down, then set everything back to how it was, tried again, still slow boot up and thumbs down. So I took it out of the rig, made sure that it was physically OK on the outside, pins, circuitry e.t.c.

Basically, I've tried everything to get this hard drive back on line. Switching cable positions, checking and rechecking the cable e.t.c. I'm convinced it's not the ribbon that connects the hard drives to the motherboard. As the working hard drive works when it's connected up as the master or slave. And since then, when the 80 gig hard drive is connected at all the computer will refuse to reboot, so it's disconnected, ready to be yanked out and taken back to the place of purchase for replacement, but I'm hesitant to do this as theres a few gig of precious addons I don't wish to download again.

I need someone else's opinion as to wheather the hard drive is a dud, because I've done everything in my power to prove otherwise, and will return it on Thursday if any of your suggestions, which I hope you give, don't work either.

Sorry for the length of the post, but I've tried everything I know and then some more, including a system restore and am now seathing because of the data that seems to have been lost, because it's taken ages to acquire.

It's frustrating as all hell not being able to identify the problem, and any help and/or suggestions would be welcome.

[theavonlady 2]

I would think that the cheapest and fastest test you could do right now is to try a new cable that connects from the primary to the secondary (note politically correct terms ) drive.

[ozanzac 0]

I would think that the cheapest and fastest test you could do right now is to try a new cable that connects from the primary to the secondary (note politically correct terms   ) drive.

Yeah, I will try that, and should have bought one today.

Thanks.

But I'm still open to suggestions.

(It took me a while, but I got the joke. lol. I'm just a bit dense at the moment. , cheers avon )

[WhoCares 0]

Some more informations about your system would help identify your problem, in particular operating system, system setup (HD-, CD-, DVD-drives and their connection to the IDE primary and secondary ports and master/slave configuration (note the political incorrect terms to avoid confusion)).

You might also want to have a closer look at the messages during system startup, to see whether the BIOS recognises the new HD. A look in the BIOS settings itself might help as well (but don't mess with the settings unless you know what you do!).

[ozanzac 0]

OK, before you point and laugh, I've had this setup since immidiatly after the P IV was released, and never had a problem with anything, all that has been upgraded since I've had it is RAM (512 MB of 800mhz RD ECC RAM, which I've had for around six months, and the hard drive I bought a few weeks ago) This hard drive was going to be supporting a new OS, I just haven't had the time to back everything up onto my laptop. And I regret not doing it.

OK, here goes.

Windows ME

Intel 850G motherboard.

Pentium IV 1.4 Ghz

Sound Blaster Live

Ge-Force 2 MX 400

Hard drives are running off of the primary IDE channel

*From my memory

CD drives are running off the secondary IDE channel

*From my memory

Hard drives are:

Master: Quantum fireball ct 20 10 gig hard drive.

Slave: Western Digital Caviar 80 gig hard drive.

CD drives are:

Master: Matisha CD-ROM CR-594

Slave: LG CD-RW CED-8120B

Anything else necessary?

And about BIOS, yes,

drive 0, my 10 gig hard drive, is there. (The boot disk)

As does

drive 1, the 80 gig hard drive appear.

However, when drive 1 is connected, BIOS takes a remarkably long time to produce any sought of info. I went through all of this before.

And also: the hard drives are connected/controlled by Intel® 82801BA Ultra ATA controller

A Primary Ultra ATA controller handles drive 0

A Secondary Ultra ATA controller handles drive 1

[ozanzac 0]

Also, the only descripancys I noticed between the two hard drives whilist in BIOS, was that my small, working hard drive, and larger not-working hard drive used to both have the same 'block time' of 8 seconds.

Today, the non-functioning hard drive has a 'block time' of 16 seconds.

[WhoCares 0]

A bit confusing for me is currently your IDE configuration. First you said, that you have the harddisks on the primary port and the CD-drives on the secondary, and then you mention the Intel® 82801BA Ultra ATA controller with the Primary Ultra ATA controller handling drive 0 and Secondary Ultra ATA controller handling drive 1. Is this Ultra-ATA controller the onboard controller or another controller plugged into a PCI-slot?

Anyway, you might give the WD-Toolset (Data Lifeguard Tools) a shot,

WD Caviar 80GB SE (link in the last tab)..

btw: the smaller size (75GB instead of 80GB) is normal and standard for all HD developers.

[ozanzac 0]

A bit confusing for me is currently your IDE configuration. First you said, that you have the harddisks on the primary port and the CD-drives on the secondary, and then you mention the Intel® 82801BA Ultra ATA controller with the Primary Ultra ATA controller handling drive 0 and Secondary Ultra ATA controller handling drive 1. Is this Ultra-ATA controller the onboard controller or another controller plugged into a PCI-slot?

Anyway, you might give the WD-Toolset (Data Lifeguard Tools) a shot,

WD Caviar 80GB SE (link in the last tab)..

btw: the smaller size (75GB instead of 80GB) is normal and standard for all HD developers.

Sorry for confusing you. It's confusing for me as well.

I'm pretty sure that the Intel® 82801BA Ultra ATA controller and the 'Primary Ultra ATA controller' and 'Secondary Ultra ATA controller' are one and the same. And probably has something to do with the single ribbon that connects both of my hard drives. Don't ask me how I know this, I just do, through the experimentation I've been through today.

In hindsight, and according to a BIOS check, my CD-ROM drives are handled differently again. I'll need to re-boot to provide more accurate information.

About those diognostic tools, I've already downloaded them, and used them to try and identify the problem. It was one of these tools, Western Digital Lifeguard diognostics- DLDIAG for windows, that pointed to the cable as the root of the problem, as it gave me a code 0199 saying cable error, please check cables.

I did that, but as I said in my first post. I doubt this is the problem, as when I switched my boot drive (the 10 gig) from the master position on the ribbon to the slave postion on the ribbon, the 10 gig hard drive still worked fine, and the system still booted up.

But now, just connecting the 80 gig hard drive to the motherboard via the ribbon, won't let the system boot up to windows.

It's hard to explain, because I'm not overly computer literate, and I'm learning more about the problem on the fly. I appreciate you helping, but unfortunatly, I can only explain so much, so my answers to your questions might not make much sense. Which is frustrating, probably for you just as much as it is for me, if not more so.

Now, to re-boot.

[ozanzac 0]

OK, my BIOS said this:

ATA(PI) Devices

Primary Master: Hard Disk (10.2 Gig Quantum.......)

Primary Slave: Hard Disk (80 Gig WD.......)

Secondary Master: ATAPICD-ROM

Secondary Slave: ATAPICD-ROM

The 'Primary Ultra ATA controller' and 'Secondary Ultra ATA controller' are referring to the motherboard connection to the hard drives only. They should really be read by you and I as:

'Primary Ultra ATA controller' = 'Primary Master Ultra ATA controller'

'Secondary Ultra ATA controller' = 'Primary Slave Ultra ATA controller'

See why I think it's too easy to become confused!?

[cervomix 0]

Just my 2 cents, if I understood well it was working fine during a few weeks then suddenly started to slow down or hang the computer (even at startup).

If you've tried another IDE cable, tried to put the 80 Gb HD alone on an ide cable in master/slave/cs jumper and on IDE0/IDE1 controller, and you're still experiencing trouble you can ship it back.

[ozanzac 0]

Just my 2 cents, if I understood well it was working fine during a few weeks then suddenly started to slow down or hang the computer (even at startup).

If you've tried another IDE cable, tried to put the 80 Gb HD alone on an ide cable in master/slave/cs jumper and on IDE0/IDE1 controller, and you're still experiencing trouble you can ship it back.

 

That's what I fear.

I don't care too much about returning it. It's not being able to recover the addons that will set me back a few months.....

But hey, I'm enrolling at Uni tomorrow, so maybe, just maybe, I'll have a T1 connection at my disposal in the near future.

[HitmanFF 6]

There could be a number of reasons to cause this behaviour. Let's try to do some fact finding to find the actual fault.

Reasons:

A. The 80 GB hard disk is broken

B. The 10 GB hard disk is broken

C. The hard disks are incompatible

D. Driver problems

E. The IDE cable is broken

F. The primary IDE port on your motherboard is broken

When I say broken, I mean that any part of it is non-functional. For a hard disk this could mean that a pin is bent on it, the controller on it is faulty etc.

To check (and exclude) the possible causes, please do the following (needless to say that messing around with hardware should be done with the PC powered down):

D. Start up in safe mode (press F8 during boot of windows, select the safe mode menu entry). Let your system boot (it will be very slow), and open the Device Manager. Remove the primary and secondary IDE controllers, remove the hard disks (including the hard card thingy). Reboot into normal WinME, the drivers will be reinstalled. Check if that fixes your problem.

E. Take the IDE cable from the CD-ROMS, attach it to both hard disks. Check if that fixes your problems

F. Attach the original IDE cable to the hard disks, attach it to the secondary IDE port. reboot, check again

C. Remove the hard disk's IDE cable from the 80 GB drive, and attach the CD-ROM's IDE cable to the 80 GB and the 2nd IDE controller on your motherboard (resulting in the 10 GB being attached to the primary IDE port, 80 GB hard disk to the secondary). Check again

B. Remove the IDE cable from the 10 GB hard disk, attach the primary IDE cable again to the 80 GB drive. Start up from a bootable floppy or CD-ROM. Check if you can see the hard disk (you should have a C: drive)

A. Remove the 80 GB drive, inspect the IDE header on your drive. Check if any pins are bent. If you haven't found anything wrong on B to F, nothing but a faulty 80 GB hard disk remains...

Long story, lot of work, but I hope it helps you to determine the cause of your troubles!

[ozanzac 0]

Thanks, I've printed your post and I'm about to go through it now. I'll probably report back in a few hours.

[BraTTy 0]

I'm thinking that your new 80 gig hd is ATA133 and from the looks of your mb bios it doesn't support ATA133

http://www.duxcw.com/dcforum/DCForumID6/314.html

[bn880 5]

But that should still run without serious issues, just like RAM speeds, you can stick a DDR333 in a DDR266 board and it works...

[BraTTy 0]

Yes it should be...altho recently I tried to put a maxtor ata133 40 gig on my sons asus a7a266 mb and it was getting errors and sometimes not showing.A ata133 controller card fixed the problem.I think some systems have a problem with the backwards compatibility.

Have you ran the hd check utilities supplied by Maxtor? To see if the drive is defective?I have in my possesion dead maxtor hdd's.

4 20gigs,2 60 gigs

This is within the last few years

[ozanzac 0]

Grrrr. Nothing seems to be going my way today. I clicked a link to Intels knowledge base and IE opened it up in the window I was replying in.

HitmanFF, I tried everything you said, even attempted every step in safe mode, to reboot in normal. All to no avail.

Basically, now when the 80gig is connected at all. It hangs the system in normal boot up. When the system is in safe mode, the Hard Drive is only physically there. Not logically.

Bratty, perhaps that is the case. But it still doesn't explain why it was working one day, not the next, and as bn880 pointed out, it should still work, though not at maximum capability.

I looked for maxtor support and came up with powermax. It ok'd the 10Gig and when the 80gig was connected in 'Normal mode' The system refused to boot up, so it was really no use as the program couldn't run to check the stats of the WD 80gig drive, in safe mode, and besides. The WD Data lifeguard had already identified the problem as not being the 10 Gig drive.

I'm fed up with it, and went to the place of purchase today. They said that they've got diognostic programs (I didn't ask what ones, but when I said I had checked it with 'Data Lifeguard' he looked at me suprisingly. So I fear that there'll be bad news when I collect it tomorrow.

For now, I want to thank everyone who chipped in. You've been a big help, and your thinking was 'outside my square'. Fingers crossed theres some good news. I'll post when I get it back.

[ralphwiggum 6]

i'll move it to OT since it seems unrelated to OFP troublehsooting.

[HitmanFF 6]

Good luck! I hope they can salvage your data

[Badgerboy 0]

Good luck! I hope they can salvage your data

And that you shifted your porn off the drive when you returned it.

The first thing a tech does when he gets a PC to fix....

Search *.jpg

You should see some of the hits you get sometimes. It's fun!

(And ditch Windows ME as soon as possible. Its sodding awful. Go for XP Pro if you can, but failing that 2k is just as good although is has some compatibility issues with games. If you can't do either, drop back to Windows 98. Its faster and more stable than ME)

[ozanzac 0]

OK, Hard drive was diognosed faulty, and the data un-recoverable.

I knew it, I bloody knew it, so I have, sitting on my desk, a new one, ready to be installed

Well, with all the addons gone and nothing of much value left on this hard drive. I spose now's as gooder time as any to geddy up to XP.

Any suggestions before ME hit's the obsolete CD box?

[Badgerboy 0]

Yes, smash it to bits.

ME is the work of the devil.

---------------------------

Although, depending on what you use your PC for, you could try to take some steps to aid performance.

1. First off, format the new hard drive with NTFS (Its faster, and more reliable)

2. Now I have two PC's, my sever which I also use for net access (One I'm on now), and my gaming rig. The games machine has had every windows component stripped from it, and nothing but games installed. Hence it runs rather fast. If you only have one machine, then you can do the following.

a) Create two user names, called Internet and Games. Stick all your chat programs and other crap on the 'net user, and manually remove them from startup on the games area. That way, no background programs will be sucking up RAM. (Learn to love msconfig)

b) Rather more severe, but works well. Dual boot two XP partitions on the same computer, but essentially follow the steps in a). That way you have a clean stripped down installation for gaming, and a slighty bloated one for net surfing. To do this, you will need to dual boot, but its worth it and dead easy to do.

Finally, do the usual. Install Windows, then download SP1 if its not on the disk and the other security updates. Then download all the latest drivers for your hardware. (Motherboard as well! )

Then take a trip to

GRC and run the free programs he provides, and remove the security MS holes love to stick in their software.

Then post back! (If you can! )

[ozanzac 0]

Then post back! (If you can! )

I will, it will take me till the weekend to source XP Pro.

[bn880 5]

1. First off, format the new hard drive with NTFS (Its faster, and more reliable)

Not really... I have yet to see a solid finding as to at which HDD size NTFS is faster over FAT32. It should be more reliable, but more of a problem retrieving data when things go bad. Facts are facts.

EDIT: And as far as I know NTFS chews up a lot more HDD space for its "accounting". Then again I have not done proper research into this point.

[BraTTy 0]

Me and my wife just switched to XP, we both have lost performance coming from Win98se