Scandisc drivin me nuts

[Needtoknow]

Hello,
I had a problem on my K-6 2 500, asus p5a-8, voodoo 3, win 98se , which led to a reformat,. all went well apparently, except I get a "need to run scandisc may have bad sectors" warning on boot up, (have been having some screen freezes on some low key games which didn't happen before now that I think about it) causing me to reboot from time to time.
I ran a thorough scandisk and defragged and it said all was well, no bad sectors. I just had a screen freeze, rebooted and then it gave me scan disc warning etc, I ran all thorough last night(defragged, too)
What gives?
I have seen a tweak to disable scandisc on bad start up(somewhere?) is that what this is for?
Why is it doing this?
Thanks for all/any ideas.

[HAL9000]

Get the drive diagnostics from your drive manufacturer and run it. It may find problems with your hard drive that scandisk cannot detect at this time.

[Needtoknow]

Thanks HAL,
WD disc, I'll go there, now.

Okay- i ran online diagnostics at the WD site and it said all is well.
Any thoughts beyond that?
Thanks in advance.

[GaryRouth]

Hi Needtoknow

You've been having quite a time with that system. Last I recall, you reformatted/reinstalled with the p/i option, to help with the shutdown issue. Is it still shutting down normally?

And just to be sure that your jumper settings are OK since the K62-500 upgrade, here they are. Make sure yours match, or that could be a source of trouble too:

FRONT SIDE BUS --> 100mhz
FS0 - 1,2
FS1 - 1,2
FS2 - 1,2
FS3 - 2,3

CPU:BUS FREQ --> x 5

BF0 - 1,2
BF1 - 2,3
BF2 - 2,3

CPU VOLTAGE --> 2.2 (dual)

VIO0 - 1,2
VIO1 - 2,3
VIO2 - 1,2
VIO3 - 1,2

I don't remember how new that Western Digital is. Is it newer and using a drive overlay (like Ez-Bios?) Is it running DMA at 33? If it's a big, new drive, you may need to run the WD handy-dandy to set the DMA back down to 33. It will slow down back to that (or worse: no DMA at all) if it gets enough transfer errors. Also, if it's new, those new drives still like their 80wire cables, even when they are only running at the older speeds.

And any time a system freezes up, check that Asus Hardware Monitor to see what the temps are running. If you're overheating, freezing up, not shutting down properly - all of these will produce ScanDisk at reboot.

Good luck!
. . . Gary

[p.s. ...did you change the memory at all lately? did you use PC100 memory? or...? ...and you can try uninstalling/ going to Standard VGA/ downloading a more recent/more stable Voodoo3 video driver/ reinstalling voodoo3.]

[Needtoknow]

Hi Gary,
Everything has been doing fine, shuts down ok etc.
Then it got some sort of "windows error" (someone called it- not quite a virus, I am running anti virus) that gave "cannot display" screens every site I went to. So, I had to reformat.Used the _/pi, worked like a champ :)
The Voodoo is newer, I will try a different driver from site.
temps are about 120f under load, which is about 5+ than pre-voodoo.
All jumpers are where they should be.
WD is 30g not using their disk( it went squirrelly) so I just fdisk, using the 80 wire cables.
Memory is all PC133,
Strange thing though, I let the thing go ahead and scan disc itself, after I wrote above, just so It couldn't say I wouldn't let it,
and now it is doing okay. I mean It hasn't asked again.
We will see.

[GaryRouth]

Even though the WD checked out OK with the online tools, I'd still recommend running the DataLifeGuard just to make sure the drive is set back to UDMA33. Timing problems can cause the hard-to-figure sort of problems that you've been describing. UDMA-33 is the fastest that motherboard will go without using an add-on IDE controller card.

You could run the diagnostics again from that locally bootable disk (the DataLifeGuard) too, just to be sure. Seems like it'd be more thorough than the online diagnostic.

. . . Gary

[Needtoknow]

Gary,
I ran every diagnostic on the disk and all said no errors or probs.
When it comes to UDMA, it at one point asked if I wanted to set it to Ultra ATA 33, 66 or 100? When I tried to choose 33 or 66 it said , basically no- can't go there contact tech support. I tried 100 and it said, Ultra ATA 100 is now disabled, the drive is now set for speeds "UP TO" 100(?)
Is it reading and adjusting to whatever the mobo is capable of?
As far as my earlier probs of freezing and scan disk they are (for now) just another learning step- happy(sort-of) memory.
Things are working okay (fingers perpetually crossed) for now.
I e-mailed WD tech support earlier, so maybe there will be more, the diagnostics on the disc were a lot more intense than the on-line ones too, by the way. You were right to advise using them.
Onward and upward.

[GaryRouth]

Hey again

Seems like WD has changed that part of the toolset. There used to be a separate little handy-dandy that set the UDMA to a particular speed (seems like it was just called UDMA.exe). Well, the drives are supposed to be backwardly compatible! It just seems more elegant to have it already transferring at the proper speeds right off by way of a firmware setting, than to rely on some other method....

Glad your drive & system are behaving themselves for the time being.
. . . Gary