Hard Drive problems

[Jukeboxs]

Hi there.

A long query. Please read though, as I am in bit of a pickle!

I have a problem that could be (in my opinion) either hard drive based or mobo based. Run-down as follows:

I came home yesterday, took my hard drive out of the case bay, and turned on my PC (in order to connect up a new 2nd-hand drive as primary slave). But, the mobo could not detect my hard drive or the CD-drive, with no power reaching either unit. I had just bought a 2nd-hand Maxtor hard drive and decided to try this for the first time in place of my current drive. With the new drive connected, power reached both hard drive and CD-drive, with both being recognised. I then tried connecting my drive as prim master, and the Maxtor as prim slave, which resulted in no power reaching the two HDs or CD-drive, with none being recognised. So, I then assumed the problem must lie with my own drive. However, things started going a bit odd after that:

I proceded with the Maxtor as the only HD (primary master), and the CD-drive as the seconday master. I booted with my start-up floppy and brought it to c:\. There was one primary partition, FAT32, with all 10.2 Gb being recogined (formatted by seller before I receive it). Great, I thought! SO, I started to install W98SE. However, when the Win CDrom tried to ScanDisk the hard drive, it said: "ScanDisk encountered a data error while reading the FAT on drive C". So, I could not continue. So, I then ran ScanDisk from the CD-drive (E drive), and it found several bad clusters. I then decided to repartition the drive and re-format to see if this would cleanse the drive of bad sectors/FAT. But, once it finished this (took ages to format and recover allocations - 2 hours), only 2010 MBs of the 10.2Gb were being recognised, and there were still several bad clusters on the disk.

So, my questions are:

1. What has caused these problems? Is it my mobo that has corrupted the two hard drives? Or did my own hard drive die of natural causes, and the Maxtor one (which I had never used before) was simply corrupt before I received it (if so, how did the seller manage to format and recognise all 10.2Gb?)? How do I test to find out what is the cause of the problems, without damaging anything else?

2. What do I do next? Do I try out both drives on a friend's mobo (as I do not have a spare), or would this risk corrupting their mobo? Do I send back my own HD and get a replacement (only 6 months old)and then try the new drive in my PC? Or do I also send back the Maxtor drive to the seller and say it was corrupt when I received it (was it though, how can I be sure?)?

3. Can you please help, as I am really not sure what the next sensible step is, and I do not want cause further damage to mobo or hard drives unknowingly?


Thanks again for your time and assistance. It really is invaluable to me. Thanks!

Jukeboxs.

Parts: Abit KT7A-RAID mobo, IBM Deskstar 41Gb hard drive bought October 2001(my drive which died first), Maxtor 91021U2 10.2Gb hard drive with 1.5years warranty remaining (new 2nd-hand drive I just received yesterday through the post,not well packed I might adD).

[morriswindgate]

Bad Sectors/Clusters are bad news, think of it like a fungus growing more and more until it covers everything.
You can try the maxblast utility from the maxtor site which can hide the bad sectors but eventually the drive will fail.
I would return it to the seller as they probably were aware of the bad sector problem.

[RobH]

Ran into that same error the other night on a harddrive I had installed in a computer.It wouldnt scandisk at all-I installed another HDD and fdisked,then formatted and was fine-Mine was a Hard drive.
I think I might use a boot floppy and scandisk,if I remember correctly it shows a visual of the drive (little boxes of different color) and you could see how many bad sectors you have.
Also, if you can get both kicking,try to place them as Cable select-Ive seen some drives that seem to work only that way-hope this helps.

[Jukeboxs]

My worry is that possibly my mobo is the component that is at fault, and is therefore 'infecting' these hard drives and causing a) my hard drive to not function, and b) the MAxtor drive to become corrupt.

Can I be fairly certain that it is just coincidence that my drive packed in at the same time, and that it is definitely the hard drives themselves that are at fault?

If so, then I can be confident at getting a replacemant hard drive from DABS for my original Deskstar, and return the MAxtor in the knowledge that it was corrupt when the seller sold me it.

Thanks for your helpful suggestions.

Jukeboxs.

[glc]

Test one drive at a time with NO other IDE devices connected - use Maxtor Powerdiag or Maxblast to test the Maxtor and use IBM Drive Fitness Test to test your Deskstar. These are downloadable from Maxtor and IBM.

[Toaster]

Howdy,
This sounds like a combination of things.
They might be:
1. Reversed IDE cable(s).
2. Misjumpering of the devices.
3. A virus exists and infects any connected device.
4. Miswiring of the power connector(s).


Dash out and grab "LLF" or other "zero out" type utilities.
(this app will erase all data!) Use this only on a stand alone drive on a virus free, write protected boot disk.