Having the strangest hard disk problems. I currently have 2 hard disks. The primary hard disk has 2 partitions, 100GB and 20GB, with windows XP and linux respectively, and is the master on the primary IDE channel. The slave on the primary IDE channel is my dvd burner. My second hard disk is by itself, the master on the seconday IDE channel. It drops from Ultra DMA mode into PIO mode constantly for some reason and has always done so since the moment I bought it. I am temporarily getting around that problem by going to computer management and uninstalling the secondary IDE channel, then running 'Add Hardware' which usually works with no problems, for a day or so (I don't uninstall the IDE channel every day, just every couple). Now onto the problem. My sister recently came to where I was watching tv and complained that she couldn't find the secondary hard drive, which has all the media on it. I came and opened up My Computer, and it isn't there (D drive). F drive (the linux partition for the primary hard drive) was present as was C drive and the dvd burner. Now I thought this was a little strange, so I restarted the computer, and it seems that my BIOS realises that there is a 300GB hard drive as the master on the secondary IDE channel (correct), and even in computer management, it realises that there is a device on this channel, which is currently running in Ultra DMA Mode 2. But, from anywhere that I should be able to access the drive, I get nothing. I've opened up Partition Magic and that only showed a single hard disk, likewise with Everest. Apparently, my sister was able to view the drive at one point, and she was attempting to copy 600MB worth of files across. She started it copying, then walked away, and when she came back, it had an error message - "Failure when copying <file name>", or that's as much as she can remember of the message. I ran 'Add Hardware' and it came up with some new hardware that it installed: "Intel(R) 82865G/PE/P/GV/82848P Processor to I/O Memory Interface - 2576". I recognize the "848P" as part of my motherboard model, but that's about it. And to all those annoyed about the number of "fix my computer" threads lately: I realise GameDev isn't tech support. I was simply wondering if anyone has had this kind of problem before.

It wouldn't hurt to run the diagnostics tools provided by your hard drive manufacturer (if your manufacturer does indeed provide them).

Also, in computer management, is the drive/partition listed as healthy? Try, perhaps, resetting the drive letter? I would also suggest trying to turn off the Ultra DMA.. setting it either to PIO or to the automatic setting.

seconded, change pio and all that settings in device manager, it is not a good ide to uninstall ide drivers

(idea misspelled to ide on purpose!)

also, for best use and best speed, you may be better off using a fast ultra ide 133 cable to both hard drives, one as master, the other as slave, and having the optical drive on its own cable (slower 100 speed as it cant work at 133)

as for the problem, check drive assignments, and just settings in device manager, and make sure that ide cable is set up in xp... if you still have problems, and to make sure it is a xp problem from uninstalling/misconfiguring something, can you still see the drive in linux? although if ntfs you wont be able to read, surly you could still see it.

Thanks

Quote:Original post by falkone
It wouldn't hurt to run the diagnostics tools provided by your hard drive manufacturer (if your manufacturer does indeed provide them).

Also, in computer management, is the drive/partition listed as healthy? Try, perhaps, resetting the drive letter? I would also suggest trying to turn off the Ultra DMA.. setting it either to PIO or to the automatic setting.

Well, I'm not able to check the drive or partition because windows doesn't recognise the hard disk as a hard disk. I can't access the drive letter because windows doesn't recognise it as a hard disk. Ultra DMA is the automatic setting.

I'll be trying the diagnostic tools when I get home from uni tonight.

Quote:Original post by wilhil
seconded, change pio and all that settings in device manager, it is not a good ide to uninstall ide drivers

(idea misspelled to ide on purpose!)

also, for best use and best speed, you may be better off using a fast ultra ide 133 cable to both hard drives, one as master, the other as slave, and having the optical drive on its own cable (slower 100 speed as it cant work at 133)

as for the problem, check drive assignments, and just settings in device manager, and make sure that ide cable is set up in xp... if you still have problems, and to make sure it is a xp problem from uninstalling/misconfiguring something, can you still see the drive in linux? although if ntfs you wont be able to read, surly you could still see it.

Thanks

Okay, I have just verified that I can't view the secondary hard disk as an actual hard disk from anywhere. Later tonight when I get home from uni, I'll boot up linux and see if I can see it from there.

Okay, I got home and downloaded the seagate diagnostic tools that I don't know how to use and attempted to boot up with them (burned to a bootable cd). It doesn't really do anything. It gets to 35% loading up and then dumps me to an emulated DOS prompt.

I'm going to read the instructions more as it should be running in a GUI mode as far as I can tell.

Anyway, before that I logged into linux (where I'm posting from), and (knowing little about linux) poked around for something where I could see the hard disk from. And I found this I'm not really sure what it means. It looks like it says that the space is occupied by an ntfs file system and free at the same time.

Kind of makes me a little scared. I've got over 100GB of stuff I really don't want to lose on there.

Edit::

Something that makes me think it's a hardware or file system problem: the seagate diagnostic program will crash into an emulated DOS prompt if the secondary hard disk (the one I'm having problems with) is connected. I've tried a couple of command-line params to start up the GUI interface again, but they don't work, and I am definately not going to start running exectuables without knowing exactly what they do.

I tried it with both hard disks connected. It crashed into the prompt. I tried it with just the secondary one connected. It crashed into the prompt. I tried it with just my primary hard disk (with the OSs). It worked, no problems, and the couple of tests I tried ran fine and ended successfully.

Note:: "connected" means plugged into it's IDE channel.

When it did crash, it always did so at the exact same point. The progress bar showed 35% and it was loading something along the lines of "OnTrack System", or something like that.

Edit number 2::

Okay, my computer used to do this thing where every now and again, it would pause and wait for the secondary hard disk to spin up. At least that was exactly what it used to sound like. It just happened again (I believe), and the way it used to work is, all the programs would freeze for a couple of seconds, but I would still be able to select some things, and move the mouse around, and then after a couple of seconds, everything would snap back into motion and catch up on all the stuff I input during the frozen time.

This time, everything froze, including the mouse. I could move it, couldn't do anything.

I believe that this is starting to look worse and worse.

[Edited by - Endar on August 15, 2006 6:55:57 AM]

Quote:Original post by Ravuya
I concur; back it up, right now.

I've had Seagates seize on me with no prior warning. PIO mode generally indicates that there are either severe cable, controller or disk problems. I suspect it's the cable, but if it's the drive you're probably in deep shit if you haven't backed up.

BACK IT UP.

Well, I'd like to back it up (it's 100GB, I don't really know where to), but I can't actually access the drive.

It's not critical stuff, it's mostly where I store my media, just things I've downloaded from the net, but it would just be really annoying if I had to download it all again. It's not like a store any important code, or have programs installed on it. It's just files.

Well, it also happened with a previous hard disk, so I got that replaced. It was again, a seagate 300Gb, in the exact same configuration.

But see, it drops into PIO all the time. I've had no read or write errors, or anything like that with the computer or hard disk.

I suppose the next thing to do (which I really should have done before), is put my primary hard disk on the secondary IDE channel and see if it drops into PIO mode after a day or two.

I have the secondary (problematic) one disconnected at the moment.