Bad HD?

I've been messing with this thing for a week now and I am getting very upset at it. (understatement) Here's the start http://forums.windrivers.com/cgi-bin...c&f=3&t=000712
Now, I've formatted the drive and started over. Once I got the SB Live! problem tackeled (Thanks over in the sound card treads) I've run across a new, and odd error.
I get a Windows Protection Fault after I install the WinME Promise SCSI drivers! :mad:
This may be my fault for installing it after the Via drivers (but had too many errors during the Windows install to think it's that simple). I think it maybe the drive itself that is bad and will be returning it. The old drive I used did not have any problems with the Promise drivers, and now I can't even boot to safe mode! :mad:

P.S. When formatting the drive it stated it marked the bad sectors, hmmm...could that be a hint of a bad drive? :rolleyes:

A few bad sectors, not a big deal. Many, or more every time you run scandisk thorough, backup soon!

I would backup and RMA the drive ASAP! Bad clusters indicate a bad HDD.

AlienDyne is on the right track. A newish drive should not be coming up with bad sectors on a format. It indicates a bigger problem looming on the horizon. Better to return the drive and start with a new one. Why add an extra wrinkle into an already problematic setup.

Ya, I'm taking the thing back. Ran scandisk surface scan before I went to bed. 35 bad clusters and it didn't mark 'em. Whould that cause the Promise drivers to cause a Windows Protection Fault though? That was just a bit odd.

Bad sectors could cause any number of Windows errors. If a file is stored over one of them that is not marked, that file is corrupt now, and any Windows function that relies on it is gonna futz up on you from now on.

Very Simple.Any drive that displays bad clusters is suspect! Do you want to depend on a suspect HD to store you critical data?? :rolleyes:

Now this is getting annoying...Took the drive back, got the same make and model. Same thing...

I'm starting to blame the tools disk that came with it. I hooked it up on the ultra, the system recognized it, ran the disk to partition and format. Near the begining of the format it crapped out and I'm back with the exact same problem :eek:

So, in conclusion...WesternDigital does not know how to make software that supports their own products!!!

oh, here's what a scandisk says after going through the file system

Quote:

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ScanDisk found 491,520 bytes of data on drive C that might be one or more lost files or directories, but which is probaly just taking up space

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How many times have we seen that one, eh? ;)
The funny thing is this was right after a format using this line
format C: /b /u
HELLO!! there is absolutly nothing on the friggin' drive!!

Are you possibly running a drive who's firmware is set for ATA-66 on a board that does not support ATA-66???

The drive is setup as a ata\100 and the Av7 supports it. I got a the bad sectors to go away by zeroing the drive (low level format) but it still doesn't see the full drive (28,687 MB instead of 30,020 MB which is detected in BIOS) and stops in scanDisk stateing the it is being misreported. This causes setup errors once I install the Via 4in1 drivers. and a Windows Protection Fault after the SB Live! is installed.

What the hell am I doing wrong? This is driving me mad!

28Gb from a 30Gb drive is about right. The BIOS reads Mb & Gb's differnetly to how Windows does (1024Kb per Mb rather than 1000Kb per Mb). Thats all.

Try setting the drive up as an ATA 33 on the EIDE channel rather than the ATA 100. Run the WD utility and make sure that EZ-Bios is not installed. Make sure you use the latest WD utility; one version gave me problems. Partition, format, and load the entire OS. When everything is working properly, run the utility again to switch to ATA 100 and swap the drive back to the ATA 100 channel. It's very possible that the utility doesn't configure the drive properly unless it's connected to EIDE.

I like tim's though, that sounds like it might work. I know there is a MB -> GB differance (programmers are beaten this fact from day one), but the BIOS reads it in MB not GB, if it said 30 BG and 27,500 MB I'd be fine with that. but it is reading 30,000 MB to 27,500 MB and I think that is where the scandisk is going 'huh?'
should I go all the way to ata/33? Whouldn't ata/66 be ok since that was what the old drive was? (which worked just fine...)

Your EIDE channel on this board does appear to support UDMA4 (ATA 66), so the drive should run at 66. Be sure to use the 80 pin cable. Either way, it should only be temporary, but if you get varied results in 33 and 66 it might steer us toward an answer.

Yes, my old drive was UDMA4. I set the new one as ata/33 did and Fdisk and format nad still got the misreopting size error. I said fix on it and when with the install. I ran with no problems and I installed all the drivers except the via 4in1 and promise drivers. Make a ghost image and will try those drivers tonight and if they install fine I switch the ata to 66 or 100 and see how everything goes.

What does the 80 pin connector look like? As far as I can tell they look the same as the IDE cables, just with a blue connecetor at the end. All the pins are still 40?

Still bugs me that it is still misreporting the size...

English me speak well, no? :D

Sorry about that, I meant 80 conductor. They physically interchange with a standard IDE cable but the wires are each separated by an extra conductor which must absorb some EMI to prevent induction between the active conductors. If you compare them, you will see that the wires are much finer (and probably more fragile). ATA 66 & 100 will not function properly without it.

Now that makes since, thanks! :)

I changed the drive to a ata/33, and still had the size problem. The OS loaded ok with no errors (good sign) I made an Image of it before I loaded the Via 4in1 and Promise drivers. After the 4in1 it started to show signs of unstability and once the Promise went on, BSOD. I tried the image again and did the Promise drivers BSOD.

I had a thought I'll have try later, want to get some feedback first. How about disabling the S.M.A.R.T. on the drive and do the FDISK then? I'm not very well versed on S.M.A.R.T. and I'm not sure what it does, but it's a thought.

The WD disk for the drive was little to no help (other then doing a low-level format) the diagnostics show no errors, yet when I let the EZ-Install it can't write the boot sector...what does that tell ya? :eek:

Its a long shot, but some motherboards require you to put the drive on the end of the IDE cable for ATA 66+ Make it the last item on the cable.

If you have the same problem with 2 identical drives I would start looking at the motherboard/ cabling for your problems.

Are you doing a fresh install from scratch each time or are you using an image of another installation? Just curious. -- try to install from scratch if you haven't yet.

Mahdi

No matter how hard you try you will not get 30Gb of usable Windows space from a 30Gb BIOS detected hard disk, regardless of if it is measured in MB or GB, due to the different sizes that Windows and the BIOS 'call' a Megabyte. My 30Gb drive in the Bios shows as 30Gb, in Windows it shows as 28.6Gb. My 15Gb HDD in the BIOS shows as 15Gb in Windows it shows as 14.3Gb, & my 13.6gb HDD shows in the BIOS as 13.6Gb but in Windows shows as 12.1Gb. It has always been this way and probably always will.

Right Darren, DOS/Windows uses that space for FAT info and such. After trying 3 'other' drives I've come to the conlclusion that the MB is hosed :mad:
I have it at a shop running some hardware diagnostics on it that I can not run myself (No tools, I need cool tools!)
They have extra parts they can test it with (swap the MB to make sure if that's the case) and I should know later today. At leat I trust this place and it's not far from my house :)
This stinks, the MB is only 3 1/2 months old and I'm not exactly sure where I got it. I hope that maybe I can find the vender and/or get Asus to swap it...

Look this way: maybe your SDRAM is corrupt, ihad these kind of problems with a customer and was busy for days !! , after some checks we found the problem with the memory :confused:

So after replacing the memeory the problems where gone
maybe a suggestion ??

Now that has to be the only thing I have not thought of yet...I guess it is a good excuse to get some new RAM :D
The place it took it to said that it worked fine for them, but not when I got it back. After I removed the USB Keyboard and used a PS/2 it fixed half of my install problems.
I'm still getting the 'you have 89,235 bytes (approx. it varies) of unknown data' in the setup scandisk...right after a format? :confused:
Maybe the memory is corrupting the data durring the format and install, good idea! I'll give that a try tonight (boy, wife will kill me if she finds out I bought MORE new memory :p)

YA BABY!

Got it working! I put in a 256MB of PC133 moved the ATA/100 to the ATA/66 to FDISK and format. Once the installation was done moved it back to the ATA/100 and "Badda-Bing Badda-Boom! ALL the drivers loaded and ZERO errors! I am a very happy man!

just in time too, I took friday off and now I can enjoy my system again! Thanks for all the help you wonderful people you! :) :D :)