How to Get This new Hard Drive Going???

I am having a great deal of problems with a new 20 GB Segate drive that I just put into a Proteva 450 GHz AMD k-6 computer.

I have a floppy with tons of commands on it and if I use FDISK I can see that the dive has a single, active, FAT32 partition…. sometimes! Sometimes I can insert this disk, type the FDISK command and the screen will freeze up and I have to restart.

If I insert the Windows 98 CD and an Emergency Startup Disk, I have the option to start the computer with CD-ROM support, which I choose which is followed by a screen full of lines telling me that I have numerous errors in my CONFIG.SYS file all of them mentioning a missing or corrupted ASP******.sys file.

If I insert the Seagate Disc Wizard Utility on floppy, it will show the files being extracted but will eventually freeze at the Seagate logo with the command D:\wise.exe in the upper left hand corner.

If I boot from the 98 CD, I am asked if I want to install Windows, answer yes, and wait for the screen to advance. It will say, “Setup is preparing to install Windows”, a blinking cursor will appear, and it freezes.

IF I use a Universal Boot Floppy and the Windows 98 CD, I come to a screen where I am asked what I want to do, so I choose to Install Operating System. I am then told that Setup will check my drive for errors. It does the check where it checks the drive, file allocation tables, surface of disk, with check marks preceding a successful pass but there is no text showing me what was checked. Then, it says it is copying files for setup and I am just shuffled back to the original screen where I choose to install an OS, CD-Rom drivers ect. It will NOT go to Windows setup and then reboots.

What can I do to get Windows 98 on this machine?

Thanks!

Jeff

did you use the Seagate installation disk to format the hard drive? what happens if you try to boot without a floppy in the drive?

I did use the Seagate Disc Wizard utility that I downloaded and extracted to floppy. When I boot to the floppy, it says it is copying the needed file to the drive but then hangs at a screen with the Seagate logo and the command line d:\wise.exe followed by 8-10 lines of complete gibberish, i.e. numbers, letters and symbols.

If I boot with neither a floppy OR the Windows 98 CD, I get:

"Searching for boot record from floppy...not found"
Searching for boot record from CD-ROM...not found"
Searching for boot record from IDE-0..not found" and

"Invalid system disk-replace and press any key"

If I boot with the Windows 98 CD ONLY, I see "boot from hard disk or CD-ROM" and I choose CD-ROM. I then choose "Windows 98 Setup from CD". It comes up to a blue screen telling me to press F1 to continue. Then I see, "Setup is preparing to Install Windows", a blinking cursor, and nothing more. It just stops there indefinatley with the cursor blinking.

Thanks for the quick help,

Jeff

do you have the CD and the hard drive on seperate ide channels? and do you have the Master jumper set?


if you can, try hooking up the drive to another PC on the secondary channel. then boot to the c: prompt and run fdisk. you need to try to remove the existing partition and make a new one. be sure you are removing the partition on that drive and not the good one(which i have done :( ) then reboot to the c: prompt again and format the partition. then try the drive in the other pc again.

I was able to use FDISK with the drive in the problem machine to remove the partition and then recreate a 20 GB active primary partition. I still get a never ending loop when booting to the 98 CD where it performs scandisk, says it is loading the Windows 98 setup files, and hangs.

I tried inserting a floppy with DOS commands but it will not let me run a format command on C drive saying it is an invalid media.I tried replacing the ribbon cable and still have the same problem.

I tried booting to my Windows XP disk but it too hangs as it is starting the setup saying it is inspecting my configuration-then restarts back to the same old screen. When it returns this time, it's as though the keyboard does not wotk as I can not even choose to install XP.

Your ideas would be appreciated.

Jeff

If you are using a ATA66/100/133 IDE cable (80 conductor), then the connectors on the cable are sensitive as to which device is master and slave.
The end connector should be used with a master device, and the connector in the middle is for slaves.
If in doubt, set the jumpers to CS (Cable Select).

The only other thought I have at the mo is that Upgrading the motherboards BIOS often solves this problem - Be sure you have downloaded the BIOS for the right model and Version number (revision) of your board.

Hope this helps
:cool:

If the seagate diags will not run on the hard drive in that machine, put the seagate in another machine and try the daignostics... if it does run then the seagate is probably ok, if not, its time to RMA. Make sure you change out the ata cable just in case.

Thanks for all the help so far-especially so late at night.

I tried the drive in another machine but then IT would not boot nor would it's own hard drive show up during the first few screens of starting up as it normally would with my burner and cd-rom being displayed also.

I have tried the drive in the problem machine using several different power connectors also as I do NOT hear the drive making any noise and it should as the case is off and it's lying on the table by the computer.

Maybe a RMA would be in order now .

Any last thoughts?

Thanks,

Jeff

Yes, you can rma online with seagate :D :D :D

Here is where I am at and have made progress. Tech at Seagate had me to use a utility to write zeros to the drive. Then, for the first time, I was able to use the Windows Startup Disk to load the diagnostic tools. I then ran FDISK to create a 20 GB partition, and then FORMAT to format in FAT32. I was unable to do this before.

But, I still have the same problem during the installation of either Windows 98 or XP Home Edition. Both setup programs will check the configuration, state that files needed to set up Windows are being loaded, and then a few seconds, 30-45, the process will hang. When it does this, I must rewrite zeros, FDISK, etc.

The tech said that the reason for writing zeros was to remove a drive overlay that the 1st utility I used, Seagate Disk Wizard, had mistakenly installed. Tech support has now gone home and I really need to get this unit off the table.

Any suggestions?

Thanks!

Jeff

Quote:

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Originally posted by Farrar
Here is where I am at and have made progress. Tech at Seagate had me to use a utility to write zeros to the drive. Then, for the first time, I was able to use the Windows Startup Disk to load the diagnostic tools. I then ran FDISK to create a 20 GB partition, and then FORMAT to format in FAT32. I was unable to do this before.

But, I still have the same problem during the installation of either Windows 98 or XP Home Edition. Both setup programs will check the configuration, state that files needed to set up Windows are being loaded, and then a few seconds, 30-45, the process will hang. When it does this, I must rewrite zeros, FDISK, etc.

The tech said that the reason for writing zeros was to remove a drive overlay that the 1st utility I used, Seagate Disk Wizard, had mistakenly installed. Tech support has now gone home and I really need to get this unit off the table.

Any suggestions?

Thanks!

Jeff

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I wouldn't even call seagate support. download their diag, run it. if it reports an error code write it down and fill out the online RMA. you need to get this drive out of your hands! it just sounds like more problems will come even if you somehow managed to get it running.

Hmmmmm....Sounds like bad memory to me......:confused:

He did have 64 MB but I installed a 128MB chip in addition to that one. At startup, it shows 192 MB available in 2 banks.

Could it still be bad?

Jeff

Pull the 128 and see if it helps.....

I pulled the 128 MB chip with no luck. I also pulled the 64 MB chip with no luck either. I still need to contact Seagate again BUT my understanding is that they will not consider the drive defective AND issue an RMA IF the drive is being detected and I can FDISK and FORMAT as I have been able to do.

Thanks so much for the help so far.

What do you suggest now?

Would a low-level format accomplish anything?
Do you think it IS in fact the drive OR a motherboard problem? I have seen one unit react this way because of incorrect jumper settings on a newly installed MB.

Thanks,

Jeff

I rma'd a seagate drive that was fully functioning, provided it was sitting on its end....

Just go to the online rma and have done with it.

I think I may be on the right track here with a diagnosis of this problem.

I downloaded Sea Tools from Seagate to create a diagnostic utility to run from a boot floppy. It says it requires 8 MB of RAM to work. His Proteva computer has 2 DIMM slots with a 64 MB PC100 chip installed. If I move this chip to the next DIMM slot, all I get is the error message “Override” on the monitor. Also, if I put a 128 MB PC133 in EITHER slot, the same message will appear. It seems as though I can only access the BIOS, boot floppy, etc. with his 64 MB chip installed in the 1st slot. Seems to me as though this would indicate a problem with the MB UNLESS his system just won’t run PC 133 memory. But, why does his chip work in one slot and not the other. Incidentally, the “Override” message also pops up with NO RAM installed.

Would you suggest a MB replacement?

Thanks,

Jeff

Did you get the motherboard manual and find out what ram this pc can handle?

Mixing pc100 and pc133 is known to cause instabilities... you also need to look at ecc, non ecc type etc.

if i read the thread right, you tried the hd in another pc and it exhibited the same behaviour. if so, you can discount mem/mobo issues. if it were me, i would try overwriting it one more time, set it as a slave in a known good system and see how it acted. if it worked ok i would prob put the cabs on the disk and look into hw/mem/mobo issues. if it still acted flaky, i would rma the drive.

Quote:

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Originally posted by jc033
try overwriting it one more time ... in a known good system

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I think this will be the only way to be quite sure, do it all from scratch in a known good computer.

If the drive was processed in a system with a memory/mb problem, it could have been corrupted in a way that will make it still look bad when put into a good system.