Bad HD?

[Knucklehead]

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.

[mahdi]

Now that makes since, thanks!

[mahdi]

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?

[CinderElmo]

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.

[Darren Wilson]

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.

[mahdi]

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
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...

[Active8]

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

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

[mahdi]

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
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?
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 )

[mahdi]

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!