Hard Drive problems

therecklessone

Move this to technology if mods see fit...

Installed my brand spanking new WD 160GB hard drive (to install as a 2nd drive in my system) last week, and have had nothing but trouble since. Here's the account I gave to Western Digital's support people:

1. Initially, attempted to partition/format the drive using fdisk and format in msdos. The last partition I created could not be accessed for some reason. In some cases it wasn't even recognised after a restart, only the first two.

2. Following an accidental wipe of my existing drive (and four days reconstruction of the system), I reinstalled the new drive only to find that fdisk was having no effect on the drive whatsoever. Using the Windows ME startup disk, the new drive (physical drive 2) could not be accessed AT ALL. Only when I booted from my Packard Bell recovery disk and accessed fdisk through that could I read the partition information on the HDD. Again, partitions 1 and 2 were showing, but no partition 3. I deleted the existing partitions, repartitioned, and restarted. Checked partitions, and the old setup remained (2 accessable, 1 unaccessable)

3. Downloaded Data Lifeguard Tools and Data Lifeguard Diagnostics. Ran Diagnostics to check for errors. None found. Ran Tools to try a partition/format, this seemed to work but on retart the previous configuration remained (again, 2 partitions with 3rd missing). Starting to get very perplexed at this stage...

4. Ran DLD again, to see if I could write zeros to the drive. System froze shortly after selecting this option. In fact, neither the quick nor thorough options could be completed.

5. At this stage I checked my system BIOS to see if there was anything there I could change. I believe the only change I made was to select the option Auto-Detect Hard Disks. I chose to exit without saving changes, and when Windows booted up I ran Data Lifeguard Tools again. This time it recognised that I had a drive that required setting up, and I began to partition the drive.

6. Following the required restart, the new four partition set-up was recognised!!! I ran a defrag of all the drives, and was told that the last partition (Drive H:) had errors, and I needed to run Scandisk. Well, I tried to, for an entire day, and no scan could be completed...

7. First I ran the (thorough) scan through windows. The scan got as far as "checking lost file fragments" then slowed to a crawl. A dialog box kept appearing telling me that errors were found and that scandisk would fix them later. Of course, this meant I had to sit in front of the machine constantly to keep selecting OK. To overcome this I selected "Free" in the Lost File Fragments section of the advanced options and this seemed to do the trick. The scan progressed to checking the disk surface, but eventually froze at cluster 106,500 (approx) of 1,136,041 clusters (about 9% complete). So I ran scandisk through msdos, with a similar result (froze on cluster 106,997 exactly).

Following various tooing and froing their service rep told me that Scandisk doesn't work with HDs over 137GB in Windows ME (this true?), and that I should download their own Data Lifeguard Diagnostics for Windows and run their express and extended tests of the drive. Express came upclear, but the extended test froze on "Current Sector 279644601 of 312581806".

Personally I think the drive is toast. I've got back onto them, and am waiting on a reply, but can anyone here shed any light on it? I'll provide more info as required...

Thanks.

BoB_BoT

Couple of questions,
1) What mainboard are you using? Does it support your drive.
2) Windows Me may be having problems with the drive, simply because it's windows Me and crashes like a mother****er, do yourself a favour and change os (Soz don't mean to be os bashing).
3) Have you tried the drive in another machine? That is if one's avaliable.
4) Have you considered that your system may be having the problems, what spec is your machine?

Gl,
Rob

atheist

It sounds as though you could be running into BIOS limits, and could be suffering a geometry wraparound.

Try creating a 32GB primrary partition, an extended partition for the rest of the disk, split into several 32GB logical drives. Run your tests.

Make a test directory on each. On the highest drive letter copy on a large file such as an iso cd image. Fill the drive using
for %f in (a b c d ... 8 9 0) do copy big.iso %fbig.iso
where ... is the rest of the alphabeth and numbers. Repeat
for %f in (*.*) do copy %f a%f
changing a to b to c
After the drive is full check for corruption.

Check if there is a bios upgrade for your motherboard, and the maximum geometry supported. Some people have used usb2 caddies and/or controllers with bioses to get around bios limits.

therecklessone

Originally posted by BoB_BoT
Couple of questions,
1) What mainboard are you using? Does it support your drive.
2) Windows Me may be having problems with the drive, simply because it's windows Me and crashes like a mother****er, do yourself a favour and change os (Soz don't mean to be os bashing).
3) Have you tried the drive in another machine? That is if one's avaliable.
4) Have you considered that your system may be having the problems, what spec is your machine?

Gl,
Rob

1. Machine is a Packard Bell (I know, its the double kiss of death...PB + ME :eek: ). Here is the motherboard specification: Saturn (Pheonix+) motherboard . I know this doesn't support HDs >137GB, so I bought an IDE Controller Card to plug the drive into: IDE Controller Card

2. Replacing ME isn't really an option right now. And I don't think I should have to. All the workarounds I've been told of to get past the 137GB threshold should do the trick. I reckon the drive itself is damaged.

3. Haven't tried the drive in another machine, and probably won't be able to until next Friday/Saturday at the earliest. I'll consider it though.

4. Don't think its the system thats at fault to be honest. Its a 1GHz P3, 384 MB Ram.

The WD rep told me scandisk (and possibly defrag) cannot work with drives >137GB and that I have to use their utilities. Thing is, I've just defraged/scanned two of the other three partitions successfully, using scandisk and defrag (and am currently doing the same to the 3rd and largest partition). This problem only occurs with partition 4, the H drive. And it occurs at roughly the same place each time.

The partition thats causing the problem is just over 18GB in size. That means that windows has no problem recognising (and checking for errors) on the other 140GB+.

I'm thinking physical damage to the drive, and sending it back to either Komplett or WD as appropriate. Anyone else got any input?

therecklessone

Originally posted by atheist

Check if there is a bios upgrade for your motherboard, and the maximum geometry supported. Some people have used usb2 caddies and/or controllers with bioses to get around bios limits.

See post above for the IDE controller card (with BIOS) I'm using. But thanks anyway.

BoB_BoT

ah okies , i was more or less just looking to see if you were using an IDE controller or the mainboard itself question answered. Yeah sounds like a section of the drive is damaged.

therecklessone

Yeah, waiting on WD guy to get back to me. Think it will return from whence it came...:(

Two whole days wasted trying to get the fecker to work...

atheist

I think it's a geometry problem. If we recalculate the drive capacity, turning it from market speak to real size, and look at how far into the drive lifeguard finds the problem we get
137 160 1.167883212
137 156.25 1.140510949 (160*1000/1024)
137 152.58 1.113780224 ditto
279644601 312581806 1.117782374
So you will only be able to use 90% of the hard disk.
Did scandisk report media errors or bad blocks? If so get it swapped under warranty. If not, want to swap for a 80GB drive?:D

therecklessone

Originally posted by atheist
I think it's a geometry problem. If we recalculate the drive capacity, turning it from market speak to real size, and look at how far into the drive lifeguard finds the problem we get
137 160 1.167883212
137 156.25 1.140510949 (160*1000/1024)
137 152.58 1.113780224 ditto
279644601 312581806 1.117782374
So you will only be able to use 90% of the hard disk.
Did scandisk report media errors or bad blocks? If so get it swapped under warranty. If not, want to swap for a 80GB drive?:D

Yeah, but as I've already said, I'm utilising well over the 137GB threshold. Windows reports the 4th partition as 17.3GB, and I'm nearly sure that the lifeguard diagnostics reported it as 18.1GB (I'll confirm that in the morning, as soon as the current scandisk completes), so either way I'm able to use 140GB+, yes?

Anyway, geometry shouldn't be a problem if I'm using a specific controller to overcome that barrier, should it?

My head hurts...

p.s. scandisk reported errors when I ran it last night on H.

atheist

Check the drives documentation. It may have a 132GB "Clip" option. If so use it, and recreate your partitions.

The use of space above this is mistranslated making mush of your data. The corruption dose not necessarily imply a physical fault.

therecklessone

Originally posted by atheist

The use of space above this is mistranslated making mush of your data. The corruption dose not necessarily imply a physical fault.

There is no data to mush. Its a brand new drive, with nothing assigned to it yet. I want the drive to work before I start transferring stuff from my backups.

therecklessone

Got my answer back from WD this morning. I'm to return the drive to them, or to the retailer (Komplett)

WD want me to use a courier to Germany. Cheapest option so farappears to be SDS at €30!!!

Think I'll try Komplett.

froggie_1

thats pretty crap of them......all these people have accounts with couriers. they should give u theyre acc number. feckin thing gave u enough hassle

froggie_1

i work for samsung notebook tech support and when were bringing in a unit for repair after the troubleshootin, it the unit is under warranty we give our dhl acc no.

neokenzo

I agree with froggie_1. Use their courier service. Its at fault and under warranty. No reason for you to pay extra. When my Ipaq had some problem, HP sent their own courier to pick it up and send it back to me. I wasnt charged anything for it.

BoB_BoT

return it to komplett. use their dma service, if you do incur costs you can claim them back, but I think they only give your credit with them. When you get your DMA with Komplett send it by registered post (i think that's it, they'll give you full details in the RMA email). Deal with the retailer first (you should have no problems whatsoever with Komplett).

therecklessone

Yeah, its going back to Komplett tomorrow, although they're trying to tell me that ME doesn't support drives >137GB as well, so I reckon this could go on and on.

Got my RMA, just want to get rid of the fecking thing now...:(