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Thread ID: 29779 2003-02-02 18:46:00 Keep losing hard drives? ..... Jen C (20) Press F1
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117795 2003-02-02 18:46:00 System:
P3 933 Mhz, 384 MB RAM, mobo Chaintech 6AJA4, Primary master HDD Seagate Barracuda IV 40 GB 7200 rpm, Primary slave HDD Maxtor 20 GB 5400 rpm. Computer is 2 years old (out of warranty).

Dual booting with Windows ME on Master, Linux Lycoris on partitioned slave - using GRUB as boot manager.

To cut a long story short, after a BSOD I could not startup windows normally nor into safe mode. It would just hang on the windows splash screen in safe mode and only give a blank screen with a blinking cursor with normal mode. No beeps are emitted at any stage of boot up.

Things I have tried:
Checked all connections, leads, RAM seating etc.

Step-by-step confirmation startup - hangs on "Load all window drivers" - Y or N makes no difference.

Ran Nortons Disk Doctor in DOS - reported FAT physical error. Error in \windows\system directory - Disk Doctor unable to relocate clusters and then spat out error 35, General protection fault in A:\NDD.EXE at 0C18:00E6 followed by a long list of codes.

Tried booting into Lycoris but it now hangs on "scanning for new hardware..."

Decided to reformat and reinstall windows ME onto master drive to see what that would do, but after 1 hour and only 50% of files unpacked it also encountered an unrecovable error and aborted the process.

Hard drive history
This is my third master Seagate HDD since October 2002!!

First one died with bad sectors after 10 weeks in Dec 2002, replacement under warranty died during OS installation, current (and third) has lasted 6 weeks! The slave drive (Maxtor) has been OK.

Question:
Is there something else (another component) that would be causing my HDD's to sprout errors? I don't want to put another one in only to have that die soon afterwards as well. Could there be a problem with the mobo?

Any advice would be most appreciated.

Cheers
Jen
Jen C (20)
117796 2003-02-02 19:34:00 Interesting, a wee while ago we were discussing brand names of Hard-drives, a person who worked in a computer shop had blacklisted the baracuda drives because of the problem you describe. Apparantly the standard segates are fine though. I'll see if i can find the thread. roofus (483)
117797 2003-02-02 22:26:00 It may not be a good idea to master / slave the seagate with the other hdd. try put the second hdd as the secondary ide master.

I wonder some mainboards are cooking hdds.

check to see if your power supply output is normal.

yes, I have seen bad lots of seagate hdds which I think caused improper transport.
yang11 (170)
117798 2003-02-02 22:32:00 This might not apply to the NZ market for Seagate hard drives but there was a problem with Seagates in relation to a bad batch of drive chips. This is going back to last year. Of course if the chip itself is burned out you probably (won't) be able to access the drive at all so sounds like something else. Gordon. (2217)
117799 2003-02-02 22:54:00 Well I couldn't find the thread :-(

Moving the hard drive around through master/slave isn't going to make a fat load of difference, your hdd is having physical problems, that are resulting in bad sectors.

Since it will still be under warranty. Take it back, and make sure its not a barracuda
roofus (483)
117800 2003-02-03 04:24:00 Thanks everyone for their comments.

I will return the hard drive tomorrow to the shop but I am pretty sure they will be most unhappy to see me again with another faulty HDD. Last time they implied it might be something wrong with my PC if the HDD went again, so I don't know if they will replace this drive under the warranty :-(. The seagate barrucuda's are probably from the same batch lot, so I will get another brand this time.

I will also take the whole case in and get them to check out the power supply unit and motherboard.

If anyone else has any comments, please feel free to add them but I will not be able to check this thread again until tomorrow (I can only access the internet at work now :_| )

Thanks
Jen
Jen C (20)
117801 2003-02-03 04:40:00 Are you overclocking at all? -=JM=- (16)
117802 2003-02-03 04:51:00 > Are you overclocking at all?

No - I am (was) quite fond of my system and have never attempted overclocking with it.

Jen
Jen C (20)
117803 2003-02-03 06:14:00 Jen...

<comment>
Every HDD that has ever failed on me has been a barrucuda i only buy seagates. Every other seagate HDD has been reliable
</comment>

.Clueless
Clueless (181)
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