hard drive corrupt sometimes

[collinlurks]

recently my boot drive maxtor 120gb hdd started making clicking noises, was hanging all the time, so i backed up all my crap to my seagate 250gb drive, and switched the 120 boot for an old maxtor 40gb. i formatted and installed XP on the 40. to save myself some time, i had all the essential installs and drivers ready and waiting for me on the 250. so windows booted with the 40gb maxtor, and i went to try to install the mobo drivers, but all the folders on the 250 were corrupted. so i switched the two boot drives again, started windows with the 120 again, CHKDSK corrected a bunch of errors on the 250, and i was able to access all the files again. then everytime i booted with the fresh windows install on the 40, my 250 had all corrupted files. whenever i booted with the 120, everything that was corrupt got fixed in CHKDSK, and no more probs(aside from randomly hanging for a few minutes).
meanwhile, i had a new seagate 250 in the mail to replace the maxtor 120 which i assumed to be failing (unable to boot twice while making clicking noises, hanging). i just formatted and installed windows xp on the new drive which arrived today. no i am having the same problem as i had when booting from the 40gb drive.
i really have no idea what is going on here, so any help would be greatly appreciated.

ide 1:

master->boot(alternately 120gb maxtor(~2yrs old), 40gb maxtor(~5yrs old), new 250gb seagate)

slave->250gb seagate(~1yr old)

 

[zenmaster]

You did not have any special "LBA" type software installed on the 120gb did you?

That software that come with Hard-Drives to allow older motherboards address the full-size of the disk?

While unlikely you could see something like that.
You did not enable any type of encryption software did you?

 

[collinlurks]

if i have any LBA software, i do not know of it. i doubt that there is any encryption either.

i do believe i turned indexing off. could that cause any problems?

mobo= asus a7n8x

 

[aequalsb]

Hey Buddy!

Are you using a windows XP or XPw/SP2 disk?

My old xp disk wouldn't read a HD over a certain amount of GB. It would keep saying that it needed to check my disk.. blah blah... and keep reporting the wrong size. (lost some good data back then) After 2 reformat's i read that i should update windows first, then install the large drive. If you might have updated windows to sp2 first than plug in the drive i bet it'd work like it should have.

 

[HoldenMcGroin]

I'll bet your video files sometimes show up right, other times the screen is darkened, and still other times no video. Some files and programs will suddenly close. Programs on that drive error out frequently, though not all the time. Photos have the same problems as the aforementioned video files.

How's my aim?

 

[zenmaster]

That is a good possibility.
Ensure that the major SP level is the same on both Drives.

I did not recall the issue this poster is referencing, but showing my age there was such an issue when Windows NT went from SP3 to SP4.

Drives were no longer readable in SP3 if moved to another system or the SP was removed.

 

[collinlurks]

aequalsb:

yes, my old installation (the one that works) was SP1.
my XP disk is no SP, and i actually had the SP2 file on my 250 that i cant read.

this seems like it possibly could be the problem. another thing i noted is that when i was doing the install, it read my two 250 seagates as 130gb each. i made my boot partition 40gb, leaving about 90 more gb unpartitioned. if the service pack is the problem, do you think it will be able to read all 250 then?

holden:
actually i have not experienced that. sometimes i can look through all subdirectories on the sometimes corrupted drive, but never open any files. other times, i can only get into a few folders, while the others appear as corrupted. again, this is only with the new XP installs.

well ill try getting SP2 then ill check back in with the results.

 

[nukemaster]

since you are installing windows over and over again....you may save some time by slip streaming sp2 on the CD....then it will install all the time....

Here's how


On the drive issue....use the old crappy drive to get the files off to CD/DVD/USB HDD or whatever you can...or even a new drive(to backup on)....then cross your fingers and try windows on the 40 or whatever(when istalling unplug what ever drive you have your files on...just to be safe....)....

and it never hurts to get maxblast or power max....one of them will check the drives....and seatools from seagate for the other....

But first off do whatever it takes to get your files.....use the busted drive to back-up(assuming you can get non currupt files booting with it).....

Good luck....

 

[niz]

Did you try overclokcing or otherwise change bios settings or change your memory before you experienced any problems? It could be a memory timing issue as all 3 drives are playing up.

it could also be that your power supply is going bad.

 

[MCGTech]

recently my boot drive maxtor 120gb hdd started making clicking noises, was hanging all the time, so i backed up all my crap to my seagate 250gb drive, and switched the 120 boot for an old maxtor 40gb. i formatted and installed XP on the 40. to save myself some time, i had all the essential installs and drivers ready and waiting for me on the 250. so windows booted with the 40gb maxtor, and i went to try to install the mobo drivers, but all the folders on the 250 were corrupted. so i switched the two boot drives again, started windows with the 120 again, CHKDSK corrected a bunch of errors on the 250, and i was able to access all the files again. then everytime i booted with the fresh windows install on the 40, my 250 had all corrupted files. whenever i booted with the 120, everything that was corrupt got fixed in CHKDSK, and no more probs(aside from randomly hanging for a few minutes).
meanwhile, i had a new seagate 250 in the mail to replace the maxtor 120 which i assumed to be failing (unable to boot twice while making clicking noises, hanging). i just formatted and installed windows xp on the new drive which arrived today. no i am having the same problem as i had when booting from the 40gb drive.
i really have no idea what is going on here, so any help would be greatly appreciated.

ide 1:

master->boot(alternately 120gb maxtor(~2yrs old), 40gb maxtor(~5yrs old), new 250gb seagate)

slave->250gb seagate(~1yr old)

Check the Molex power connectors. They're a pin/split cylinder affair and the cylindars can loosen up with use. Also be sure to check any Splitter or molex to SATA adapter you may be using. I'm betting you connected that old 40 gig drive to a different connector.

I once discovered this problem by accident. One of my machines had similar symptoms. While looking around, my hand brushed a drive's power connector and I heard it spin up! After tightning the connectors by bending the female cylinders closed with a small screwdriver, all was well.

 

[aequalsb]

Check the Molex power connectors. They're a pin/split cylinder affair and the cylindars can loosen up with use. Also be sure to check any Splitter or molex to SATA adapter you may be using. I'm betting you connected that old 40 gig drive to a different connector.

I like this suggestion. Those thingys sure do get loose w/ the removing and replacing...

 

[nukemaster]

yes i have had that too many times......

 

[collinlurks]

ok, so it was the service pack deal. soon as i updated, windows could read both 250s, and no more corruption probs. good as new.

thanks all.

 

[aequalsb]

YEAH!

Thanks for updating us. Hate when we wonder forever if something ever got fixed. How are we to know how to fix problems if we never know which fixes work.

cheers!

Andy