consistently crashing - please help

[knight0]

hi,
after tolerating this problem for the past few months, i can no longer take it anymore. it started when i installed the new hard drive i bought. i got the WD1000 and set it as a secondary hard drive. my other drive, an IBM 13GB, is where i installed the operating system. the problem is that whenever i want to move files between the two, they would get corrupted or my computer would lock-up. this happens when i move lots of files totaling 100's of MB's, or single files at around 100MB and up. i've installed the latency patch already, but files still corrupt, and losing tons of files due to crashing is really starting to tick me off. moving single files one by one is no fun. please help me. is it because the IBM drive is 5400RPM and the WD1000 is 7200RPM? do i need some kind of cooling solution for the 7200RPM? should i install the OS on the WD1000? any help is greatly appreciated. thank you.

 

[HonestJhon]

what motherboard ...and what os.


-DAvid

-Live, Learn, then build your own computer!-

 

[kief]

While I do strongly suggest coolers for 7200 RPM drives I dont think its the source of your problem. First thing I would suggest is made sure you have the correct drivers installed for your board, like the VIA 4 in 1 driver for VIA based boards. Other then that you should run the diagnostics on the drives and make sure they are ok!

Jesus saves, but Mario scores!!!

 

[knight0]

oops, sorry.
i'm using Windows 98 SE and my mb is the Asus A7V133. the 4in1 driver i have installed is version 432(? the zip file is 4in1432.zip) and i've run scandisk numerous times without any error. is a thorough scan necessary? are there other free diagnostic programs i can download? can the problem also be due to one using UltraDMA/100 and the other UltraDMA/66? i have this feeling that the IBM can't keep up with the WD1000 because the problem usually arises when i move files to the IBM, although my computer sometimes crashes when i install from files on the WD1000 onto the WD1000 drive. in the middle of installing the screen will go black and i have to hard boot. did that make sense? also, i'm not sure if this is related, but usually upon reboot or start-up, i'm greeted with 3 blue screens. something about memory not being flushed. i tap space through the first two and then ctrl+alt+del to restart on the third blue screen. this has been driving me nuts and can sometimes repeat twice in a row! going through the DOS scandisk 3 times one after the other for about 10 min is very tortuous. appreciate the help so far, please keep it up.

<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by knight0 on 03/08/02 07:57 PM.</EM></FONT></P>

 

[HonestJhon]

did you get your hard drive in a retail package?
meaning that it came in a box, and had a disk and everything?
if not, download <A HREF="http://ctweb01.wdc.com/datalifeguard/lifeguardextend.asp?destination=http://support.wdc.com/download/dlg/dlgmaker.exe" target="_new">this</A>
and if that doesnt work, this is the page it is from.
the first thing, data lifeguard tools or soemthing like that.
run the diagnostics for your new drive, and see if there are any problems with the drive.
because like you said, it only started after you added the new drive!
and ata-66 and ata-100 and ata-133 are all compatible with each other.
that wouldnt cause a problem.


-DAvid

-Live, Learn, then build your own computer!-

 

[knight0]

ok, after finding out that the latest 4in1 driver was version 4.37, i went and installed that first. i tested the drive by moving a 200+ MB file from the WD1000 to the IBM. the computer still locked up. black screen, hard boot. now, this was out of the ordinary. during the scandisk in dos, it got stuck in the high 80's. i quit and ran scandisk in windows, and my computer froze. i ran it again in dos, and after waiting forever, a pop-up said something about scanning for cross-linked files. this lasted for about 2 hours(!) with it checking for cross-linked files after every percentage increase. can this be a key to my problems? next, i downloaded the diagnostic program you recommended, and more problems. the program could not detect the WD1000. it would get to the diagnostic menu and then quickly quit back to the main menu. i checked with the BIOS check utility the program comes with and it only detects the IBM. i've checked my jumper settings and they seem to be correct. the IBM is a 9-pin and they are placed vertically in the 3 and 5 columns. the WD1000 is a 10-pin and it's placed vertically in the 4 column. ugh, the fun just does not seem to end. i'm this close to just tearing the sucker out and burning it! please help me stop this urge.

 

[knight0]

please, can someone tell me why the diagnostic program cannot detect the WD1000? fdisk and windows both detect the WD1000 fine. please tell me any possible reasons. also, i'm not sure why, but there is an extra delay now when i want to shutdown or restart in windows. it stays at the desktop, with just the wallpaper viewable, for about 10-15 sec, and then shuts down or restarts. any idea why that's happening now? thanks.

 

[blue_heart]

how you are attaching your CD drives?

check the jumpers of your drives

wish if there was UnDo in the life

 

[knight0]

i have two EIDE CD-ROM drives, both connected to one IDE cable/connector. my two hard drives are actually connected separately with one IDE cable/connector each. is that why i'm having problems? this is gonna cause headaches because the two hard drives are spaced pretty far apart.

edit: also, the IBM is set as the master and the WD1000 is set as the slave. does it matter that the faster drive is set as the slave? the IBM is where my OS is installed so i guess i have to set it as master, right?<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by knight0 on 03/10/02 02:06 PM.</EM></FONT></P>

 

[Ncogneto]

i have two EIDE CD-ROM drives, both connected to one IDE cable/connector. My two hard drives are actually connected separately with one IDE cable/connector each.

If I count correctly this gives you three IDE channels? Does your motherboard have an onboard promise controller or Raid controller? I donlt think this is a hard drive issue, so stop worring about that at the moment. Your files are geting corrupted during transfer across the pci bus, hence a motherboard/chipset issue.

1) make sure you have the latest bios
2) make sure you are running the standard M$ ide drivers
3) only install the latest via agp drivers do not intall the IDE drivers!
4) after all this then install the latency patch and report back


It's not what they tell you, its what they don't tell you!

 

[knight0]

ok, after the above post of mine, i realized what a bonehead i am for forgetting the very meanings of the words 'master' and 'slave'. i went ahead and changed the jumper settings of both of the drives to read master. i just came back from an extensive stress test involving moving a 200+MB file around between the two drives and running the file to install into each drive, without a hitch! seems my problems are fixed, and for such a boneheaded move. i'm still banging my head against the wall.

anyway, the BIOS check utility does detect the WD1000 now, but the diagnosis utility still does not. it does not detect any drive for that matter. weird.

Ncogneto, i have 4 IDE connectors, with two of them supporting RAID0. those are the ones my two hard drives are connected to. my board also has a Promise UltraDMA/100 chip, but i'm not utilizing RAID0 due to the WD1000 being vastly superior to my old IBM drive, so should i be worrying about that? also, why should i not install the VIA IDE drivers? and finally, a quick question before i go. how do i know which UltraDMA mode my drives are running in? the startup gives each drive a number, which i guess corresponds to a UltraDMA mode. the WD1000 is given the number 5, and the IBM 4, i think. thanks guys for all the help.

 

[knight0]

ok, after thinking all my problems were over, when i booted up my computer today, it locked-up. it locks up right after the hard drive settles and Windows is fully loaded. i tried a million things and then finally tried uninstalling this 'Promise IDE controllers Win98' (or some such) entity in Add/Remove Programs. can someone tell me what this was? and if it was the source of my problems? i don't want to try rebooting because it might start locking up again. also, can someone tell me where the Microsoft IDE drivers are? i tried searching their site with no luck.

 

[AndrewT]

Promise is the controller you have built into the motherboard so you can hook up an extra 4 IDE devices, we have the same board.

My board was fine too till I hooked up a second hard drive, then same thing, lock up, corrupted files including message about corrupted ones on driver/os/game/app cd's (not true, just the board think so), can't unrar anything because it comes out as corrupted.... I just use my other box to unzip/rar/tar, using same drive and no errors at all.

Guess the chipset got problems on some boards because every time replace mine, I get no paste under the chipset heatsink (new ones come with a big load of thermal paste under the heatsink). Guessing they replace the chip and forget to paste them.


p.s. my chipset get so hot you wouldn't believe it, sending board back again. (better not forget to take off my Tt cooler from chipset!)

<font color=red>Handsome A7V133 looking for long term relationship with a XP CPU. Prefer non smoker.</font color=red>

 

[knight0]

thanks AndrewT. it's actually comforting to know that i'm not alone. i'm really starting to despise the Asus A7V133. oh, and if you have time, read my latest topic. avoid everything i did, unless you're prepared to chuck that Asus out the window.

 

[AndrewT]

I hate them for months now! :tongue: The only thing holding me back from throwing the motherboard on the floor and tap dancing on it, is the 230$ (canadian and with taxes) I payed for it not too long ago. But the day is coming!

Crap is that if I want to replace this p.o.s. the ram prices are way up from last year, and almost nobody would want to buy my pc133 ram so I could get ddr.

<font color=red>Handsome A7V133 looking for long term relationship with a XP CPU. Prefer non smoker.</font color=red>