Excessive file loss on HD help please.

[Amaron]

Ok this has been bugging me for a while now. I installed a second IDE controller in my system to install another hard drive and used it quite effectively for a while mostly for storing non critical video data. After maybe a month though (it could be less than this so take it with a grain of salt) I started getting a lot of lost files. Whatd happen is the drive would get corrupted and when Chkdsk was running it'd start deleting file attributes and never bother to recover them afterward. The hard drive would work fine after this but I'd go into it and the files that got hosed would still be there but they're empty reading 0KB's so effectively lost.

I tried running a surface scan but everytime I did that chkdsk locked up at the surface scaning stage. So at this point Im figuring the drive is screwed or the controller is bad. I found a 3rd party program to do a surface scan and that came out ok so I started thinking the card was bad. I figure no biggy Im upgrading soon I'll just disable that drive till then. It was still annoying me though so I've tried and tried to find any evidence to test if the controller was messed as I'd like to know whether I should just toss it.

So I was checking through Computer Management (I run win2k) and looked at the "conflicts/sharing" section and low and behold Im floored to see that it's setup on the same irq as my video card. I think gee I checked that so I go into device manager and click on properties of both and it says there are no conflicts. But the properties box lists both at irq 11 mind you. So I figure they really are conflicting and both on IRQ 11.

Sorry for taking the long route to that but I would like to know if this could be possible for the often time corruption of that drive. Im kinda stupified that the controller card even works on the same IRQ as the video card. I know a thing or two about how IRQ's work to interface with the CPU and I figured that such a thing would mess up my video too but I get no indication of it.

Id like to know for sure though if this is the likely cause of the problem. Also just out of curiosity where do I change that it's been a long time since I dealt with IRQ conflicts.

Thanks for any thoughts.

Amaron

 

[Toejam31]

IRQ sharing in Win2K, especially with IRQ 9 and 11, is a perfectly normal event in Windows 2000 with <A HREF="http://searchwin2000.techtarget.com/sDefinition/0,,sid1_gci213657,00.html" target="_new">ACPI</A> Power Management enabled in the BIOS. If your hardware is ACPI-compliant, then this is how Win2K loaded the HAL (Hardware Abstraction Layer) when the operating system was installed.

It doesn't sound like you have a conflict with the video card. This would either cause the computer to stop booting, or display a BSOD when the Windows drivers began to load, or at the very least, the video drivers would not load in Windows and you'd be left using nothing but the standard VGA. Or the IDE Controller card wouldn't function, and the hard drive wouldn't be available.

You've only assumed that a conflict might exist by noticing that the two devices are sharing an IRQ. But if this was <i>really</i> a problem, one of those devices would simply not be functional.

If you wish to be absolutely certain that the IRQ sharing is not part of the problem, uninstall the PCI IDE controller from the Device Manager, move it to another PCI slot, and reinstall it with the latest drivers for the card. Then reattach the hard drive.

It sounds to me like you either have a physical problem with the IDE controller card, or the hard drive is beginning to develop bad sectors. Are you able to run <A HREF="http://www.microsoft.com/windows2000/en/server/help/bootcons_chkdsk.htm" target="_new">CHKDSK</A> on the drive from the <A HREF="http://www.microsoft.com/windows2000/en/server/help/recovery_console_overview.htm" target="_new">Recovery Console</A>?

The only way for the system to be stable with ACPI disabled is to turn off all APCI features in the BIOS, enable the older <A HREF="http://www.microsoft.com/hwdev/archive/onnow/apm.asp" target="_new">APM</A> Power Management, reinstall Win2K, and select a <A HREF="http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;Q216251" target="_new">Standard HAL</A> during the very beginning of the text-mode portion of the setup. However, even this has some limitations, and not all IRQ and I/O addresses can be manually altered, even with APM.

Personally, I'd leave the Power Management alone. Instead, I'd back up the files on the hard drive. Then I'd get a downloadable disk utility from the hard drive manufacturer, and low level format the drive. I'd also use the utility to test the drive for errors. Afterwards, if the drive checked out, next, I'd repartition and format the drive <i>while connected</i> to the PCI IDE Controller, which means you may have to add a DOS driver for the Controller to a Windows <A HREF="http://www.mirrors.org/archived_software/www.bootdisk.com/original.htm" target="_new">boot disk</A> so that it is accessible. I'd also move the Controller to another slot, just to be on the safe side ... basically, anything except PCI Slot 1, which is nearest the video card.

After this, if the drive continued to have a problem, I'd ditch the Controller card.

Toejam31

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