Ibm 180gx 180gb, 137gb problem + c drive corruptio

[dave4900]

I've had a 180gb 180gx IBM drive for about 2 months now and have had endless problems with it.

Firstly I encountered problems trying to get windows 2000 pro to recognise it over 128gb. I have an Abit KT7a motherboard with the latest bios flash. The board and bios recognised the drive at the correct size no problems, however when i tried to install win2k it only recognised it as as 128gb, I got round this by using partion magic 8.

Over the last 2 months I have had to reinstall windows three times due to the C: drive becoming corrupted while running windows. When the error message comes up my computer totally screws up and I lose all the data off my c drive. I have the drive partioned as 2X20gb 2X40gb and 1X60gb

Anyone help me out why does it keep becoming corrupt ?

 

[unoc]

What about the remaining components and setting ?
Do you overclock the system (FSB+CPU) ?

I installed a total of 12 180 GXP since they hit the market and I didn't register any problem.
Anyway, run the drive fitness test to check the health of the drive. If it fails after two months you can have a replacement.
Moreover data corruption may also occur if the memory accumulate errors, so check the memory also with MEMTEST.
You will find all programs on internet.

...Ahhhh? , ok, ok ...I am turning off the computer.

 

[dave4900]

Ok I have since ran both DFT amd MEMTEST both reported everything was fine, what else should I do.

I thought it might have something to do with using partion magic 8, it seems that you are only fooling windows into thinking its a 180gb drive rather then updating it. Is there any other to get win2k to recognise the drive ?.

 

[unoc]

I believe your disk and memory are OK.
Do you installed the SP3 for W2K ? What file system you used (FAT32 or NTFS)?
I have a 240 GB volume installed on a computer with Windows 2k SP3 with no problems.
However partition magic should be used only for that controller which does not recognize the correct capacity and not to modify windows 2k settings.
If the bios recognize the correct capacity, partition magic may be avoided.
Go in control panel>system settings>..>storage>disk drive and check what windows say about your disk. You should find your disk indicated with the entire capacity devided by the partition you made and maybe there are some unused space.
If you don't have still data on your hdd you may try to reinstall the OS starting with eliminating all partitions and creating only the partition for the OS which must be formatted in FAT32 (i.e. 20 GB). Then you can install the OS, the drivers for your mobo and then the SP3.
At this point you may go to the control panel>...>disk storage to complete the partitioning of the drive remembering that fat32 partition are limited to 32 GB and that you can create bigger partition only using NTFS.
This is the procedure I follow to partition a 240 GB volume.

...Ahhhh? , ok, ok ...I am turning off the computer.

 

[dave4900]

Why must the os partition be formatted in fat32? what is wrong with using ntfs?
I do use windows sp3

 

[Teq]

Use NTFS... win 2000 will thank you.



---><font color=green>It ain't better if it don't work</font color=green><---

 

[dave4900]

Thats what I thought and that is what I do use.
Still not solved my problem though

 

[Teq]

Ok, reading through this, I get that you're having problems with data getting corrupted... So lets see what we can figure out...

1) Are all your drive cables ATA100 (80 wire) compatible?
2) Are you sure your power connection to the drive is solid?
3) Do you have the drive's jumpers set correctly (single or master/slave)?
etc.

Once you're pretty sure all that stuff is right...

Try the drive in a different machine and see if the problem moves with it.

1) If it does, it's the drive, get it replaced under warranty.

2) If not, it's most likely something in your machine. Probably a motherboard problem --or-- an IDE communications problem.


Now... that's a KT133 chipset, with the 686B Southbridge chip. There is a known issue of data corruption with this chip at ATA100 speeds! For a while it was all the rap at VIA and on several VIA fanboards... And, I ran into it head on with my personal use machine. (gigbyte 7zmmh mobo, xp1800 cpu) Here's how I fixed the problem...

1) Get the latest version of VIA's 4 in 1 drivers for your board.
<A HREF="http://www.viaarena.com/?PageID=2" target="_new">http://www.viaarena.com/?PageID=2</A> (Half way down the page.)

2) Get the PCI latency patch from George Breeze.
<A HREF="http://www.georgebreese.com/net/software/" target="_new">http://www.georgebreese.com/net/software/</A> (Also half way down the page)

3) Get the latest BIOS for your board.
<A HREF="http://www.abit-usa.com/products/mb/kt7a/biosdrive.php" target="_new">http://www.abit-usa.com/products/mb/kt7a/biosdrive.php</A>

IF this doesn't fix it, you're only choices will be to either Turn off UDMA on that hard disk (sssslllloooowwwww) or upgrade to a motherboard without the 686b chip on it.

The bad news is that the data corruption is as likely to be embedded into the hard disk as not... so no matter how you solve the problem it's going to be repartition, reformat and reinstall time.






---><font color=green>It ain't better if it don't work</font color=green><---

 

[dave4900]

Thanks for the info, I have the latest 4in1 drivers and I'm up to date with bios flashes, all the cabling is fine, I'm going to try the other patch you suggested see if that does anything.

I will post to let you know how I got on.

 

[Teq]

Of course, you won't know if it's actually fixed the problem until you repartition and reformat the drive... some of the data corruption may well be embedded right in the files on the drive...

My way of testing it was to copy whole data CDs onto the hard disk and then do a read/compare test. One of the better utilities for this is CDCheck, which you can get here: <A HREF="http://www.elpros.si/CDCheck/" target="_new">http://www.elpros.si/CDCheck/</A>

Lets hope this gets it...



---><font color=green>It ain't better if it don't work</font color=green><---

 

[dave4900]

Ok I have d/l and installed the patch, I have done a few cd's like you suggested and all seems well.
I guess its now just a matter of waiting to see if the problem occurs again, hopefully it won't but I'm not going to take any chances.

Thanks for all your help.

 

[Teq]

Thanks for all your help.

No problem...

Just one last suggestion, now that you have the right combination... You probably should repartition, reformat and reinstall. Lord only knows how many corrupt files are on that disk from beforehand...

Lets hope that's the end of your difficulties




---><font color=green>It ain't better if it don't work</font color=green><---

 

[D75]

I think I have the same problem, but with a GigaByte GA-8SQ800.
I have 3 IBM/Hitachi IC35L120AVV227 120GB 7200RPM.
1 PROMISE FastTrak SX4000 RAID Controller.
1 PCI ATA Controller
1 onboard-integrated RAID controller
1 integrated "normal" controller
I get compare everytime i copy large data, like a CD, to my harddrives. I just dont know how to get it to work.
Any idead?

/D75
"Doh, Though I knew all 'bout hardware"