Hard Drive Causing MAJOR problems....

ok, i have a 160 gig hard drive. There is something SERIOUSLY screwed up with it for some reason.

recently, i have been having trouble getting my computer to start. if i was lucky, it would take 10 minutes to fully log into windows, and i'd pray like hell that everything would start up. Most of the time it wouldn't. and i'd have to restart, and let it try again and again.

it slowly got worse and worse.

Also, i can't seem to burn a single thing. then i realized, everything i have been trying to burn has been off that 160 gig HDD.

just when i was about to redo windows, i got the idea to un plug my extra HDD's. I started off with pulling the plug on the 160 gig.

turned on computer...BAM it turns on without a problem! no waiting, everything boots up like it should.

so i figured out my problem.

If i try plugging the power to the 160 gig in while the PC is on, my PC freezes up completly. I have to restart. BUT if i restart with the 160 plugged in...i can't get into windows!

I have a feeling the HDD is dieing on me. and REALLY BAD. how is it that a secondary HDD stops me from booting into windows, and causes me constant crashes, even though nothing is told to start up from that HDD.

And ontop of all of that, all of my video's, Anime, cartoons and movies and such are all on the 160. i really want to burn this stuff to DVD's, but i can't even get my PC to boot with this thing in! And i do NOT want to delete it all! there's over 120 gigs of just video files. and the rest of the space is used up from program and stuff like that.

so anyone have any idea why a hdd would cause sooo many problems, and any way to fix it, or at least let me be able to get the stuff off of it?

i'm almost scared to put it into my mom's or dad's or the girls PC. in fear it may screw theirs up. but i seriously need to get my stuff copied. I'll just port over the stuff to my other drives, and burn it. That is, if the data isn't corrupted.

Any idea's????

Also, are there any programs i can boot off of a CD that will do a scandisk, or at least check the HDD for bad sectors and stuff? kinda like Memtest? Since i can't boot into windows, maybe i can use a program like this to check out the drive.

If anyone knows of any, it would be of great help. But one thing, i have to be able to boot it off of a CD. since i no longer have a Floppy drive, and i don't have any spare floppy drives around....or any working Floppy disks either ( ALL of them seems to have died over the years ).

If you're using a molex connector, you can't connect/disconnect the drive while the computer is on. Not good at all.
However, this is a weird problem. Go into the BIOS and see what it says about the drive. Sure there's no programs trying to start from it?

yeah, i know plugging it in while the power on isn't the greatest idea. But i had to try something.

the bios is still reading the HDD perfectly.

I tried booting into safe mode with the 160 gig plugged in. I did get into windows. But everything was crashing on me. And eventually my computer completly froze up again.

so i unplugged it again, and booted back up normally. Arggg, this is a PAIN!

HDD's don't usually take too much power, relatively speaking, but if the drive is dying, could it be drawing enough additional power to drag down the rest of the system?

Sounds pretty unlikely, but if ur PSU is just marginally sufficient, and the drive was really drawing substantial pwr due to a sticking platter bearing, or such, causing a high power draw from the HDD's motor, I suppose it could be possible.

I suppose a way to test this would be to remove the HDD's data conn, and once again try running with, & w/o, the molex pwr conn connected, only this time there will be no data flow from the drive to ur sys.

If the problem develops w/o the data conn connected, then it's a pwr draw issue. If the problem only occurs when the data conn is connected, then ur having some type of data conflict w/the 160 drive & ur boot drive/OS.

If the latter is the case, then that's a pretty new one to me, 'cuz I've never had a problem like that. If that's the case, I'd have to agree w/K15's suggestion that there may be something active on the drive attempting to launch, thereby interfering w/ur normal operation. Either way, maybe my suggestion will help you further define the problem as a data/app conflict, or pwr related issue.

Just a thought...

Strat

Sounds like a very similar problem I am having in This thread.

Although I have not tried any of the solutions Kendan suggested, you might understand them better.

Does it take forever to boot if you do it in safe mode?

Get a windows CD, go into recovery console, try

chkdsk /r
fixmbr (try this if chkdsk doesn't work, can cause problems)

If that doesn't work, use a knoppix CD like Kendan suggested, back up all your info, and get a program to zero out the drive.

yes, it still takes a while to boot even when going into safe mode.

i'll double check all my stuff, and make sure no programs are trying to start or run from the 160.

And i'll give the power thing a shot like stratcat said. I doubt thats the problem...but who knows.

Oh, and its a 160 gig Maxtor.

This is also the last time i ever buy a Maxtor. my next HDD i get ( probably a 300 gig or so ) will be a Seagate, or Hitachi.

i'll give a few things a try, and see what happens. Thanks so far.

Don't forget a virus check or 2, that could be causing problems. The suggestion of just plugging in the power is a good one.
I prefer Seagates and WDs myself

Well, i have been having major trouble burning to CD's, and DVD's.

then i remembered that my Burner is on the Same IDE channel as the 160 Drive. And i still had the IDE Cable plugged into the 160.

Sooo, i poped it out. and BAM, my burner works PERFECTLY like it used to!

so now i'm pretty sure its not a power problem.

Anyone hear of a HDD problem like this? Even with the power off, it causes problems to other devices on the same IDE chain???

i think my 160 gig has fully Died on me. Dunno though. still going to do some testing...

I can't believe my luck....only i can somehow pull something as weird and unusual as this off.

err... seems that no one has mentioned this. I would change the data cable for a different one. If you don't have one, switch data cables between your channels and see if the problem migrates to your active partitioned hard drive. Once happened to me.

zexmarquies01 said:

Well, i have been having major trouble burning to CD's, and DVD's.

then i remembered that my Burner is on the Same IDE channel as the 160 Drive. And i still had the IDE Cable plugged into the 160.

Sooo, i poped it out. and BAM, my burner works PERFECTLY like it used to!

so now i'm pretty sure its not a power problem.

Anyone hear of a HDD problem like this? Even with the power off, it causes problems to other devices on the same IDE chain???

i think my 160 gig has fully Died on me. Dunno though. still going to do some testing...

I can't believe my luck....only i can somehow pull something as weird and unusual as this off.

Click to expand...

Ahh, the problem may in fact be the cable. You must use an 80 wire IDE cable if you have a hard drive on that interface. Almost always, optical drives come with 40 wire cables and motherboards usually only come with one 80 wire cable. Make sure you have an 80 wire cable for BOTH the primary and secondary IDE interfaces. If that doesn't work, hell if I know what's going on.

The OP seems to be saying that this problem "developed" and is not a new install problem. At least that's my understanding. My experience is 40 or 80, machs nix. No difference. (except for speed). Naturally, you'll run a bit slower if you don't use the correct "ultra-ata" cable, but it ain't gonna cause the symptoms which the OP describes.

edit: are you able to run manufacturer's diagnostic software on it from DOS?

bardos said:

The OP seems to be saying that this problem "developed" and is not a new install problem. At least that's my understanding. My experience is 40 or 80, machs nix. No difference. (except for speed). Naturally, you'll run a bit slower if you don't use the correct "ultra-ata" cable, but it ain't gonna cause the symptoms which the OP describes.

edit: are you able to run manufacturer's diagnostic software on it from DOS?

Click to expand...

A 40 wire cable will cause errors at speeds over 66.6mb/s. Even at 66.6mb/s it's risky. 80 wire cables are better anyway. An OS doesn't know what cable is installed. I think most BIOSes go down to 66.6mb/s if they see a 40 wire cable, might even be 33.3mb/s. All I know is using an 80 wire cable is best. Why add to the problem? With an 80 wire cable, he KNOWS it's not his problem.

K15 said:

A 40 wire cable will cause errors at speeds over 66.6mb/s. Even at 66.6mb/s it's risky. 80 wire cables are better anyway. An OS doesn't know what cable is installed. I think most BIOSes go down to 66.6mb/s if they see a 40 wire cable, might even be 33.3mb/s. All I know is using an 80 wire cable is best. Why add to the problem? With an 80 wire cable, he KNOWS it's not his problem.

Click to expand...

Actually, it can't go higher than UDMA 33 if the IDE cable is a 40-conductor one!

UDMA 66 and higher require an 80-conductor IDE cable!

RJARRRPCGP said:

Actually, it can't go higher than UDMA 33 if the IDE cable is a 40-conductor one!

UDMA 66 and higher require an 80-conductor IDE cable!

Click to expand...

When 66 came out, 80 wire cables were recommended, not required. 100 was the first that required 80 wire, though I wouldn't trust 66 on 40 wire.

first off, i havn't tried the diagnostics disc from Maxtor. I just downloaded A iso to burn on CD. In another thread, kendan gave a link to it. going to try that soon. been busy with christmas shopping and stuff most of the day.

i'm using the Cables that came with my DFI motherboard. Already rounded and all. i'm pretty sure they are 80 and not 40.

but maybe i should try using a differen't IDE cable. it is plausable that it could be my IDE cable.

off to try the disc i made, see if i can run a diagnostics test on the Drive.

zexmarquies01 said:

first off, i havn't tried the diagnostics disc from Maxtor. I just downloaded A iso to burn on CD. In another thread, kendan gave a link to it. going to try that soon. been busy with christmas shopping and stuff most of the day.

i'm using the Cables that came with my DFI motherboard. Already rounded and all. i'm pretty sure they are 80 and not 40.

but maybe i should try using a differen't IDE cable. it is plausable that it could be my IDE cable.

off to try the disc i made, see if i can run a diagnostics test on the Drive.

Click to expand...

You could tell by looking at them. Both should look the same. If one has bigger wires, it's 40 wire. My ASUS board came with an 80 wire and a 40 wire.