Heeeeelp!

[Kogarashi]

I'm pretty sure I've got a failing hard drive on my hands. Problem is, I don't know which one (I hope ihopeihope it's not both....).

First off, I have two hard drives currently hooked up to my motherboard. One is a 60GB Maxtor drive containing my OS (WinXP Pro) and various system-related files, and the other is an 80GB Western Digital drive that I use as data storage--art, video files, text documents, HTML files, etc. Everything not related directly to running a program is dropped on this drive.

Early December, I hooked up an external hard drive we inherited from my father in law to my computer to back up my storage drive, since I hadn't backed up my stuff in a long time. Hubby had already backed up his laptop with no problems. Apparently the external drive didn't like my computer for some reason, because it kept conflicting. I started hearing a soft click-whirr from the case, after which the computer stopped reading the storage drive. Windows still worked, but it could no longer access the 80GB, and sometimes gave me a "drive write failure" error. The computer also slowed down as it reacted to the misplacement of a drive. This necessitated restarts, often with the reset button on the computer case. I lost count of how many times I had to reset the computer like that, or with the power switch (holding for 5 seconds to power down).

Finally, I went into Safe Mode to finish backing up the files, where the drives behaved themselves.

Unfortunately, since that day my computer's occasionally clicked at me and then lost track of the storage drive. I figured it was dying, and finally got around to ordering myself a new drive (160GB Western Digital SATA drive; the other two drives are IDE or whatever the ribbon cable ones are). I haven't been able to install it yet, for lack of a power adapter to hook it up.

But for some reason today, my computer got suddenly worse (I don't think it liked me poking around its innards and threatening the storage drive--the one I think is failing--with a screwdriver lobotomy). When I tried to boot it up, it lingered for far too long (5-10 minutes on the Windows screen, when it usually takes 2), and when it got to the Welcome screen the drive started clicking repeatedly, about 3 seconds between clicks. It also "misplaced" the storage drive again. I shut down the computer and unhooked the storage drive, but when I rebooted it still took a long time to boot up and clicked repeatedly while running slow (running the two .txt files in my startup folder, loading the tablet drivers, loading up my system try icons). However, once everything was loaded, it stopped clicking.

I'm fairly certain the storage drive is dying, since it keeps turning invisible. I'm worried the OS drive might be dying too, due to the presence of clicking despite the storage drive being disconnected. Help please?

[Geek King]

Good news/ Bad News:

Good: Your data drive may be okay.

Bad: You're probably right about the OS drive dying.

I'd take the new drive you have, and replace the OS drive first. Reload the OS, then hook up the data drive to see how things are working.

[Kogarashi]

Ok. Thank you!

Would a dying OS drive keep "misplacing" a perfectly fine storage drive?

I'm just glad it's giving me warnings and that I (think I) recognize them. I have a friend whose drive started clicking at her, she didn't realize what it was, and pretty much lost everything on her computer.

[technical.angel]

I'll give you a warning, as someone who just went from IDE to SATA, if XP refuses to recognize your SATA harddrive during format, your only option is to go to Vista. XP apparently doesn't have native SATA support, and I couldn't find drivers to load while formatting the HD.

Luckily, I work at a uni, where we're licensed to load Vista and XP on fac/staff machines, so I didn't have to go buy a new OS. I worked on it for weeks, and that was the only solution I could find.

[Broomjockey]

Ok. Thank you!

Would a dying OS drive keep "misplacing" a perfectly fine storage drive?

Very well could. Unable to access any of a bunch of different bits of data due to the drive failing, and it could forget that there's a second drive.

[Pedersen]

I'll give you a warning, as someone who just went from IDE to SATA, if XP refuses to recognize your SATA harddrive during format, your only option is to go to Vista. XP apparently doesn't have native SATA support, and I couldn't find drivers to load while formatting the HD.

Actually, my wife just rebuilt an XP machine with SATA drives. The process is pretty painless if you're already familiar with it, but guaranteed to make life hell if you're not.

Steps to follow:

1. Find the XP driver for the SATA controller you have. Might be with a motherboard driver disk, might be on a manufacturer's website. Find it, you need it.
2. Put the drivers files in the root directory of a freshly formatted floppy disk. No other option will work. No floppy disk? Get one. No floppy drive? Won't work. You must have a floppy drive, and the drivers must be in the top directory of the floppy disk, or it will fail. No ifs, no ands, no buts, not arguments.
3. Proceed with normal windows installation. Very early in the installation process, down at the bottom of the screen, it will say "Press F3 if you need to install a third party disk driver" (or maybe it's SCSI driver, or maybe it's F6). Watch for it. If you don't see it, and don't press the key, the install will fail later.
4. Later on, it will ask you for the disk. Insert it, and follow the prompts.
5. Finally, the install process will complete. You're good to go.

If you already know it, no problems. If not, you'll bang your head on this wall repeatedly. Actually got into arguments with my wife about it until she finally saw it, and understood why I told her to make sure she had both a floppy drive, and floppy disks.

XP will not load those third party drivers during the install without them. No, it will not load from USB drives of any sort. Not firewire, either, nor even IDE. Only from floppy disks.

[technical.angel]

My problem was I could NOT find the drivers. ANYWHERE. No one else on the web could find them. Hence me spending several weeks on the issue.

[LostMyMind]

Since one of the drives is a WD. I would go to WDC Support download and download the WD Data Lifeguard Diagnostic. This program will test if it's drive failure or not (unless your WD drive is really really old)

It actually will test my non-WD hard drive. It might test your maxtor drive, as long it has S.M.A.R.T. system on the drive. (Self-Monitoring, Analysis and Reporting Technology)

My hard-drive failed and it told me exactly what the failure was. I was getting the same thing you are, the write failure. Do the test and check to see if your drive is still under warranty (WD has a very long warranty)

[Kogarashi]

Thanks all!

I (should) have the drivers on my motherboard's installation CD. Yay for keeping all my CDs. I'll need to dig them up.

I was initially planning on installing and formatting the drive as a secondary drive, then disconnecting the old OS drive and putting XP on the SATA per Geek King's recommendation. Thanks for the tip, Pedersen. Yay also for still having a floppy drive and some floppies. Yay also for having cleared all the data off said floppies and formatting them, so they're now blank.

LostMyMind, thanks for the diganostic link. I'll have to hook up my storage drive again to run it on that (I disconnected it to mitigate some of the slow-downs and reduce the risk of damaging something important), and I'll see if it works on the Maxtor. If not, it's off to find a diagnostic for the Maxtor. So thanks again, I didn't even think of running a diagnostic.

After a call to a computer store half an hour away and then a drive there with Baby, I have myself a power adapter. ::knock on wood:: Hope this all works.

And I now know for future reference to never hook up that external drive to my computer without booting to Safe Mode first.

[Aressel]

Maxtor was bought out by Seagate some time ago, so the diagnostic tool for Maxtor drives is Seatools, available from Seagate's website. Alternatively, you could try to find an old copy of Powermax (the old Maxtor tool) kicking around the net. Good luck.

[Eric the Grey]

Thanks all!

I (should) have the drivers on my motherboard's installation CD. Yay for keeping all my CDs. I'll need to dig them up.

I was initially planning on installing and formatting the drive as a secondary drive, then disconnecting the old OS drive and putting XP on the SATA per Geek King's recommendation. Thanks for the tip, Pedersen. Yay also for still having a floppy drive and some floppies. Yay also for having cleared all the data off said floppies and formatting them, so they're now blank.

LostMyMind, thanks for the diganostic link. I'll have to hook up my storage drive again to run it on that (I disconnected it to mitigate some of the slow-downs and reduce the risk of damaging something important), and I'll see if it works on the Maxtor. If not, it's off to find a diagnostic for the Maxtor. So thanks again, I didn't even think of running a diagnostic.

After a call to a computer store half an hour away and then a drive there with Baby, I have myself a power adapter. ::knock on wood:: Hope this all works.

And I now know for future reference to never hook up that external drive to my computer without booting to Safe Mode first.

The only thing I can add to this, is that I disagree with Geek King about it being the OS drive. The problem sounds to me to be the data drive. When windows boots up, and cannot locate a drive that BIOS reports should be there, it usually takes considerably longer to do certain things, such as boot up, and scanning for drives when you open "My Computer."

Do the diagnostics and see what turns up from them, but my recommendation is, if you have a spare connection inside your computer, plug in the new drive, and copy your data files over to it ASAP. Then unplug the old data drive, to make the new drive take it's place (should become the original data drives drive letter, allowing all your applications to run from it). See how it goes from there. IF you still have a problem, you may still need to replace the system drive.

Oh, and why would you have to be in safe mode to hook up a USB drive? I've used several on my system and have one connected at all times for extra storage (mostly backups). The problems you related actually sounded like more drive problems to me. The USB drive should be able to function plugged in without any problems, unless IT had problems too...


Eric the Grey

[Kogarashi]

Thanks for your input, Eric.

I'm fairly convinced now that the OS drive, at least, was failing, if not both, since I had just the OS drive hooked up yesterday and today, and it was still running slow and clicking. And earlier today it finally just quit on me while I was in the process of copying some last-minute files (favorites and Outlook Express e-mails) I'd forgotten to back up earlier. (I'm posting this from my husband's laptop; thank goodness for remembering my password.)

I ran the WD diagnostic on both drives, since the Maxtor drive was detected. I'm stumped with that, since the diagnostic utility claimed both drives were fine. Oh well.

I can't just swap drives and copy, unfortunately, since the new drive I have is SATA, while my two old drives are IDE. However, since the storage drive was left disconnected except for running the diagnostic on it early this morning, I'm fairly certain that one's still okay enough to copy from. Once I get the SATA drive up and running with the OS on it, I'll be doing the copying (probably in Safe Mode just to keep background applications to a minimum).

As far as the external drive goes, I couldn't get more than 1/10 of my storage drive copied to the USB drive before something happened to cancel the transfer and cause my storage drive to be "misplaced." Transfering in Safe Mode made it possible to transfer everything with no interruptions. I think there's something about the external hard drive that disagrees with the particular setup of my computer, for some reason. Doesn't matter much to me, since that drive is mostly for backup, and my husband uses it more than me.

Anyway, tomorrow morning is drive installation time (once I get Baby down for her nap). Wish me luck!

[LostMyMind]

Other than the "clicking" noise. That sounds alot more like controller failure than an actual drive failure. Since you're losing the drive mid transfer, etc....

Did you add new devices, it may just be possible that the power supply is barely supplying enough power to cover all the devices.

Let us know how your drive install goes. Once you have the new drive install and new OS installed. You should be able to re-connect the IDE hard-drives one at a time to transfer your old data.

[Kogarashi]

Hmm...maybe it could be the power supply. Hadn't thought of that. Either way, though, can't get in with the old drive anymore.

Only new device I added around the time of the first "misplacement" was the USB drive itself.

Once again, thanks everyone for your help! You're all awesome.

[Kogarashi]

Well, this is going to take longer than I thought. ::annoyed::

After spending several hours trying to figure out how to get the BIOS to notice the drive (Google, you are so unhelpful today), I'm still not sure I've succeeded. The manual for this mobo is very non-descriptive about what the various BIOS options mean, nor does it actually give much in the way of instructions on installing a SATA drive. Some days I think they get the same people who put subtitles on Hong Kong bootlegged movies to translate their manual. ::grumble::

After poking around Asus's and Western Digital's sites for a while, I finally figured I needed to put a jumper on the drive to "downgrade" it for my mobo. Yay for having spare jumpers lying around.

I still can't find the drive in the BIOS, but I do have the only Serial ATA option I can find enabled. During POST, the computer detects the IDE drives (currently the two DVD drives, as I've disconnected the two HDDs), and then on the next screen for a split second I can see it spotting the SATA drive on Serial Channel 1. However, BIOS doesn't show me anything special (I don't even know where to look).

Tried installing Windows, but it complained that it couldn't find any HDD on the system. ::facepalm::

Looks like it's time to try contacting ASUS and WD. ::sigh:: Who will likely take a long time responding, if people's comments on the ASUS forum are to be believed.

ETA: Ok, after further digging through the ASUS forums, it looks like the BIOS won't actually show me the drive, but I got into the RAID utility this time and it shows it, and after flashing the BIOS it looks like it is actually detecting the drive. Yay. Now if I can get Windows Setup to see it too....