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-   -   New HDD, has corrupted Data - AGAIN (http://www.win98banter.com/showthread.php?t=52205)

[email protected] December 16th 17 08:26 PM

New HDD, has corrupted Data - AGAIN
 
Ok, As most of you know, I had a partition go bad on one of my drives
and I lost much of the data on it, because I did not have a current
backup. I got rid of that hard drive, even after a re-format showed it
to be usable and not have bad sectors.

This is an old IBM brand computer from about 2001. which originally came
with Windows 2000. I've upgraded this machine many times and have used
it for years. I do have Win2000 dual bootable on it, but 95% of the time
I boot and use Win98se. (I have this crossposted to the XP group because
of the lack of activity on the Win98 group).

Anyhow, after that partition got damaged, I unplugged that second hard
drive (Slave drive) and just used the first drive (bootable one). The
first drive is a 120gb with four partitions. The second drive was also a
120gb with three partitions. The partition that went bad, was the G:
partition (first partition on second HDD).

I have not had any problems with the first HDD at all.

After removing that defective second HDD, I put it aside hoping to
recover data from it, and I plugged a 160gb HDD into the second IDE
connector and partitioned it. It did not take long for that second drive
to give me error messsages showing data corruption. I did not have much
on that drive, so I just copied it to space on the first HDD. I did
however, suspect that was because I know that Win98 does not allow
drives larger than 120gb (actually 132gb).

I bought another 120gb drive, and just recently installed it. I had not
yet put my original data back on it, nor my rebuilt data from G: (which
I all have on en external USB drive).

This new drive was partitioned into three partitions again. (G: H: I:).
The G: pattition was still empty. The H: partition I was using for
downloading, and contained about 25 downloads, mostly just small .JPG
files and a few .PDF files.

The I: partition contained a copy of my Agent newsreader which I copied
there, as a backup, while I was changing some of Agent's settings.

Yesterday I was defragging the first drive's partitions, when I decided
to defrag the H: partition, since I had moved around some of the
downloaded files. DEFRAG told me this partition had errors and I needed
to run Scandisk. Scandisk reported crosslinked files between the
DOWNLOAD folder and the RECYCLED folder. (Note, I DO NOT use the
Recycled folder, I have it set to immediately delete files.

I ran NORTON DISK DOCTOR (rather than Scandisk) to fix this, and it did
fix it, but then said that the RECYCLED folder existed but had no space
on the HDD. I could not delete the Recycled folder. Since I had already
copied all my downloads to another place (as a backup), I just
reformatted that H: partition.

For the heck of it, I ran DEFRAG on the I: partition (which only
contained a backup of my AGENT folder. -Once again, I got a notice to
run Scandisk, which showed duplicates of ALL these files in the RECYCLED
folder. And said it contained crosslinked files. Since I did not need
that backup of Agent anymore, I just reformatted that partition too.

Why is this second HDD getting all corrupted? This is a new drive, and I
also replaced the IDE cable with a new one (with 80 wires, rather than
the old one that had 40 wires).

I'm starting to wonder if the motherboard itself is failing (or at least
the built in IDE board portion of it).
I do have the drive jumpers set properly, to MASTER on the first HDD and
to SLAVE on the second drive.

I have run two HDDs on this computer for years with no problems. Now it
seems I can not run a second SLAVE drive.

Any ideas what might be causing this?





FreeMan December 16th 17 09:50 PM

New HDD, has corrupted Data - AGAIN
 
Flaky cable ? Replace.
Flaky connector on the controller ? Switch to a different port.

Noisy power supply ? Replace.

Have another drive port ? Then switch.

Overheating ? Fan not getting air over this drive ?

Bad Karma ?


[email protected] December 17th 17 01:37 AM

New HDD, has corrupted Data - AGAIN
 
On Sat, 16 Dec 2017 12:50:51 -0800, FreeMan wrote:

Flaky cable ? Replace.


I just did...

Flaky connector on the controller ? Switch to a different port.


If this was the case, I dont think the first drive would work either.

Noisy power supply ? Replace.

?????

Have another drive port ? Then switch.


That is where the CD drive is plugged in.

Overheating ? Fan not getting air over this drive ?

Drive is not even in the case, it's outside of it

Bad Karma ?


I dont believe in this sort of thing.


One thing I did notice. The jumper on the First drive is set to CS
(cable select), not to Master (Master uses NO jumper). I'm wondering if
the second drive should also be set to CS, instead of SLAVE.

Or maybe I should use the actual Master and Slave jumpers???

I never understood how that CS works, or why it's even an option. Older
drives never had that setting. Maybe it's just anoither way to ****
things up... It kind of seems senseless anyhow. I know the second drive
comes first on the cable, but the plug itself is the same wiring. How
the hell can the computer KNOW which drive is which. The only difference
is about 5" more length to the wires.



Lee December 17th 17 02:45 AM

New HDD, has corrupted Data - AGAIN
 
On Saturday, December 16, 2017 at 12:26:52 PM UTC-7, wrote:
Ok, As most of you know, I had a partition go bad on one of my drives
and I lost much of the data on it, because I did not have a current
backup. I got rid of that hard drive, even after a re-format showed it
to be usable and not have bad sectors.

This is an old IBM brand computer from about 2001. which originally came
with Windows 2000. I've upgraded this machine many times and have used
it for years. I do have Win2000 dual bootable on it, but 95% of the time
I boot and use Win98se. (I have this crossposted to the XP group because
of the lack of activity on the Win98 group).

Anyhow, after that partition got damaged, I unplugged that second hard
drive (Slave drive) and just used the first drive (bootable one). The
first drive is a 120gb with four partitions. The second drive was also a
120gb with three partitions. The partition that went bad, was the G:
partition (first partition on second HDD).

I have not had any problems with the first HDD at all.

After removing that defective second HDD, I put it aside hoping to
recover data from it, and I plugged a 160gb HDD into the second IDE
connector and partitioned it. It did not take long for that second drive
to give me error messsages showing data corruption. I did not have much
on that drive, so I just copied it to space on the first HDD. I did
however, suspect that was because I know that Win98 does not allow
drives larger than 120gb (actually 132gb).

I bought another 120gb drive, and just recently installed it. I had not
yet put my original data back on it, nor my rebuilt data from G: (which
I all have on en external USB drive).

This new drive was partitioned into three partitions again. (G: H: I:).
The G: pattition was still empty. The H: partition I was using for
downloading, and contained about 25 downloads, mostly just small .JPG
files and a few .PDF files.

The I: partition contained a copy of my Agent newsreader which I copied
there, as a backup, while I was changing some of Agent's settings.

Yesterday I was defragging the first drive's partitions, when I decided
to defrag the H: partition, since I had moved around some of the
downloaded files. DEFRAG told me this partition had errors and I needed
to run Scandisk. Scandisk reported crosslinked files between the
DOWNLOAD folder and the RECYCLED folder. (Note, I DO NOT use the
Recycled folder, I have it set to immediately delete files.

I ran NORTON DISK DOCTOR (rather than Scandisk) to fix this, and it did
fix it, but then said that the RECYCLED folder existed but had no space
on the HDD. I could not delete the Recycled folder. Since I had already
copied all my downloads to another place (as a backup), I just
reformatted that H: partition.

For the heck of it, I ran DEFRAG on the I: partition (which only
contained a backup of my AGENT folder. -Once again, I got a notice to
run Scandisk, which showed duplicates of ALL these files in the RECYCLED
folder. And said it contained crosslinked files. Since I did not need
that backup of Agent anymore, I just reformatted that partition too.

Why is this second HDD getting all corrupted? This is a new drive, and I
also replaced the IDE cable with a new one (with 80 wires, rather than
the old one that had 40 wires).

I'm starting to wonder if the motherboard itself is failing (or at least
the built in IDE board portion of it).
I do have the drive jumpers set properly, to MASTER on the first HDD and
to SLAVE on the second drive.

I have run two HDDs on this computer for years with no problems. Now it
seems I can not run a second SLAVE drive.

Any ideas what might be causing this?


What is the date on your C:/IO.SYS file?

There was an update released to fix bad error message transfer from hard drives into DOS and it fixes some 48 bit LBA issues too. 2001 is patched date..
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/...ardware-errors

R. Loew also has more patches, pay for, demo and free concerning the 48bit LBA issue, up to 145 GB is free in one demo offering.
http://rloew.x10host.com/

PATCHPAR is free and concerns partition corruption particularly.

I use several here ((2)500Gb hard drives), dual boot XP - 98se, 2GB ram, they all work, he is a genius. 3.09 Ghz Pentium 4 Hyper threading 98se installation time is 15 minutes flat to a working desktop. Boot up time is a hoot, but unfortunately I've forgotten the exact seconds needed to get to a working desktop there.

Cable Select jumper does work but only with 80 pin cables and a controller designed for that system. Both drives are set to CS and master is the end drive while slave is the one in the middle. Mix and match jumper method you are using may give the results you are complaining about. Just my guess there, mine here would not play right until I set both drives for CS and let the controller figure it out all by it's lonesome. I certainly would look into and catalog links for up to 2TB storage use with win98 despite what any outdated MS page says about FAT32 - they don't support it and won't be going back to correct a single word archived.

Cable Select secret is that one of the extra 40 'guard' ground wires is actually a drive select signal. Long gone are the days where this would be the first sentence in 'welcome to Cable Select' intro. WE are not qualified you see.

Paul[_6_] December 17th 17 04:38 AM

New HDD, has corrupted Data - AGAIN
 
wrote:
Ok, As most of you know, I had a partition go bad on one of my drives
and I lost much of the data on it, because I did not have a current
backup. I got rid of that hard drive, even after a re-format showed it
to be usable and not have bad sectors.

This is an old IBM brand computer from about 2001. which originally came
with Windows 2000. I've upgraded this machine many times and have used
it for years. I do have Win2000 dual bootable on it, but 95% of the time
I boot and use Win98se. (I have this crossposted to the XP group because
of the lack of activity on the Win98 group).

Anyhow, after that partition got damaged, I unplugged that second hard
drive (Slave drive) and just used the first drive (bootable one). The
first drive is a 120gb with four partitions. The second drive was also a
120gb with three partitions. The partition that went bad, was the G:
partition (first partition on second HDD).

I have not had any problems with the first HDD at all.

After removing that defective second HDD, I put it aside hoping to
recover data from it, and I plugged a 160gb HDD into the second IDE
connector and partitioned it. It did not take long for that second drive
to give me error messsages showing data corruption. I did not have much
on that drive, so I just copied it to space on the first HDD. I did
however, suspect that was because I know that Win98 does not allow
drives larger than 120gb (actually 132gb).

I bought another 120gb drive, and just recently installed it. I had not
yet put my original data back on it, nor my rebuilt data from G: (which
I all have on en external USB drive).

This new drive was partitioned into three partitions again. (G: H: I:).
The G: pattition was still empty. The H: partition I was using for
downloading, and contained about 25 downloads, mostly just small .JPG
files and a few .PDF files.

The I: partition contained a copy of my Agent newsreader which I copied
there, as a backup, while I was changing some of Agent's settings.

Yesterday I was defragging the first drive's partitions, when I decided
to defrag the H: partition, since I had moved around some of the
downloaded files. DEFRAG told me this partition had errors and I needed
to run Scandisk. Scandisk reported crosslinked files between the
DOWNLOAD folder and the RECYCLED folder. (Note, I DO NOT use the
Recycled folder, I have it set to immediately delete files.

I ran NORTON DISK DOCTOR (rather than Scandisk) to fix this, and it did
fix it, but then said that the RECYCLED folder existed but had no space
on the HDD. I could not delete the Recycled folder. Since I had already
copied all my downloads to another place (as a backup), I just
reformatted that H: partition.

For the heck of it, I ran DEFRAG on the I: partition (which only
contained a backup of my AGENT folder. -Once again, I got a notice to
run Scandisk, which showed duplicates of ALL these files in the RECYCLED
folder. And said it contained crosslinked files. Since I did not need
that backup of Agent anymore, I just reformatted that partition too.

Why is this second HDD getting all corrupted? This is a new drive, and I
also replaced the IDE cable with a new one (with 80 wires, rather than
the old one that had 40 wires).

I'm starting to wonder if the motherboard itself is failing (or at least
the built in IDE board portion of it).
I do have the drive jumpers set properly, to MASTER on the first HDD and
to SLAVE on the second drive.

I have run two HDDs on this computer for years with no problems. Now it
seems I can not run a second SLAVE drive.

Any ideas what might be causing this?


When you got the new 120GB drive (the one with G,H,I on it),
did you clean if off after connecting it ?

At least on WinXP, you have "diskpart" command. Which runs
from an Administrator group account. You can select a disk,
then issue a command of "clean all", which overwrites every sector.

A second way to clean a new disk, is to use "dd".

http://www.chrysocome.net/dd

dd --list # Gives details about your disks, and
# hints at the labels to use

dd --list 2 list_of_disks.txt # Record in a text file, the details
# of your disks. The program writes to
# STDERR, which is FID number 2 of a
# command line program.

(200KB or so)

http://www.chrysocome.net/downloads/dd-0.6beta3.zip

Once you have the size information for the device, you
craft a command for it. Let's take my smallest drive as
sample material for this.

In Disk Management, my disks go 0,1,2. The third disk
is 2, and the identifier here is also "2". I confirm,
by comparing the sizes of disks I see in disk management,
with the disk numbers and sizes here, that I'm absolutely
sure about what identifier to use for the command. If
you make a mistake, you can do a lot of damage with
"dd.exe". It doesn't ask you to confirm anything,
it doesn't warn you in any way about what you're
going to be doing.

\\?\Device\Harddisk2\Partition0 --- Partition 0 is the pointer to
link to \\?\Device\Harddisk2\DR2 the entire disk.
Fixed hard disk media. Block size = 512
size is 500107862016 bytes --- The size of the entire disk
\\?\Device\Harddisk2\Partition1
link to \\?\Device\HarddiskVolume1
Fixed hard disk media. Block size = 512
size is 20974431744 bytes 19.53GB partition
\\?\Device\Harddisk2\Partition2
link to \\?\Device\HarddiskVolume2
Fixed hard disk media. Block size = 512
size is 14435366400 bytes 13.44GB partition
\\?\Device\Harddisk2\Partition3
link to \\?\Device\HarddiskVolume3
Fixed hard disk media. Block size = 512
size is 44794874880 bytes 41.72GB partition
\\?\Device\Harddisk2\Partition4
link to \\?\Device\HarddiskVolume4
Fixed hard disk media. Block size = 512
size is 419900544000 bytes 391.06GB partition

The size of the disk, can be factored by small integers.
From memory, I happen to remember a "convenient" size for
this disk is 221184 byte commands.

221184 / 512 = 432 sectors (an evenly divisible sector-related size)
(256KB is a ballpark target for a size, on an older HDD)
(Setting the size to 512 bytes only, makes it slooow.)

500107862016 / 221184 = 2261049 chunks

So the number does divide evenly into the size of the disk
as well. (I use the Linux program factor.exe to factor
the number and figure out what a reasonable size might be.)

OK, so now comes the fun part. I want to do two things:

1) Remove any existing data.

2) "Probe" the disk, doing realistic write operations.
If there is something wrong with the geometry of the
disk, there is an HPA or DCO, there is a disturbance
in the force, I want the command to detect something
is wrong.

In an Administrator command prompt, I can try

dd if=/dev/zero of=\\?\Device\Harddisk2\Partition0 bs=221184

Now, normally the command would have "count=2261049" to
make the command do a fixed amount of writing. However,
we want the command to keep writing, until it runs out
of disk drive. If we do it this way

dd if=/dev/zero of=\\?\Device\Harddisk2\Partition0 bs=221184

then after a couple hours, the command stops and spits out
a couple lines. We hope the two lines are exactly 2261049,
and the command has figured this out the hard way, by
writing each sector.

If the command reports some other number of completed
chunks, that means there is an "issue" with the setup.
The value of the numbers printed out, will hint at what
the issue is. Is it the 137GB disk limit ? Is it a
64GB disk limit ? What limit did we hit ? Or,
did the disk pass, and we wrote exactly 2261049 chunks
of 221184 bytes each ?

Your drive is smaller than mine, and you will have a
different set of numbers. You'll have to work out
a value for the blocksize.

If you need help, just paste the same sort of section
that I did, into a post, and I can cook up a command
for you.

The dd.exe program only has one bug. If you erase USB
sticks with the program, the program does not successfully
detect the end of a USB key. Thus, you cannot use this sort
of "probing" command with a USB stick...

dd if=/dev/zero of=\\?\Device\Harddisk2\Partition0 bs=221184

Instead, with a USB stick, you have to write a precise
quantity of bytes, using the count field too.

dd if=/dev/zero of=\\?\Device\Harddisk2\Partition0 bs=221184 count=2261049

That way, it doesn't do anything disconcerting, like "write past
the end" of the USB stick. That kinda scared me, the first
time it happened.

Anyway, that's a little test case I use occasionally, when surpassing
canonical capacity limits on computers. I used to test disk
capacity by copying files over and over again, but that
gets really old fast. Having a command to use up all
the bytes, is a lot simpler.

Paul

J. P. Gilliver (John)[_2_] December 17th 17 07:57 AM

New HDD, has corrupted Data - AGAIN
 
In message ,
writes:
On Sat, 16 Dec 2017 12:50:51 -0800, FreeMan wrote:

[]
Noisy power supply ? Replace.

?????


I think he meant electrically noisy. Some power supplies don't provide
as smooth a 5V and 12V as you might hope - spikes or dips. Can in theory
make drives (and anything else) malfunction. _Probably_ not your cause;
difficult to confirm without an oscilloscope. (If you have a known good
power supply of sufficient capacity, you can always try it.)

Have another drive port ? Then switch.


That is where the CD drive is plugged in.

Overheating ? Fan not getting air over this drive ?

Drive is not even in the case, it's outside of it


Does it run warm at all?

Bad Karma ?


I dont believe in this sort of thing.


One thing I did notice. The jumper on the First drive is set to CS
(cable select), not to Master (Master uses NO jumper). I'm wondering if
the second drive should also be set to CS, instead of SLAVE.

Or maybe I should use the actual Master and Slave jumpers???


Have you still got what used to be the other drive (IIRR it was a CD
drive that failed) to see how that is jumpered? Anyway, if your first
drive is set to CS, and you have a CS cable, then it sounds like the
second one should be too. Can you see any setting in the BIOS that
indicates which selection method it is using? I've personally never had
a machine that used other than master and slave jumpers.

I never understood how that CS works, or why it's even an option. Older
drives never had that setting. Maybe it's just anoither way to ****
things up... It kind of seems senseless anyhow. I know the second drive
comes first on the cable, but the plug itself is the same wiring. How
the hell can the computer KNOW which drive is which. The only difference
is about 5" more length to the wires.

If the cable truly has the same connections on all three connectors,
then I can't see how it's selecting either. I know floppy drive cables
had a twist in the cable.

--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

Every kid starts out as a natural-born scientist, and then we beat it out of
them. A few trickle through the system with their wonder and enthusiasm for
science intact. - Carl Sagan (interview w. Psychology Today published '96-1-1)

[email protected] December 17th 17 10:04 AM

New HDD, has corrupted Data - AGAIN
 
On Sun, 17 Dec 2017 06:57:37 +0000, "J. P. Gilliver (John)"
wrote:

In message ,
writes:
On Sat, 16 Dec 2017 12:50:51 -0800, FreeMan wrote:

[]
Noisy power supply ? Replace.

?????


I think he meant electrically noisy. Some power supplies don't provide
as smooth a 5V and 12V as you might hope - spikes or dips. Can in theory
make drives (and anything else) malfunction. _Probably_ not your cause;
difficult to confirm without an oscilloscope. (If you have a known good
power supply of sufficient capacity, you can always try it.)

Have another drive port ? Then switch.


That is where the CD drive is plugged in.

Overheating ? Fan not getting air over this drive ?

Drive is not even in the case, it's outside of it


Does it run warm at all?


Both drives get slightly warm. That's just normal. I have not mounted a
hard drive inside the case for at least 15 years.I put a large very
oversized power supply in this case, so the cover wont fit anyhow. I
like having the drives where I can easily swap them. The only drives
that are mounted in the case are the floppy and CD drives.


Bad Karma ?


I dont believe in this sort of thing.


One thing I did notice. The jumper on the First drive is set to CS
(cable select), not to Master (Master uses NO jumper). I'm wondering if
the second drive should also be set to CS, instead of SLAVE.

Or maybe I should use the actual Master and Slave jumpers???


Have you still got what used to be the other drive (IIRR it was a CD
drive that failed) to see how that is jumpered? Anyway, if your first
drive is set to CS, and you have a CS cable, then it sounds like the
second one should be too. Can you see any setting in the BIOS that
indicates which selection method it is using? I've personally never had
a machine that used other than master and slave jumpers.


Yep, it looks like the old drive was set to SLAVE. However, I just
changed the new one to CS and copied a bunch of stuff to it from my
first drive. Then I deleted some stuff and copied a whole bunch of small
clipart pics to it, and then deleted some of them, and after that I
copied a huge ISO file to it, which is almost 1gb in size.

After all of that, I defragged that drive with no problem. It appears
that it needs to be set to CS. Maybe that was the whole problem. I'll
copy more stuff to it and delete other stuff and see if it keeps working
properly now. So far, so good!

I ma tempted to try the actual Master and Slave settings with the
jumpers and see if that works. I dont know if one way is better than the
other, or not? Does anyone know which jumper setting is the best?

I never understood how that CS works, or why it's even an option. Older
drives never had that setting. Maybe it's just anoither way to ****
things up... It kind of seems senseless anyhow. I know the second drive
comes first on the cable, but the plug itself is the same wiring. How
the hell can the computer KNOW which drive is which. The only difference
is about 5" more length to the wires.

If the cable truly has the same connections on all three connectors,
then I can't see how it's selecting either. I know floppy drive cables
had a twist in the cable.

Yep, floppy cables do have a twist, but not these IDE Hard drive cables.
So how that CS works is beyond my comprehension. I do know that for
awhile I had the Master drive on the first connector and Slave on the
last connector. THAT IS WRONG, but it was that way for a year or more
and worked fine. Maybe it dont much matter which cable comes first, but
according to several articles, the last connector goes to the first
drive (which seems backwards).


[email protected] December 17th 17 10:13 AM

New HDD, has corrupted Data - AGAIN
 
On Sat, 16 Dec 2017 22:38:48 -0500, Paul wrote:

When you got the new 120GB drive (the one with G,H,I on it),
did you clean if off after connecting it ?

No, I just plugged it in, used Partition Magic to partition it, and
formatted them (P.M. does the formatting too).

At least on WinXP, you have "diskpart" command. Which runs
from an Administrator group account. You can select a disk,
then issue a command of "clean all", which overwrites every sector.


Since this drive is running Win98, I dont think I have any of that
stuff.

What is the point of cleaning it? It should be blank, and if not, this
is not a secret government operation containing all the codes to launch
the nukes worldwide.... About the only controversial or secret stuff
might be a few pics of cows with their tits showing, and a pic of God
smoking some whacky weed....
Besides that, I've probably re-formatted every partition at least 4
times now, because of these problems. If that didn't clean the drives,
what will....


J. P. Gilliver (John)[_2_] December 17th 17 02:01 PM

New HDD, has corrupted Data - AGAIN
 
In message ,
writes:
On Sun, 17 Dec 2017 06:57:37 +0000, "J. P. Gilliver (John)"
wrote:

[]
Yep, it looks like the old drive was set to SLAVE. However, I just
changed the new one to CS and copied a bunch of stuff to it from my
first drive. Then I deleted some stuff and copied a whole bunch of small
clipart pics to it, and then deleted some of them, and after that I
copied a huge ISO file to it, which is almost 1gb in size.

After all of that, I defragged that drive with no problem. It appears
that it needs to be set to CS. Maybe that was the whole problem. I'll
copy more stuff to it and delete other stuff and see if it keeps working
properly now. So far, so good!


I hesitate to ask, but when you say "the old drive" above, do you mean
the CD drive that failed years ago, or do you mean the HD-that-was-G/H/I
whose failure started this whole saga? If the latter, I wonder if
setting that to CS might have cured the original problem )-:!

I ma tempted to try the actual Master and Slave settings with the
jumpers and see if that works. I dont know if one way is better than the
other, or not? Does anyone know which jumper setting is the best?


Does anyone know whether using master/slave jumpering with a cable on
which CS works might cause problems?

I never understood how that CS works, or why it's even an option. Older

[]
If the cable truly has the same connections on all three connectors,
then I can't see how it's selecting either. I know floppy drive cables
had a twist in the cable.

Yep, floppy cables do have a twist, but not these IDE Hard drive cables.
So how that CS works is beyond my comprehension. I do know that for


Maybe there's an internal break in one line - so the cable from the mobo
to the first connector is 80 way, but between them is 79 or 78 way? (I
take it there's nothing obvious like one of the connectors having one of
its holes blanked.)

Ah, I've just looked:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallel_ATA#Cable_select says it is done
using pin 28 - often just by omitting the contact from the middle
(slave, grey) connector, so you'd have to look extremely hard to see it!
It also says line 28 is only used so the drives know which they are, not
for control by the mobo, so if the drives are jumpered as master and
slave anyway, it is ignored (and that doesn't have to be master at the
end). So you can try it if you want. When the controller says "master
drive, please respond", both drives receive the command, but only one of
them responds - either because it is jumpered as master, or because both
are jumpered as CS and one of them knows it is master. (Apparently also
"drive 0" and "drive 1" - apparently "master" and "slave" don't actually
appear in the specification.) Which does suggest that having one drive
"hard jumpered" and the other as CS _could_ cause problems, depending on
position on the cable.

awhile I had the Master drive on the first connector and Slave on the
last connector. THAT IS WRONG, but it was that way for a year or more
and worked fine. Maybe it dont much matter which cable comes first, but
according to several articles, the last connector goes to the first
drive (which seems backwards).

No, as the article explains, if you only have one drive, and it was
connected to the middle connector, you'd have an unterminated stub of
cable, which isn't good electrically (reflections and so on). Apparently
for the 40 as opposed to 80 cables that _was_ the case, as they just
left out line 28 to the second connector (i. e. master was on the middle
connector).
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

Veni, Vidi, Vomit (I came, I saw, I was ill) - , 1998

Paul[_6_] December 17th 17 07:47 PM

New HDD, has corrupted Data - AGAIN
 
wrote:

What is the point of cleaning it? It should be blank, and if not, this
is not a secret government operation containing all the codes to launch
the nukes worldwide.... About the only controversial or secret stuff
might be a few pics of cows with their tits showing, and a pic of God
smoking some whacky weed....
Besides that, I've probably re-formatted every partition at least 4
times now, because of these problems. If that didn't clean the drives,
what will....


Keep an open mind.

This is a hardware test.

It tests that the drive is write-able from end to end
and is "data safe" when you put real data on it.

If the size reported by the run, does not conform to
your expectations, you figure out why.

If the test case never finishes, that suggests the
disk has bad patches or something.

You can also set the tests to do reads instead.
This test would stop early, when it encounters even
one CRC error. That would look like...

dd if=\\?\Device\Harddisk2\Partition0 of=NUL bs=221184

What that command would do, is read to the end of Disk2.
And spit out a report of how many chunks it could read.
Multiplying the chunk count by the 221184 number, should
equal the drive size in bytes. On WinXP, you can run
"perfmon.msc" and add a "disk" "write bytes" counter
to the graph, and monitor the transfer rate as the
command runs. A lot of downward spikes indicates a
not very healthy "new" disk.

You can get much the same testing from the WDC or
Seagate test utilities. But I like the added bonus
of *proving* the disk works right up to the end of it.

The Windows "NUL" destination is the equivalent of
/dev/null on Linux and the data goes into the bit bucket.

So these are hardware-guy tests, to be done *before*
you use the disk for real data.

The amount of testing you do, is a function of how
the drive has been abused. Was it in a UPS box with
no Styrofoam peanuts ? Was the drive packaged in a
double plastic "SeaShell" packaging (I picked up
some retail drives from Best Buy packaged that way) ?
If the drive has accepted a rough ride on its way
to see you, then you test it.

The drives I get now, I pick up at the computer store.
They're held in a rack, with no soft packaging at all.
They come in an antistatic bag. There is no way to know
what kind of life they've had in that rack. The company
involved, knows nothing about handling hard drives :-)
Even the sales counter is rock-hard Formica, and they
don't even have a rubber pad to cushion product the sales
associates plunk onto the counter.

The reason I worry about this sort of stuff, is I was
actually sent on a plane trip from work, to root cause
why we had excessive disk failures at a certain site
in the US. When I saw what they were doing, my
jaw dropped :-) And I haven't been the same since :-)
It's not only the UPS driver who has evil in his heart.

Paul


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