Working with BING

From what I read, MS used the Maxtor utility to "scan only" which I
interpret to be Read Only. How in blazes would that damage the disk? (Please
keep your answer to a single short paragraph, perhaps with references that
back up your claim.)

As you say, with the proper CHS (which BIOS apparently gets right when it is
set to Auto, as evidenced by reporting correct capacity) FDISK, BING, etc.,
should work correctly. They don't. The issue is that those things only
*appear* to work correctly *if* the BIOS is set to User (with what CHS
settings, I don't know) and then capacity is reported incorrectly. You see
the problem?

MS will get no farther with this issue until he's willing to open the box
and do some real diagnostics work. Something is wrong with the hardware, and
very possibly not the disk itself. More likely the cable or controller. Only
by swapping the current arrangement(s) to others can he narrow down the
possibilities. Even if the disk *is* FUBAR, hands-on swapping is the only
way he'll be able to confirm that. I would think that the telltale that
things are actually progressing is when BIOS reports the capacity correctly
*and* the Fujitsu tools recognize it and can be used on it, and the results
make sense, whether the disk is found to be bad or not.

--

Gary S. Terhune
MS-MVP Shell/User
http://grystmill.com/articles/cleanboot.htm
http://grystmill.com/articles/security.htm

"MEB" meb@not wrote in message
...
Fine then I'll tell you all one more time he has corrupted the disk code
when he ran the Maxtor tool.
He has also fdisked and formatted numerous times with the improper disk
CHS.
Correct that and he has a chance of using the disk.

--
MEB
http://peoplescounsel.orgfree.com/
BLOG http://peoplescounsel.spaces.live.com/ Public Notice or the "real
world"

"Most people, sometime in their lives, stumble across truth.
Most jump up, brush themselves off, and hurry on about their business as
if
nothing had happen." Winston Churchill
Or to put it another way:
Morpheus can offer you the two pills;
but only you can choose whether you take the red pill or the blue one.
_______________

"Gary S. Terhune" wrote in message
...
| You may be on to something. And if this thread gets like the other one,
with
| people repeating gobs of irrelevant data and going over and over the
same
| crap and diverging into all kinds of archania, entirely losing sight of
the
| GOAL in the process, I'm outta here. Not referring to this particular
post,
| Franc, just taking this opportunity to make that comment in general.
This
| means you, MEB, and you too, PCR. I'd like to help MS *fix* the problem,
not
| just chew the gristle.
|
| --
|
| Gary S. Terhune
| MS-MVP Shell/User
| http://grystmill.com/articles/cleanboot.htm
| http://grystmill.com/articles/security.htm
|
| "Franc Zabkar" wrote in message
| ...
| On 8 Oct 2006 22:49:15 GMT, ms put finger to keyboard
| and composed:
| I recreated new partitions,
| Each partition was created entirely normal, in each, the drive checked
for
| errors OK. Each one is created with MBR label, but the first name does
not
| look like a Primary partition? Here is what I see, then will finish
the
| comment.
|
| JES IBR ANP-0 Partition 2494 MB Fat32
| JES IBR ANP-1 Partition E 2494 MB Fat32
| MBR Entry 2 Partition E 2494 MB Fat32
|
| More problems with bit 3? (see my other post)
|
| IBR = MBR ?
| ANP = ENT ?
| JES = NEW ?
|
| - Franc Zabkar
| --
| Please remove one 'i' from my address when replying by email.
|
|

"dadiOH" wrote in message
...
| PCR wrote:
|
| We were so close to getting the full amount! The proper
| manufacturer's hard drive diagnostic utility is supposed to correct
| the errors-- not disown the drive!
|
| That drive has been fdisked/formatted/binged so many times that
| Fujitsu doesn't recognize it as one of their own. Or maybe they just
| don't want the responsibility

I GUESS it could be that. Looks like other good brains have reengaged
the issue, & I will step aside a bit. I made that decision even BEFORE
reading Terhune's gentle admonition...!...

"And if this thread gets like the other one, with
people repeating gobs of irrelevant data and going over and over the
same
crap and diverging into all kinds of archania, entirely losing sight of
the
GOAL in the process, I'm outta here. Not referring to this particular
post,
Franc, just taking this opportunity to make that comment in general.
This
means you, MEB, and you too, PCR. I'd like to help MS *fix* the problem,
not
just chew the gristle."

BUT it was my persistence that finally recovered 2.5 GB on that hard
drive. I do not believe going back to 7.5 GB is the answer. There were
partitioning problems even then. Remember, ms, you could not create 1
Primary Partition & 2 Logical Partitions, EVEN at the smaller size-- in
FDISK or in BING.

ms: Don't answer. Stick with the others a while. Zabcar is definitely
onto something with that "bit" theory.

On Mon, 9 Oct 2006 13:05:29 -0700, "Gary S. Terhune"
put finger to keyboard and composed:

From what I read, MS used the Maxtor utility to "scan only" which I
interpret to be Read Only. How in blazes would that damage the disk? (Please
keep your answer to a single short paragraph, perhaps with references that
back up your claim.)

As you say, with the proper CHS (which BIOS apparently gets right when it is
set to Auto, as evidenced by reporting correct capacity) FDISK, BING, etc.,
should work correctly. They don't. The issue is that those things only
*appear* to work correctly *if* the BIOS is set to User (with what CHS
settings, I don't know) and then capacity is reported incorrectly. You see
the problem?

MS will get no farther with this issue until he's willing to open the box
and do some real diagnostics work. Something is wrong with the hardware, and
very possibly not the disk itself. More likely the cable or controller. Only
by swapping the current arrangement(s) to others can he narrow down the
possibilities. Even if the disk *is* FUBAR, hands-on swapping is the only
way he'll be able to confirm that. I would think that the telltale that
things are actually progressing is when BIOS reports the capacity correctly
*and* the Fujitsu tools recognize it and can be used on it, and the results
make sense, whether the disk is found to be bad or not.

Sorry, I just have to respond.

Firstly let me say that I have experienced this exact same problem,
except that in my case the model number was misspelt during the POST.
I narrowed down the problem by interchanging the connectors in the IDE
cable. At the risk of introducing a red herring, I also had this
curious problem which produced a similar symptom:

http://groups.google.com/group/comp....e=source&hl=en

IMO, the Maxtor utility could *not* have damaged the Fujitsu drive,
even during the writing phase. A *real* low level format hasn't been
possible for 15 years (today's LLFs are bogus), and the OP certainly
did not flash the drive's firmware with Maxtor code, assuming that
were even possible. In any case a failure in the drive's firmware,
where the model number is probably stored (the only other place is on
the platters) would be reported by the drive's self test as a ROM
checksum error. A failure in the drive's buffer RAM *should* be
similarly detected during the self test, although memory diagnostics
are not infallible.

A possible reason why the drive's capacity is reported correctly could
be that the failing bit (bit 2) is actually 0 when it is meant to be
0, or it could be that the result of a dropped is insignificant. For
example, a capacity of 10241 MB equates to 13134A1h logical blocks. If
bit 2 was dropped for the high order byte of each 16-bit word, then
the Identify Drive command would report 13130A1h which amounts to a
difference of only 400h sectors. This represents a loss in capacity of
only 512KB, which would go unnoticed, except when BING checks the size
of the last partition.

- Franc Zabkar
--
Please remove one 'i' from my address when replying by email.

"Gary S. Terhune" wrote in
:

If User setting in BIOS results in the disk appearing to have much
less capacity than it should, then that's not right, regardless of
whether it "works". If the disk has errors when capacity is reported
correctly, then something is wrong with the hardware. Either BIOS is
in need of an upgrade, or something is wrong with the disk, cable,
controller, whatever. If you want to use the disk with a reduced
capacity, and you feel comfortable that your data will be safe, that's
your choice. Personally, I'd want to test everything and figure out
what's wrong. Franc, and now Jeff, have suggested possible problems
based upon data that you've reported. I'd trust them to know their
ways around these kinds of issues. Something is wrong, and you can
either figure out what that is or use the "workaround" of setting BIOS
to User. Myself, I wouldn't build a Windows system on goofy hardware.
Not worth the effort.


I hear you, but it seems some of the advice set me back, now whatever
space I can use on that hard drive will be beneficial.

Once W98Se is operating, I can run programs to tell me quality of the
hard drive. Maybe I'm wrong, but I wonder if your drive overlay idea
explains a lot of whats been going on.

Anyway, I won't expect any answers so will forge ahead and see how things
go.

Thanks to all for the help in both threads.

ms

"Gary S. Terhune" wrote in
:

From what I read, MS used the Maxtor utility to "scan only" which I
interpret to be Read Only. How in blazes would that damage the disk?
(Please keep your answer to a single short paragraph, perhaps with
references that back up your claim.)

I didnt say it "damaged" the disk, I said it corrupted the OS.; I ran it
in Scan mode only, it should have just read the drive, it seemed to run
Ok. Since it ran in DOS, I rebooted and my W98SE OS was not working
anymore. The Maxtor diagnostic never should have done that.

ms


As you say, with the proper CHS (which BIOS apparently gets right when
it is set to Auto, as evidenced by reporting correct capacity) FDISK,
BING, etc., should work correctly. They don't. The issue is that those
things only *appear* to work correctly *if* the BIOS is set to User
(with what CHS settings, I don't know) and then capacity is reported
incorrectly. You see the problem?

MS will get no farther with this issue until he's willing to open the
box and do some real diagnostics work. Something is wrong with the
hardware, and very possibly not the disk itself. More likely the cable
or controller. Only by swapping the current arrangement(s) to others
can he narrow down the possibilities. Even if the disk *is* FUBAR,
hands-on swapping is the only way he'll be able to confirm that. I
would think that the telltale that things are actually progressing is
when BIOS reports the capacity correctly *and* the Fujitsu tools
recognize it and can be used on it, and the results make sense,
whether the disk is found to be bad or not.

I was responding to what MEB claimed, not what you said.

I agree, it shouldn't have done that. But I've been the victim of
coincidental circumstances *soooo* many times in computers that I'm not
willing to say that just because your system was unusable after you ran the
Maxtor app that it immediately follows that the Maxtor app was the cause of
the problem. Even if it *contributed* to the failure, it's likely the real
problem was just lurking and only required the Maxtor app to exercize it
past the breaking point.

Forgive me if I ask questions that have already been answered, but did the
drive report the correct capacity before all this began? What prompted you
to use the Maxtor utility, and when you say that Windows was corrupted, how
do you mean? Did the disk start reporting errors? What?

Honest, everything you've reported thus far (that I've read) suggests
hardware failure, either in the disk itself or the cable, controller, etc.
Only decent way of diagnosing that kind of thing is to swap things around
physically.

--

Gary S. Terhune
MS-MVP Shell/User
http://grystmill.com/articles/cleanboot.htm
http://grystmill.com/articles/security.htm


"ms" wrote in message ...
"Gary S. Terhune" wrote in
:

From what I read, MS used the Maxtor utility to "scan only" which I
interpret to be Read Only. How in blazes would that damage the disk?
(Please keep your answer to a single short paragraph, perhaps with
references that back up your claim.)

I didnt say it "damaged" the disk, I said it corrupted the OS.; I ran it
in Scan mode only, it should have just read the drive, it seemed to run
Ok. Since it ran in DOS, I rebooted and my W98SE OS was not working
anymore. The Maxtor diagnostic never should have done that.

ms


As you say, with the proper CHS (which BIOS apparently gets right when
it is set to Auto, as evidenced by reporting correct capacity) FDISK,
BING, etc., should work correctly. They don't. The issue is that those
things only *appear* to work correctly *if* the BIOS is set to User
(with what CHS settings, I don't know) and then capacity is reported
incorrectly. You see the problem?

MS will get no farther with this issue until he's willing to open the
box and do some real diagnostics work. Something is wrong with the
hardware, and very possibly not the disk itself. More likely the cable
or controller. Only by swapping the current arrangement(s) to others
can he narrow down the possibilities. Even if the disk *is* FUBAR,
hands-on swapping is the only way he'll be able to confirm that. I
would think that the telltale that things are actually progressing is
when BIOS reports the capacity correctly *and* the Fujitsu tools
recognize it and can be used on it, and the results make sense,
whether the disk is found to be bad or not.

"Gary S. Terhune" wrote in
:

I was responding to what MEB claimed, not what you said.

I agree, it shouldn't have done that. But I've been the victim of
coincidental circumstances *soooo* many times in computers that I'm
not willing to say that just because your system was unusable after
you ran the Maxtor app that it immediately follows that the Maxtor app
was the cause of the problem. Even if it *contributed* to the failure,
it's likely the real problem was just lurking and only required the
Maxtor app to exercize it past the breaking point.

Forgive me if I ask questions that have already been answered, but did
the drive report the correct capacity before all this began? What
prompted you to use the Maxtor utility, and when you say that Windows
was corrupted, how do you mean? Did the disk start reporting errors?
What?

Honest, everything you've reported thus far (that I've read) suggests
hardware failure, either in the disk itself or the cable, controller,
etc. Only decent way of diagnosing that kind of thing is to swap
things around physically.


I save your posts, they are always informative.

Before I answer the above, please let me mention progress "of a sort":

Yesterday, I changed in BIOS Primary Master Auto back to User. Probably
not helpful, will change back. But anyway. Then I booted up in DOS, see
C/D/E and F is the CD drive- this is what I wanted after all. I then
formatted C/D/E, all seemed ok. Then I started OS install. It first ran
scandisk, it found and fixed some errors in C and D, FATs do not match,
lost clusters, - bad, I know. It fixed those errors quickly and when it
got to E, lots of errors. So I went into BING, deleted E, recreated E.
The only good news is the resulting display:

IS-0 Partition 2494 MB FAT32

IEP-1 Partition 2494 MB FAT32

MBR Entry 2 2598 MB FAT32

2178 MB Free Space

No "errors present" legend.

IIRC, you said this is the normal display you expect. That was the only
good news. I left the free space, solve other issues first.

I rebooted and started OS install again, but again scandisk found/fixed a
few errors in C and D, found lots of errors in E, a repeat. When BING
scanned each partition for errors, it found nothing.

With the above, let me answer your questions.

Forgive me if I ask questions that have already been answered, but did
the drive report the correct capacity before all this began?

My memory is not good these days, but in that long thread, IIRC, Fdisk
Status reported a total of about 7500 MB, while a BIOS screen I reported
showed 10.4 GB, the Everest report listed a Fujitsu hard drive that
speced at 10 GB. But in fdisk and later BING, the total was 7.5 GB

What
prompted you to use the Maxtor utility,
Advice to run a diagnostic to verify the disk capacity.

and when you say that Windows
was corrupted, how do you mean? Did the disk start reporting errors?
What?

IIRC, windows would not boot up. No errors, just the usual signs IMO when
it's not working.

Honest, everything you've reported thus far (that I've read) suggests
hardware failure, either in the disk itself or the cable, controller,
etc. Only decent way of diagnosing that kind of thing is to swap
things around physically.

The last data sure sounds like it. I realize a hard disk has to *start*
failing sometime, maybe it's now.

It was mentioned that format does not totally remove previous contents.
So it really matters each time you format, that it is a risk for later
data integrity? And wiping the hard disk is the only real way to start
over?

Before I give up on this hard drive, I would plan to run a wipe utility
to truly clean off the past few weeks of activity and make a fresh start.

Advice?

ms

ms wrote:

It was mentioned that format does not totally remove previous
contents. So it really matters each time you format, that it is a
risk for later data integrity?

No.
___________

And wiping the hard disk is the only
real way to start over?

No.

--

dadiOH
____________________________

dadiOH's dandies v3.06...
....a help file of info about MP3s, recording from
LP/cassette and tips & tricks on this and that.
Get it at http://mysite.verizon.net/xico

"dadiOH" wrote in news:eq2HOuG7GHA.4428
@TK2MSFTNGP02.phx.gbl:

ms wrote:

It was mentioned that format does not totally remove previous
contents. So it really matters each time you format, that it is a
risk for later data integrity?

No.
___________

And wiping the hard disk is the only
real way to start over?

No.


Can you explain in each case?

ms

"dadiOH" wrote in news:eq2HOuG7GHA.4428
@TK2MSFTNGP02.phx.gbl:

ms wrote:

It was mentioned that format does not totally remove previous
contents. So it really matters each time you format, that it is a
risk for later data integrity?

No.
___________

And wiping the hard disk is the only
real way to start over?

No.


And if wiping does not make the hard drive ready for a fresh start, what is
a way to do that?

ms