Are my SATA hard drives broken?

pinkfrogman · 10-04-2006, 11:57 AM

I recently purchased two 250 gig maxtor SATA hard drives. I rebuilt my system with a new board and chip. (Asus and intel respectively). Apparently I didn't fix whatever my problem was because the system crashed not too long after that... The mobo won't even start up now. The hard drives, however, were working fine up to that point. I rebuilt the system again with an old mobo that I had lying around and shortly after that my hard disks started acting funny. All my filenames stayed the same but when clicked on they were totally different files and most wouldn't even work. I took the discs to a friend to look at and he thinks they're trashed.... I think it's the mobo.... Is there a way to tell?.... I would hate to toss them for nothing. I managed to get them reformatted but my mobo will only recognize one at a time, not both. Also if I try to rip anything to them or burn anything from them they lock up and they stop showing up in 'My Computer' till I reboot. It says 'delay write failed' or something like that. Otherwise they still work though.... I can still copy files and everything else. Can hardware like this be 'sorta' messed up? I've always thought that something either works or it don't..... but I'm still learning. Thank you for any help.
~Pink~ Lloyd

BTW.... neither drive is a boot drive... both are just data and nothing I can't afford to lose. could it be a bios problem with the RAID settings?.... I don't know that much about RAID.

**blackduck30** · 10-04-2006, 03:05 PM

you can go to the maxtor site and download there diagnostic tool, from memory it runs in dos mode. It will scan your drives for errors. let us know if they come up ok and we can start looking else were

pinkfrogman · 10-04-2006, 03:40 PM

ok thanks!

**hwm54112** · 10-04-2006, 08:19 PM

Quote:

Also if I try to rip anything to them or burn anything from them they lock up and they stop showing up in 'My Computer' till I reboot.

I'm guessing you mean to/from cd burner. Check the tranfer mode of the drives: Device manager>ide controllers>both primary and secondary channels (hdd's are probably on primary, cd-roms on secondary) The transfer mode should be DMA if available. The current transfer mode should be DMA, not PIO.

Quote:

It says 'delay write failed'

Click on My computer. rite click on the drive>select properties>hardware tab>highlight a drive>click properties>policies tab- uncheck the “enable write caching on the disk”

Bill

10-04-2006, 11:57 AM	#1 (permalink)
pinkfrogman Registered User Join Date: Oct 2006 Location: Wyoming, USA Posts: 4 OS: xp	Are my SATA hard drives broken? I recently purchased two 250 gig maxtor SATA hard drives. I rebuilt my system with a new board and chip. (Asus and intel respectively). Apparently I didn't fix whatever my problem was because the system crashed not too long after that... The mobo won't even start up now. The hard drives, however, were working fine up to that point. I rebuilt the system again with an old mobo that I had lying around and shortly after that my hard disks started acting funny. All my filenames stayed the same but when clicked on they were totally different files and most wouldn't even work. I took the discs to a friend to look at and he thinks they're trashed.... I think it's the mobo.... Is there a way to tell?.... I would hate to toss them for nothing. I managed to get them reformatted but my mobo will only recognize one at a time, not both. Also if I try to rip anything to them or burn anything from them they lock up and they stop showing up in 'My Computer' till I reboot. It says 'delay write failed' or something like that. Otherwise they still work though.... I can still copy files and everything else. Can hardware like this be 'sorta' messed up? I've always thought that something either works or it don't..... but I'm still learning. Thank you for any help. ~Pink~ Lloyd BTW.... neither drive is a boot drive... both are just data and nothing I can't afford to lose. could it be a bios problem with the RAID settings?.... I don't know that much about RAID. Last edited by pinkfrogman; 10-04-2006 at 12:21 PM.

10-04-2006, 03:05 PM	#2 (permalink)
blackduck30 TSF Enthusiast Join Date: Sep 2004 Location: Wollongong/Australia Posts: 4,230 OS: XP pro SP3/Vista Ultimate My System	you can go to the maxtor site and download there diagnostic tool, from memory it runs in dos mode. It will scan your drives for errors. let us know if they come up ok and we can start looking else were __________________ Blackduck30 Time is like money and milk, It's always running out Any Donations Help Keep TSF Free For All

10-04-2006, 03:40 PM	#3 (permalink)
pinkfrogman Registered User Join Date: Oct 2006 Location: Wyoming, USA Posts: 4 OS: xp	ok thanks!