IDE Controller or HDD failure?

[Caecus Veritas]

so... today, I was accessing some files on my secondary HDD (Maxtor 30G hooked up to secondary UDMA IDE port on M8R32-MVP mobo).. and i get this message:

"Application popup: Windows - Delayed Write Failed : Windows was unable to save all the data for the file D:\. The data has been lost. This error may be caused by a failure of your computer hardware or network connection. Please try to save this file elsewhere. "

and soon I started seeing files being converted to random letters (i.e. BF, AG, etc. etc). Checked my event viewer and:

"The driver detected a controller error on \Device\Harddisk0\D."

and

"A parity error was detected on \Device\Ide\IdePort2."

and soon... ALL my files are gone , replaced by random letters.

I'm thinking that its a bad IDE controller (well... Windows did say a controller error). As can be seen on my sig, I've recently put together a new system (about 2 weeks now), and I brought over my Maxtor drive which has been working fine for the past 5+ years.

All the data still seems to be there on the HDD, but I think Windows screwed up the FAT and thus the screwy file names (are there any good recovery programs?). I hooked up the drive to my old system again and there seems to be no apparent error (I haven't had a chance to do any exhaustive tests, just Windows XP default scan - and the drive sounds normal) other than the fact that I now see many many capitalized letters and no porn...

I checked the event viewer on my new and old comp but don't see any previous errors with HDD until today. I am currently able to create and copy new files to the maxtor drive on the old computer as well. Btw, don't know if this is revelant but another error that I see during boot-up occasionally on the new comp (Plextor SATA burner installed as well as Daemon Tools): "The device, \Device\CdRom1, has a bad block." This happens without any CD inside.

The new system has been running flawlessly (until today). I haven't detected any errors on the primary drive yet, and there hasn't been any problems installing from the DVD burner. Everything seems to point towards the mobo, but at the same time I can't seem to rule out flaky HDD. I don't have a spare IDE HDD to check the same connector on my new mobo and I was hoping to get other people's opinions based on their experience...

 

[Bozo Galora]

5 years is pushing it on a HDD
there is also an IDE related controller on the HDD PCB

The most obvious thing is to d/l and try the maxtor test utility, right?

 

[Googer]

This thread belongs under operating systems.

 

[Googer]

http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=330174&sd=RMVP

 

[Nocturnal]

To be sure you will want to download Maxtor's diagnostics ISO and burn it to a CD using Nero. Just close the Nero wizard and then go to File, Open, and look for where the ISO is saved. Burn that ISO and boot from it. This will tell you if your drive is bad (it probably is). If you want to find out if it is the controller, I suggest getting another hard drive that has no data on it and trying to copy data to and from the drive and if it's possible leave it overnight to see if it fails or not.

 

[Caecus Veritas]

didn't know this would belong in OS forum as I thought it was a hardware issue (and is there an option to 'move' the thread short of reposting?)

Anyhow, did the Maxtor test and HDD came out okay. Checked the link above (thanks for the link) and I'm not so sure it applies to this case. First, the microsoft help seems to be talking about intermittent issues pertaining to individual files that are being transferred at the moment. My entire FAT became corrupted by just accessing the drive. Although OS issue may be possible, I am more concerned that it is a hardware issue as my previous system was running the same XP (and it should not be a BIOS setting nor the UDMA mode as the HDD supports UDMA mode 5 - although anything is possible in the world of PCs).

Anyhow, the drive seems to be working fine again (I made a new folder and copied about a gig worth of data successfully). Is there any utility that can diagnose the IDE controller on the motherboard (i.e. like the program that can check your LAN cables or such)? As much as it hurts to lose my data, I will need to RMA the mobo if it is bad (already had to RMA the PSU for a single bad SATA power connector... ). Ugh, intermittent problems are the worst........

 

[Bozo Galora]

If XP gets errors in transfers it successively lowers DMA mode ultimately to plain PIO'
Use SiSoft sandra to see what DMA mode you are now in.

BTW: You said your "FAT" got corrupted. You are using NTFS, not FAT32, right?





However the real solution is to throw the maxtor in the trash, get a dif brand.