Seagate Diagnostics problem

[xbassman]

Last night my HD (pata Seagate Barricuda) appears to have taken a dump on me.

For some reason I can't seem to get the Seagate diagnostic software to find the drive. When it starts a second later I get a prompt telling me to remove the CD and reboot.

I am using a Biostar nforce2 mobo...drivers need loaded maybe?

 

[BZeto]

So you cant see the drive alltogether (windows) or just the Seagate utility?

 

[xbassman]

The drive shows up in bios.....
Windows will almost load, but I get stuck with a black screen and a mouse pointer.

The seagate software starts to run without saying anything about my drive then tells me to reboot without the CD.

When I discovered the problem I reset a few times getting chkdsk to diagnose and mark some bad sectors, but I would like to get the Seagate software to work. (without removing the drive for now) Going out of town in the morning......

 

[xbassman]

Well, not sure which caused it not to work, but I hooked up a monitor to the vga output and keyboard/mouse to the PS2's and SeaTools if running. (finding many errors.)

I guess the software didn't like my HTPC setup.

 

[xbassman]

It appears that possible Windows or something else might have caused the errors on this drive.
The Seagate utility successfully overwrote the bad sectors and enabled me to boot into windows normally.
although, a few apps were mucked up by corrupted data.

It is performing a zero-fill operation right now. (probably take all night)
I feel if it can successfully compete this task I will be confident that the drive doesn't really have physical defects. My last RMA I suspected the same.....

 

[Antoneo]

I'm curious as to the results of the zero fill. No more problems after that? You didn't need to RMA afterwards?

 

[xbassman]

Originally posted by: Antoneo
I'm curious as to the results of the zero fill. No more problems after that? You didn't need to RMA afterwards?

No RMA.....
I have had this happen before. My computers run 24/7. (nine of em)
Occasionally they reboot from a power flinch. I think that was what happened.
The zero-fill completed without a hitch and the drive tests fine.
I haven't had any more errors.......yet.