Hurricane Andrew
Golden Member
Here's my situation:
My system has been up and running for nearly a year now, without any problems. A64 3000+, a 160GB Maxtor and a 120GB Seagate, both IDE, running WinXP Pro (two separate installations: a working one on C:, and one for beta testing D:, both on separate drives). There have been no hardware changes other than swapping out a CD/RW for a DVD/RW. Over the past few days, there have been a few random lockups. One I can specifically point to is a lockup when running CrystalMark 2004 during the HD test. The Maxtor is my primary drive (C:\).
Next, the drive would not even boot. The system would POST, but after the loading windows graphic, I'd get a BSOD. I was able to boot the alternate installation (housed on the Seagate), during which I was able to see all of the data and all partitions on the "failing" Maxtor. Strangely, I was able to copy all of my data from the Maxtor, and it was intact. Even more strange, I was able to hook the Maxtor up as a slave, hook a spare 160GB WD drive up as master, and ghost the entire drive to the new WD. Then, I removed the Maxtor, and was able to boot up perfectly fine, so I doubt that it's an OS or MBR issue, or the image would have had the same issues as the original.
Continuing, I moved the drive to another system to run Maxtor's Powermax utility on it. It passed all tests fine with no errors, but it was extremely hot. Now, before all of this started, my drives would generally operate at 36-42 degrees Celcius. The Powermax testing probably pushed the drive, but it certainly felt much hotter than 42C, probably closer to 50-55 degrees, best guess.
I did a low level format last night, and over the next few days (as time permits) I plan to install an OS to the drive in a different PC and see what happens.
Any thoughts? What puzzles me are a couple of things:
1) Why would the drive not boot, but the newly created image, taken from the "problem" drive boot fine, unless it was a hardware issue?
2) If it was a hardware issue, why was I able to clone the drive, copy data from it when I booted my alternate Windows installation on my second hard drive, and have the Maxtor pass all of Maxtor's diagnostics?
I would think that it would be an "either-or" situation, whereas either the image wouldn't boot, indicating an OS/MBR issue, OR a hardware problem would be clearly identified by Powermax (unless it's something Powermax isn't designed to pick up). I guess I really won't have any better idea of what's going on until I try to install a fresh OS to the drive and see what happens now that I have done a low-level format.
In the meantime, any thoughts would be greatly appreciated!
My system has been up and running for nearly a year now, without any problems. A64 3000+, a 160GB Maxtor and a 120GB Seagate, both IDE, running WinXP Pro (two separate installations: a working one on C:, and one for beta testing D:, both on separate drives). There have been no hardware changes other than swapping out a CD/RW for a DVD/RW. Over the past few days, there have been a few random lockups. One I can specifically point to is a lockup when running CrystalMark 2004 during the HD test. The Maxtor is my primary drive (C:\).
Next, the drive would not even boot. The system would POST, but after the loading windows graphic, I'd get a BSOD. I was able to boot the alternate installation (housed on the Seagate), during which I was able to see all of the data and all partitions on the "failing" Maxtor. Strangely, I was able to copy all of my data from the Maxtor, and it was intact. Even more strange, I was able to hook the Maxtor up as a slave, hook a spare 160GB WD drive up as master, and ghost the entire drive to the new WD. Then, I removed the Maxtor, and was able to boot up perfectly fine, so I doubt that it's an OS or MBR issue, or the image would have had the same issues as the original.
Continuing, I moved the drive to another system to run Maxtor's Powermax utility on it. It passed all tests fine with no errors, but it was extremely hot. Now, before all of this started, my drives would generally operate at 36-42 degrees Celcius. The Powermax testing probably pushed the drive, but it certainly felt much hotter than 42C, probably closer to 50-55 degrees, best guess.
I did a low level format last night, and over the next few days (as time permits) I plan to install an OS to the drive in a different PC and see what happens.
Any thoughts? What puzzles me are a couple of things:
1) Why would the drive not boot, but the newly created image, taken from the "problem" drive boot fine, unless it was a hardware issue?
2) If it was a hardware issue, why was I able to clone the drive, copy data from it when I booted my alternate Windows installation on my second hard drive, and have the Maxtor pass all of Maxtor's diagnostics?
I would think that it would be an "either-or" situation, whereas either the image wouldn't boot, indicating an OS/MBR issue, OR a hardware problem would be clearly identified by Powermax (unless it's something Powermax isn't designed to pick up). I guess I really won't have any better idea of what's going on until I try to install a fresh OS to the drive and see what happens now that I have done a low-level format.
In the meantime, any thoughts would be greatly appreciated!
