WD Raptor Headache

[wexsmith]

I've got a 74GB WD Raptor that locks up when formatted with NTFS. FAT32 works freakin' great though. My 160GB Maxtor SATA drive is formatted with NTFS, using the same utility the Raptor was formatted with, and it's been working great for months.

After my system locks up with the Raptor my error log shows "NTFS error: NTFS is corrupt. Check the integrity of the drive." All tests I've run on the drive have never found an error. Tests can hit the hard drive as hard as they want in DOS and it will never lockup. Lockups only occur when Windows is running or installing. I've tried 3 different XP installations, don't read too much into that, and they all lockup and give the same NTFS error.

Take the same drive, with the same SATA cord, same power connector and format it with FAT32 then you get a fully functional lock-free drive. I've had it running drive tests in Windows for over 15 hours and it still shows no errors and hasn't locked up once. Oh and the XP installation is one of the 3 that was locking up the Raptor drive.

Anyone have any idea what's going on?


Specifications:
MSI K7N2-Delta ILSR Motherboard
Athlon 2400+ 266FSB
1GB (2x512) PC2700 slowed to 1:1 ratio so no timing issues...
74GB WD Raptor SATA
160GB Maxtor SATA
GeForce FX 5700
SB Audigy 2 ZS

Controller has 64KB stripe and the drive is formatted with 4K clusters


Just added the specs for good measure. I'm not sure if it has any bearing on only NTFS giving errors though. Please help meh!

 

[wexsmith]

Quick update before I go to lunch. I still have no idea why one format works, but the other doesn't.

After work I'll try running the Data Lifeguard Diagnostic on it to check the drive for errors one more time. Up to this point I've only run non-Western Digital drive tests. Also, I'll use Data Lifeguard Tools to format the drive with NTFS instead of the DOS Partition Magic I used before.

If neither of those things work I'll lend the drive out to a friend to test in his system.

Got any other suggestions?

 

[Green Man]

You could let windows format the disk. Not that I know of a problem, but it might help.

 

[thorin]

Is there some reason you "need" to use 3rd party software for the format?

 

[imported_Kensai]

It could possibly be corruption of your ntfs.sys file.

 

[wexsmith]

There's no "need" to use 3rd party software. I've let Windows format the drive as NTFS while it's installing. Do you think booting to WinXP on my other drive to format the Raptor would make a difference?

If it is the ntfs.sys file is it likely that it would be corrupted by the Raptor drive, but not the Maxtor? The installation is from the same CD.

 

[jonnylingo]

My buddy had trouble installing Windows XP with raptor drives. He said that it would lock up or only get a certain amount finished, but it was always random. I don't know if he had trouble formatting the drives. It ended up being a memory problem. He moved the RAM to different slots on the MB and it worked fine. Don't know if that will help...but random problems are frustrating.

-jonny

 

[wexsmith]

Memtest86 gives absolutely no errors whatsoever. Besides that though my 160GB Maxtor SATA drive runs great on the system. The system has been together for over a year now with no problems, except when I try to run the Raptor by itself or with another drive.

I've tested cables, power and more. I can't think of a single explanation to why my drive works with FAT32 and not with NTFS.