Conflicting hard drives?!

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We Speak Geek
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I currently have 4 devices in my IDE slots:
1 x Maxtor 80gb (primary master & the one Windows is installed on)
1 x WD Caviar 120gb (primary slave - storage nr1)
1 x NEC DVD-RW (secondary master)
1 x WD 250gb (secondary slave - storage nr2)

Now, for about a year it's been running fine. Then, all of a sudden storage nr2 stops appearing. Reboot and it hangs at the BIOS startup screen, and storage nr2 isn't in there either.
Since that happened out of the blue, if I have the primary one plugged in - which it needs to be, as it has Windows installed - storage nr2 won't show up anywhere and the BIOS always hangs no matter what the configuration of the other devices; I can unplug everything except that hard drive and it'll hang. Again that's just started randomly.
If I unplug that drive then storage nr2 appears in the BIOS, and it doesn't hang!
What's going on?!
 
Maxtor drives can object randomly to other brand IDE disks in a system on the same cable. This is the first I've heard of it on a different cable. Do you have an alternative 80GB you can duplicate to and use in place of the maxtor?
 
Out of the blue? or following the latest round of MS updates?

Make sure Nr2 is not formated as an old system disk. Windows gets twitchy about having multiple windows boot HDs installed. It used to never work with ugly results, then for a while it seemed to hit or miss tolerate 2 Boot drives on a computer.
 
I fail to see how windows updates can cause the bios to hang lee.... please read posts :)
 
I would say try and run a diagnosis on that drive I get the feeling the drive is about to fail.
 
I fail to see how windows updates can cause the bios to hang lee.... please read posts :)


1) If windows tromps on the HD Track 0 which it used to do routinely when 2 identical boot HDs are in one systems it can "hang" the bios POST when it encounters a bad Track 0. It was part of their anti-piracy protection. I think they took it out for a while or I have just been lucky in making backup images of my boot disks.

2) How does he know the HD Nr2 is not accessible if he is not entering windows? He did successfully enter windows one time. Then after that the drive was "gone" as seen in the bios. This was exactly the issue I used to get when imaging backups of boot disks.

3) MS just dropped an Activation Tool update on me this week which corresponds with the timing of the posted problem.

Actualy we need a better description of whta is meant by hangs the Biso and how it is known that Nr2 is not accessible.

PS I read the post.
 
1) If windows tromps on the HD Track 0 which it used to do routinely when 2 identical boot HDs are in one systems it can "hang" the bios POST when it encounters a bad Track 0. It was part of their anti-piracy protection. I think they took it out for a while or I have just been lucky in making backup images of my boot disks.

All the bios does during post is reset the disk and ask for drive ready. Bad tracks aren't looked for or cared about. If the heads have crashed the disk can't reset so you get a clunking noise. If two or more disks are arguing the bios is likely to hang during disk detection of not earlier.

2) How does he know the HD Nr2 is not accessible if he is not entering windows? He did successfully enter windows one time. Then after that the drive was "gone" as seen in the bios. This was exactly the issue I used to get when imaging backups of boot disks.

One trusts he knows which disks are which in his system. As they are described as standard IDE I'm assuming this is 40pin EIDE. Therefore if he knows which drive is in which position on which cable he knows what drive is missing when the bios presents a list of drives detected.

3) MS just dropped an Activation Tool update on me this week which corresponds with the timing of the posted problem.

Again what does this have to do with the BIOS?

Actualy we need a better description of whta is meant by hangs the Biso and how it is known that Nr2 is not accessible.

BIOS hangs means just that. BIOS gets stuck waiting on one or more hardware devices to report ready status and relinquish cpu time to progress system POST and boot hand off.

PS I read the post.

Then you are showing a disturbing lack of knowledge and understanding over your normally usefull posts.
 
As I said, it worked fine for ages then just did it. Since starting this problem, it has worked fine once or twice but the majority of the time I can't see nr2. It hangs on the BIOS either way.
And by hangs, I mean it takes a good 5 minutes plus before it goes past the first screen, then it goes blank for maybe another 3 minutes before getting the Windows loading screen, after which it operates perfectly.
 
And now I just got home and it's working fine! No hanging, and nr2 is showing up without problem.
How rare.
 
I had this very same problem with my Maxtor 80GB HDD about a year ago, about a week after this prablem the drive failed. I would make a backup of the drive asap, and prepare for it death in the near future.
 
I would say try and run a diagnosis on that drive I get the feeling the drive is about to fail.

I had this very same problem with my Maxtor 80GB HDD about a year ago, about a week after this prablem the drive failed. I would make a backup of the drive asap, and prepare for it death in the near future.


Sounds to me like it hangs on that drive. I would follow the recommendations in these two posts.

I have had the same thing happen and it’s been the drive (just two months ago was the last time). You could leave the system running most of the day and access that drive from time to time then look in event viewer for “disk errors”.

But I sure would backup the info quick and run the manufactures diagnostics on the drive. You could also reseat the IDE and power cable ( I know you said you unhooked it but did you reseat both power/IDE ) on that drive just for the sake of doing so but I think the drive is on its way out.

You could replace the IDE cable and see if it’s that simple, you might get lucky.
 

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