Maxtor OneTouch prevents booting

spitfire_ch

OSNN Newbie
Joined
22 Aug 2004
Messages
5
Hi!

Recently, I bought Maxtor OneTouch 250 GB external HD, but ran into some serious problems to get it work. I have to OS installed on my PC,Win98SE and WinXP, booting controlled by the bootmanager of WinXP. In Win98, I get as far as installing the Storage Adapter Bridge Modul (MXO), while doing that, the system crashed. This happens independent of whether I connect the drive via USB or via Firewire. If I boot while the HD is still connected and ON, Win98 crashes (black screen, blinking cursor while booting). If I connect the HD after booting Win98, it is recognized but inactivated by the system, because it was detected that this device caused system crashes when installed. So, under 98 it does not work at all.
Under XP I get a little bit further. I can properly install it, but when I try to boot XP with the drive connected and ON, it first lets run Checkdisk and then causes tons of writing errors while booting (data loss while writing). Interestingly, most of these errors refer to the internal HD, like
D:\$Mft (WinXP is installed on D:, Win98 is on C:)
D:\Windows
D:\Windows\System32, \Windows Fonts, \Internet logs
D:\Windows\System32\drivers
D:\Common Files\System\Ole DP, \ado, \msadc
M:\$Mft (first partition of the OneTouch drive)
N:\$Mft (second ...)
It finally makes it to the XP surface, but of course with all that errors all I can do is moving around the mouse cursor. Luckily, the problem is gone when the HD is unplugged and the system rebooted (Chkdsk finds data problems on the system drive, though, which are then fixed). If I first boot XP and then connect the HD, it strangely does not show up in Explorer or My Computer, but it does show up in the device manager and I can access it by generating direct links to it. It seems to work fine, no problems writing to or reading from it.
All these problems occur independent of whether I connect the drive via USB or Firewire. I even tried to inactivate the onboard IEEE 1394 controller in the Bios, which didn’t help, neither. Interestingly, XP wouldn’t boot properly anymore, even if the HD was disconnected, until Firewire was activated again. I only tried this once, so far.

If anybody knows a possible reason of these problems or - even better: a possible solution, I would be very grateful!

Thanks very much in advance and best regards

- spitfire

My system
*********
OS: Win98SE & WinXP Home SP1 (XP bootmanager), DirectX 9.0b (both)
MoBo: Asus P4P800 Deluxe
CPU: Intel P-IV 2.8 GHz, 800 MHz FSB
RAM: 2x256MB Kingston Dual-DDR (512 MB)
GPU: Hercules Ati All-In-Wonder 8500DV, Catalyst 4.3 (98), Catalyst 4.5 (XP)
Sound: Creative SB Audigy Platinum
Drives
******
Prim Master: WDC WD400BB, 40 GB
Prim Slave: Maxtor 6L080J4, 80 GB
Sec. Master: Toshiba DVD-ROM SD
Sec. Slave: LG IL-DT-ST DVDRAM GS
external: Maxtor OneTouch, 250 GB S/N: Y63MCFQE
 
I have the same external drive in the 300 GB model.

I have not tried connecting to a WIN98 machine, but so far as XP goes the way I use the drive I would never boot with it connected and on - rather connect after XP is booted, then you should get the bubble pop-up recognizing the "found new hardware" and after that the drive should be there and probably go into autoplay for many different file types depending on what you may have put on the drive.

One thing I found out the hard way is that the software with the drive - Retrospect - was NOT useful for my purposes of backing up drives. I had to invest in DriveImage as well.

So - if you use the drive like this (attaching as hot swap while powered up) do you still have problems?
 
Amusingly i have a Asus A7N8X-E Deluxe mobo and I boot constantly with my firewire drive (300GB Maxtor onetouch) connected. The only problem I ever notice is while inside windows. I have Windows XP SP2...I would almost be willing to say the errors are contributed by Win 98....have you tried using an addt'l firewire PCI card?
 
another ASUS, oddly

PWRDbyTRD said:
Amusingly i have a Asus A7N8X-E Deluxe mobo ...
by strange coincidence I am an A7V8X-X user myself... and on reflection I am sure I have also booted with the external drive present (IE I do not pay a lot of attention, it has been basically trouble free for me).

So I second that opinion - what is the driving force behind keeping the Win98 bootable capability? I assume it is a necessary thing to have and then if it is I would suggest contacting Maxtor support and forums etc to see if there are any issues with drivers for 98 - if you can get a driver your problems may be resolved.

Then again I am starting to wonder, what is the partitioning configuration for your exteranal drive? For me everything is NTFS and that has got to help a lot. Also I do have the firewire card suggested, they are cheap and I needed one for my DV camera anyway - if that is something you would like in your machine it is definitely worth a go.

Post back any findings - if you ask me to I may even try plugging my Maxtor into my venerable 98SE machine too, even though it has no firewire and I suspect it's USB is 1.1 rather than 2.0 I'd still be interested to see if I can do a blanket copy of the 4GB main HD! ;)

[EDIT] Sorry - re-read post and see you have firewire onboard, so cancel that idea! But suspect disabling in bios gives XP problems so you prob have to disable from inside XP before making BIOS change [/EDIT]
 
There’s a setting in the Bios maybe under “advanced” that will say

“boot other device” set this to “disabled” and see if you can boot with the external drive attached.
I have the same drive and this is what I did to be able to boot with it attached.
 
bush dogg said:
...“boot other device” set this to “disabled” ..

of course! Makes absolute sense when you think about it, booting to USB devices being all the rage these days may be set on by dafault and could well cause problems.....

Sure hope you did not want to make the One Touch your boot drive :rolleyes: Though I doubt that somehow from the way the thread reads. Oh and give BushDogg a rep. (assuming this works out for you) that was a good call I think
 
Thanks a lot for all your replies! I'm not home right now, so I cannot try the suggestions, but I will as soon as I am home and I will let you know whether it works.

Mainframeguy said:
So - if you use the drive like this (attaching as hot swap while powered up) do you still have problems?
Under XP it works properly, if I do it like this, except that it doesn't show up in Explorer or "My Computer". I have to create a direct link to its partitions and then it works. In 98 it is recognized but inactivated because the drive caused a crash during installation. So, in XP I can use it as long as I disconnect it while booting, in 98 I can not use it at all.

PWRDbyTRD said:
I have Windows XP SP2...I would almost be willing to say the errors are contributed by Win 98....have you tried using an addt'l firewire PCI card?
But it causes XP to crash as well, while booting. I don't have a Firewire PCI card, but it behaves the very same when connecting it via USB2. Hence I don't think Firewire is the problem.

Mainframeguy said:
Then again I am starting to wonder, what is the partitioning configuration for your exteranal drive?
First two partitions are NTSF, last one (< 64 GB) is FAT32, which I did for Win98.

Mainframeguy said:
[EDIT] Sorry - re-read post and see you have firewire onboard, so cancel that idea! But suspect disabling in bios gives XP problems so you prob have to disable from inside XP before making BIOS change [/EDIT]
Good idea. Is it possible that the active firewire-controller could disturb the system when the external drive is connected via USB2?

bush dogg said:
“boot other device” set this to “disabled” and see if you can boot with the external drive
Good point, will try that! However, the system doesn't behave like it tried to boot from the external drive. It still boots from the internal D:, but cannot write anything to it.

Ok, thanks a lot, I'll let you know as soon as I know more!

- spitfire
 
My friend has the 300GB version of said drive and has never had any problems with it hooked up to any computer (XP or 2000) via either firewire or USB2.0. It just doesn't make sense that it doesn't work. :(
 
The XP problem is solved, finally. After the described writing errors at start up sometimes even occurred with the external HD being disconnected, I decided to install an older image of XP. During the first start after doing that, nearly each partition of my internal drive was full of system errors which were corrected. To my shock, the second partition was not accessible any more after the first start, but this was corrected by CHKDSK during the next start up. Now, everything works perfectly. As somebody suggested, the Master File Table must have got corrupted, which would explain why I always got those $Mft writing errors. It had nothing to do with the external drive at all, the broken system simply couldn’t deal with it anymore.

The problem of the new partitions not being shown in Explorer or My Computer was a different one, caused by TweakUI:

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;191579

So, this leaves only Win98 to be troubleshooted, which is installed on a different hard-drive and hence could not have been influenced by the XP mess. But 98 is not that important, now that it works perfectly with XP.

Thanks a lot for all your help and suggestions!

- spitfire
 
Glad it's working out.

funny thing is I just posted that kb in another thread, didn't think of it in this case.
 
XP doesn't allow ANY hardware changes anymore

Bloody hell, the problem turned out to be much more severe than I thought :( XP works fine, but ONLY as long as I don't change anything about the hardware. I just installed a new graphic board (HIS 9800 AIW). It works just perfectly under 98. XP didn't show any problem, neither, as long as it ran with the basic/emergency display drivers. As soon as I installed the catalysts ... BANG, bloody old problems were back, meaning that XP is completely destroyed. Every time when I try to boot I get about one hundred disk write errors ($MFT etc.), and the system crashes totally soon after booting. It even does this in safe mode :( I tried to reinstall the older image and it worked nicely, until I installed the display drivers.

I don't think it's the catalysts, because it behaved the very same when I inactivated the firewire controller in the bios. So, when ever I change anything about the hardware, XP produces this fatal disk write errors. What on earth could that be? I really don't feel like installing XP from the scratch, took me 2 days last time, until all the progs were installed and settings were done. But I don't see any other way anymore - do you? And is Win98 really less fragile than XP? Can't believe I had not a single problem with 98, but need to reinstall XP just because I slightly changed the hardware :(

Well, I wish you more luck, when you change your systems next time!

Best wishes

- spitfire
 
= "delayed write failure"-bug -> solved

Ok, got a way around this problem, too. Luckily, just before trying to reinstall XP, I found out that this problem is called the "delayed write failure"-bug on English OSs. Although it is a highly common XP bug, it has never been adressed by MS. I screened the internet for it and found several suggestions, which I tried all at the same time. I know, it's not the prober way, but I didn't wan't to go through "install no image -> try method A -> fails -> reinstall image -> try method B -> fails ...". So everything works fine again, without reinstalling XP. Here is what worked for me:

- disable fast user switch compability in MSCONFIG
- optimize memory usage for programs, NOT system cache!!
- inactivate secondary AIW9800 (PCI)
- inactivate the Via-Firewire controller in device manager (1394 host controller)
- when installing new catalyst drivers, make sure to inactivate "Fast Writes" and "VPU recover" BEFORE restarting the machine! (new control panel is already functional!)

regards

- Pesche
 

Members online

No members online now.

Latest profile posts

Also Hi EP and people. I found this place again while looking through a oooollllllldddd backup. I have filled over 10TB and was looking at my collection of antiques. Any bids on the 500Mhz Win 95 fix?
Any of the SP crew still out there?
Xie wrote on Electronic Punk's profile.
Impressed you have kept this alive this long EP! So many sites have come and gone. :(

Just did some crude math and I apparently joined almost 18yrs ago, how is that possible???
hello peeps... is been some time since i last came here.
Electronic Punk wrote on Sazar's profile.
Rest in peace my friend, been trying to find you and finally did in the worst way imaginable.

Forum statistics

Threads
62,015
Messages
673,494
Members
5,621
Latest member
naeemsafi
Back