Samsung spinpoint 160GB problems

Mainframeguy

Debiant by way of Ubuntu
Joined
29 Aug 2002
Messages
3,763
I have a couple of problems - one serious and one peculiar....

The serious one is that my new rig is not recognising my slave drive. They are both 160GB Spinpoint 1614N's (ATA 133) with the 8MB cache and the funny thing is it seemed to be fine but I realised I had moved the jumper, thinking that was the slave position by the writing on the case - then it came up as a 32GB drive! I realised there was a jumper setting to limit drive, and so I took it off and then it was gone. I have tried a CMOS reset and rechecked IDE cable and believe I can feel some drive vibration so it should be spinning up- but it is not even there in BIOS and will not detect when I try to. I even tried setting the jumper for cable select, but that didn't help.

It is really bugging me - because I know it was there OK when I installed windows because it gave me an option to select where to install! I guess I should try swapping IDE cables over, when I can get the enthusiasm to at least rule that out. Other than that is there anything else to try or is it an unexplained failure and I need to RMA?

The less serious is that my primary 160GB drive shows up as 130,096 MB in NTFS and 7GB unformatted (think that's the right numbers) - I know I loose SOME from the formatting and calculations, but did not think it was that much, could anyone out there with a 160GB drive confirm or deny?

All these troubles - it's fun putting together a new system when it is sweet, but why do I seem like a magnet for trouble? :eek: :rolleyes:
 
You know, I've been noticing that you lose a lot of space when you format nowadays. Who knows.
 
First thing to do is to update the motherboard BIOS as I’ve just had a similar problem with a brand new MSI motherboard just one month old. If you use cable select make sure both drives are “cable select” enabled (if on the same connector) and not just one. Avoid master and slave jumper settings for identical drive types on same cable as system will boot quicker after first re-boot.

Some BIOS’s now detect the wrong IDE cable being installed and do not tell you what they have done to circumvent the problem.

Your second problem I would suggest must be BIOS related as before I updated my MSI board to the latest BIOS it chopped off everything above 139Gig no matter how large the drive was. This means that even after BIOS upgrade you will still not see that additional space without removing all the partitions and re-formatting. I tried partition Magic (pre BIOS upgrade) but it could only see the original formatted info and not the new (prost BIOS upgrade). Remember that XP hides a 7gig partition for its own use (or it used to on large drives if my memory serves me correctly I can’t remember why).

If DMA mode 6 is not displayed as the transfer rate for both drives (or even one, as the lowest common denominator is always used by default) then one of the drives is faulty.

:) :)
 
Thanks Dave - Rep++age your way....

One thing puzzles me though, how was it that initially both HD's were found on booting to XP CD for first format? Anyway, no harm (usually!) in a BIOD update so will do and also set both to cable select and see how we go - fingers crossed I may get a result because I hate fiddling around swapping my cable-gami IDE's, even though I have rounded ones this time!
 
OK tried new BIOS flash and both on cable select AND swapped IDE cable and it finds both opticals still - so cables are good.....

Looking more and more like the HD is messed up - not sure how I display DMA mode (anyone?) - but as last resort I am going to try moving the HD over to one of the headers on IDE2 next to one of my opticals just to see if it will wake up.....

Otherwise looking like a b****y RMA - opinions anyone?
 
stop press - since the BIOS flash I have discovered my floppy drive appears to have disappeared! This is a bit scarey (after all I did create a BIOS rescure floppy and if the flash went wrong AND I lost the floppy I guess I would be stuffed!).

I am trying to run some diagnostics I found for Samsung - but I do not think they will work unless I can detect a drive (although they may well display the DMA mode, hehe).

So I am coninuing to wallow around trying to fix this in a state of disbelief that I could have a HD drive fail on me within a week of ownership (dunno why I feel that exactly though - happened to me exactly with my laptop HD!)
 
OK another update - now I have fixed my minor problem..... it was not the BIOS update that did it - was the mobo drivers update though. Anyway right idea. I am not sure my BIOS update worked, but the latest is only two days newer and none of the fixes mentioned seem relevant to this.

Also since I got my drivers I have also fixed USB 2 support (which was bugging me!) and the extra space, whilst unformatted presently will at least be there once I get all this sorted and can reformat or use PM here.

But the slave HD or lack of is really bugging me - plus I have now found I can find my DMA mode and it is not going to 6 - it is stuck at Ultra DMA 5 - Ultra 100 with nothing higher selectable and no slave drive shown yet secondary IDE shows up both my opticals.....

SOOooooo is there any point in me moving my slave HD over to IDE2 for a test run? or is this well and truly and fnally RMA time?! I just want to be sure because it's dumb to RMA for a NFF (no fault found) as Samsung say many of their RMA's are....

Many thanks for the help on what was fixed though Dave - what is your feeling now on this one?
 
PS got back my floppy - something had just turned it off in BIOS.

I have, however, hit yet another problem which is really bugging me now - my Maxtor One Touch external will not play ball with my new rig, either firewire nor USB either front panel or rear - always showing up as not accessible with disc structure corrupted or unreadable....

I cannot help feeling all this is adding up to something and I am wondering if my PSU is struggling? it is rated to 18a on the 12v line - but not sure which the HD's wouldbe pulling on.... and if this would be the symptoms? How best to test going forward? Rip out slave drive and test elsewhere? Is that simplest option? I think without any DriveImage I will hold back on Samsung diagnostics since they are riddled with warnings about backing up first (plus cannot see HD anyway!)

[EDIT] Just found PM can see Maxtor drive partition formatted as NTFS no problem (plus it plays fine elsewhere) so have to work on that one... [/EDIT]
 
remove all opticals, insert hdds as either masters or slaves and see if they're recognised by by BIOS.If you're concerned about psu not rated high enough, also make sure any usb or firewire kit is removed.
 
Wow Mainframeguy, you sure are having troubles with this new rig. Simply because you are having multiple problems across multiple issue lines this is my suggestion.

Take all HDD's and PCI cards out. Then starting with 1 HDD install it, and make sure it is ID'ed in the bios correctly. Make sure to do a reboot before you claim victory. Then remove that HDD, and install the other (you might need a system disk in the floppy drive if the HDD is not bootable), make sure that 1 is ID'ed correctly in the bios, do a reboot.

Now if both HDD's show up correctly you know that the HDD's are good.

With the HDD you already have installed, now Install the second HDD, and see if it comes up correctly. (Remember to do a reboot!)

If your good to go there add in any remaining components 1 at a time, rebooting after each one till you either run into a problem or everything gets insalled.

*Side Notes*

WRT your DMA mode problem, is your mobo DMA 6 133mhz capable? When your doing your install listed above, with only 1 of the HDD's installed check the DMA mode and see what it is. it might only be in DMA mode 6 with 1 drive and then drops to DMA mode 5 with multiple drives.

Are you using on board SATA or a PCI SATA interface? If your still having problems you might try spliting the drives to different SATA channels, while most channels are split independant channels you might have a bad secondary channel on the main channel. Also check that your first drive is in SATA 0 (or 1 depending how they label them) and that your second is in SATA 1 (again or 2 depending how they are labled), most of the time the system will scan the channels in order (I.E. 0-3) and if you have say a drive in SATA 0 and 2 with nothing in SATA ch. 1 it can cause dection issues.
 
thanks for the ideas - the only PCI slot in use is for the MSI proprietary D-Bracket diagnostic LEDs (and that is just an external "slot", not an on board one! Ie it houses a couple extra USB slots that go to a header and a plug for the diagnostic outputs on the mobo - I like that and it is staying...)

The HD's are both IDE and there is no SATA (I toyed with the idea but decided not enough benefit for my budget yet, plus could be noise/heat/power issues). Many of my problems were just teething - if I can get my slave drive up it is basically all running per spec (just a little louder than I had hoped, but that I can work on).

My mobo is the MSI Platinum K8N Neo 2 - manual says Supports Ultra DMA ATA drives 66/100/133 - does not make mention of DMA mode 6 specifically and I do not know enough about it, the ability to see the properties and actuallly test the speed only came up after I upgraded the mobo drivers (thanks to Dave!). So anyway, luckily (?) the master seems AOK and is bootable since I formatted onto it - it is easy enough to try out your idea since I just need to unplug IDE2 and slave and boot, then reboot with slave plugged back in... I am not sure that will get me anywhere though .... are you maybe suggesting I make the slave a master for a boot with a floppy in? then I guess I could run a /format c: maybe - but think I would need a system disk with the format command like back in the win95/8 days? And if drive is formatted you think it might be recognised? I am not going to do any of this right now as it is late - hope I'll get time at weekend but not sure yet....

I am very reluctant to think it is anything PSU related - I must have 200w on my 12v rail (that's what HD's pull, no?) and the processor could not even touch half that.... plus I would expect to observe instability and other problems if it were power.... it was when I was wondering about that i thought about swapping the slave drive to any other machine to see...

Now my inability to access my external Maxtor drive - which works fine with EVERY other computer (I have another three or four) that throws me and bothers me a little....

One last thing to throw into the mix - I am holding this machine back to SP1 (I have my reasons, M$ have not resolved an issue for me with VPN in SP2) - does anyone think that could be a factor? I am quite prepared to give SP2 a "whirl" (can always reformat) and if it gave me my slave drive and the Maxtor it would be well worth it (but I think that is a pipe dream!)
 
dave holbon said:
First thing to do is to update the motherboard BIOS as I’ve just had a similar problem with a brand new MSI motherboard just one month old. If you use cable select make sure both drives are “cable select” enabled (if on the same connector) and not just one. Avoid master and slave jumper settings for identical drive types on same cable as system will boot quicker after first re-boot.

Some BIOS’s now detect the wrong IDE cable being installed and do not tell you what they have done to circumvent the problem.

Your second problem I would suggest must be BIOS related as before I updated my MSI board to the latest BIOS it chopped off everything above 139Gig no matter how large the drive was. This means that even after BIOS upgrade you will still not see that additional space without removing all the partitions and re-formatting. I tried partition Magic (pre BIOS upgrade) but it could only see the original formatted info and not the new (prost BIOS upgrade). Remember that XP hides a 7gig partition for its own use (or it used to on large drives if my memory serves me correctly I can’t remember why).

If DMA mode 6 is not displayed as the transfer rate for both drives (or even one, as the lowest common denominator is always used by default) then one of the drives is faulty.

:) :)

I have 240 and never had XP hold out 7Gb.


Master File Table = 12.5%
System restore is always set at 10% default
I agree with teh 137Gb boundary with teh following two rules
1) Motherboard must support 46bit logical addressing.
2) XP SP 1 must be installed.

Multi-speed channels are supported, I have a PIO4 mode CD-ROM and a DMA level 2 DVD-ROM on teh same channel at home. circa 00' computer.
 
PS. on your external drive is it USB?

I have turned around a coupla molex connecters, no harm to equiptment but it won't work.
 
HMMMMmmmm definitely think I have on dead HD now....

To answer your points steevo - I do not think it was XP holding out the extra GB on my HD - rather the mobo needed refreshed IDE chipset drivers and only then saw the extra space on the one drive that seems to now be working. And my external drive is a Maxtor one touch - so both USB and Firewire- each of which are giving the same bad results from both front panel and back panel ports....

As to why I definitely think drive is bad - despite myself I went in there and first plugged IDE1 master to slave drive alone (leaving jumpers as are on cable select) - no drive found in BIOS. Then thought I'd try again, so plugged IDE2 master into suspect HD to try on another channel - still nothing....

I'll check it through in daylight to make sure I did nothing dumb.

So now I am here booted into single HD and single optical - and this is what I do not get - I checked my HD properties and I know this is an ATA 133 device - yet it still shows under device manager for the channel as Ultra DMA5 (100) with just the one HD connected! This cannot be right - I guess I will have to contact MSI support or something, anyone else had issues like this?

Side Note - this is putting me right off, now I have one RMA and a rig that is fine in a few repects but has a major flaw if I cannot back up to my external device plus needs work to quiet plus appears to have issues with it's IDE speeds! All very well having on board SATA but I was not going there just yet!

I'm not sure about your molex comment steevo! I can tell you for sure my molexes go in the right way! Just the d**n drive cannot e found no matter what I try! I feel sure in my memory it was there when i accidentally had jumper setting it to a 32GB drive though...... cannot see that could have done any harm.... anyway - maybe I will call it a day here for now....
 
Is your BIOS version 1.4 and your drivers for the chipset version Win2K/XP driver package 5.03?

Does the motherboard correctly identify your CPU and what speed is the front-side bus set to? Just to make sure select “Load BIOS setup defaults” from the main BIOS screen, re-boot ignoring all the messages about network, SATA and other devices that you may have disabled just to see if your drives and CPU etc are correctly recognised. The original BIOS for this motherboard did not support a 400 MHz front side bus and was not WHQL certified as the latest BIOS version is for the NVIDIA nForce3 chipset.

If you have to update the BIOS make sure that it is set to the above settings “Load BIOS setup defaults” before you flash or the update might not work correctly I’ve had this problem before with MSI boards loosing a floppy drive for no apparent reason.

MSI provide a utility for this to be done through XP (Live update/Live monitor) but make sure that you have the latest version of this utility as the previous versions were buggy and as they suggest that no other programmes are loaded (including virus checkers/firewall’s etc) make sure that you can disconnect from the Internet and close these programmes during the install i.e. don’t use full screen windows so you can manually close the programmes.

Good luck.


:) :) :)
 
Mainframeguy said:
thanks for the ideas - the only PCI slot in use is for the MSI proprietary D-Bracket diagnostic LEDs (and that is just an external "slot", not an on board one! Ie it houses a couple extra USB slots that go to a header and a plug for the diagnostic outputs on the mobo - I like that and it is staying...)

The HD's are both IDE and there is no SATA (I toyed with the idea but decided not enough benefit for my budget yet, plus could be noise/heat/power issues). Many of my problems were just teething - if I can get my slave drive up it is basically all running per spec (just a little louder than I had hoped, but that I can work on).

My mobo is the MSI Platinum K8N Neo 2 - manual says Supports Ultra DMA ATA drives 66/100/133 - does not make mention of DMA mode 6 specifically and I do not know enough about it, the ability to see the properties and actuallly test the speed only came up after I upgraded the mobo drivers (thanks to Dave!). So anyway, luckily (?) the master seems AOK and is bootable since I formatted onto it - it is easy enough to try out your idea since I just need to unplug IDE2 and slave and boot, then reboot with slave plugged back in... I am not sure that will get me anywhere though .... are you maybe suggesting I make the slave a master for a boot with a floppy in? then I guess I could run a /format c: maybe - but think I would need a system disk with the format command like back in the win95/8 days? And if drive is formatted you think it might be recognised? I am not going to do any of this right now as it is late - hope I'll get time at weekend but not sure yet....

I am very reluctant to think it is anything PSU related - I must have 200w on my 12v rail (that's what HD's pull, no?) and the processor could not even touch half that.... plus I would expect to observe instability and other problems if it were power.... it was when I was wondering about that i thought about swapping the slave drive to any other machine to see...

Now my inability to access my external Maxtor drive - which works fine with EVERY other computer (I have another three or four) that throws me and bothers me a little....

One last thing to throw into the mix - I am holding this machine back to SP1 (I have my reasons, M$ have not resolved an issue for me with VPN in SP2) - does anyone think that could be a factor? I am quite prepared to give SP2 a "whirl" (can always reformat) and if it gave me my slave drive and the Maxtor it would be well worth it (but I think that is a pipe dream!)
Sorry about the SATA stuff, I re-read your orignal post and I am not sure where I got that you were running SATA drives.

Anyway, yes you are correct in that I am say to hook up your slave drive as a master, just formate a floppy and check the box that says "add system" * (something like that), you might also check and make sure that in the Bios it is set to auto dectect HDD's, and not set to USER Selected.

SP2, should make no difference in the dection of your HDD's as that happens before Windows is loaded.

WRT your external drive, I am guessing your using the USB interface, you might check the the hardware drivers for your USB or firewire if your using that and make sure it is 1)Installed and 2) That you have no yellow question marks or red X's. If your using USB do you have other USB devices other than the external dirve that work? Might also check and make sure USB support is turned on in the bios.

UDMA 133 is also known as DMA 6 (UDMA 100 is DMA mode 5, and UDMA 66 is DMA mode 4) so we at least know that your mobo supports it. I have the same problem on my machine, I can't get my system to ID my 80gb or my 60gb drives as UDMA mode 6 and to this day haven't figuared out why.

Let me know what you come up with from the testing and we will see what we can figure out :)
 
dave holbon said:
Is your BIOS version 1.4 and your drivers for the chipset version Win2K/XP driver package 5.03?

Does the motherboard correctly identify your CPU and what speed is the front-side bus set to?

Errr my BIOS is 1.3 - I cannot find anything newer for the Neo K8N Platinum.... and that is dated 24/9/2004 - I am getting well confused about all this - not least because I just tried another flash and the utility told me I did not have the nforce3 chipset!!!! :confused:

My NVidia network bus enumerator driver is version 4.4.2.0 - I am not sure how to find generic mobo driver version, plus I am almost certain if I do get this wretched machine to recognise the second disc it is now going to involve a reformat onto that disc.... my lates idea is booting from a PM floppy to try to find it... we shall see....
I do have latest version of LiveUpdate and did use it.... My processor is identified fine as an AMD64 3500.... not sure about my FSB at this point, sorry - but that is the least of my worries right now! )I will of course get back to it, but pretty sure that is kinda irrelevant to this context)

Right - time to shutdown and swap around some IDE cables for the umpteenth time!
 
failed again

OK tried the PM trick - see here

it failed :(

Only thing left is to experiment with HD jumper - but I am not at all optimistic about that :(

looks like HD RMA time?
 
Double check your motherboard name and revision number, you stated that it was an MSI Platinum K8N Neo 2. It this correct? If it is you do not have the latest version of the BIOS dated 27/08/2004. This is version 1.4. I suspect that either the BIOS has been flashed with an incorrect MSI version or the live update utility has miss-identified your board and downloaded an incorrect BIOS in which case it’s a wonder that anything works.

Go here for the latest BIOS if your motherboard is as stated: -

http://www.msi.com.tw/program/support/bios/bos/spt_bos_detail.php?UID=572&kind=1

If all the assumptions are correct then do not run live update but live monitor instead which resides in the system tray once started. Right click and select “Auto Search” then follow the instructions. If this still does not return BIOS version 1.4 as the latest then you must have installed an incorrect BIOS for the motherboard and will have to resort to the floppy method to flash the BIOS.

Go here for a picture of the motherboard and select “large picture”. If this is your board then it is almost certain that somewhere down the line something has gone drastically wrong.

http://www.msi.com.tw/program/products/mainboard/mbd/pro_mbd_detail.php?UID=572

:) :) :)
 
mobo is a neo2

Sorry if I misled - this is my mobo - it is the Neo2. I have used the Live monitor and do not think things are so badly messed up - but will investigate further tomorrow... Just saw your message and wanted to correct mobo info.... Still have a bad feeling about the HD but reserving judgement for now. :rolleyes:
 

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