[rant]bloody IBM[/rant]

[Martyn]

Can't believe this. Just got a copey of Win 2K pro today, inc service pak 2. Now I'm new to this OS and was pretty excvited about installing it on my PX box. I've been holding off installing software and stuff, waiting to put the OS on, so I can move it over as my main box. I've got a oair of IBM GXP 75's, 30 gig each, in RAID0 on my KT7a-R. Win 98 running fine, so I start the Win2K install and <crash>, didn't surprise me, the KT7a-R is a fickle board at the beat of times. Anyway, realised my RAID0 partition was fuxored, so deleted what was left of it and tried afresh. When I get to fdisk, "no disk detected" errorrs, no matter what I try. Eventually, I DL'd the IBM disk health util, ran it and - "bad sectors". Now this disk was bloody expensive and prolly has less than 200 hours on it. Man that's crap - low level format in progress....

/end rant

Any tips???

[Dustin]

The first thing I would do is try a different cable. I see hardware techs miss this all the time. Confirm it's being detected correctly in the BIOS. If neither of thoose options work, try it in another computer.

If all that fails to work, send it back.:(

[MikeTimbers]

I have two of those and one of mine has bad sectors too. There was a long-running feud on ACHO between Ron Reaugh and a.n.other about how these are wonderful/crap/wonderful etc.

A number of others chimed in that they too had had problems with 75GXPs particularly the 30GB. It should also be said that these disks have sold in vast quantities.

Check google for the threads.

For what it's worth, the low-level format worked on mine for a while and then some more bad sectors appeared. I live with it but if these of yours are brand new, contact your supplier.

[Martyn]

I might take em back Mike, if I can find the damned reciept. What happens when it's part of a RAID0 array? I know I could live with a few bad sectors, but not if it's gonna trash the array every time.

[wbierman]

Your drives are fine. You need the "3R" bios update. What you are experiencing is very common for KT7A-Raid boards. All of a sudden there is no HD. Brand new drives and no detection. I heard about the 3R bios just the other day. I have to try it myself cause I have 3 dead Abits that were going back for Asus A7A266s.

I will flash them and see what happens. I have seen this condidtion after 60 days of use and I have seen it right out of the box. So, my boards have one last chance. If they fail this last attempt, that is it for Abit.

[wbierman]

Tril-

Send me your email address and I'll send you a copy of the 3R bios update. I had a hell of a time finding it. In fact, I stumbled across it by acident.

[Martyn]

Done..

Thanks will, this is doin my head in, The IBM disk health util reports the disks as fine, I even erased the MBR's on both diskd just in case one was corrupted.

I still get "no physical disk" when I try fdisk. Funnily though, I can set up the array in the RAID bios - that can see the drives. I've tried running master/slave master/master etc no difference. I hope the bios flash works :)

[Martyn]

Well, here are the results....

I always find flashing a bios a hairy thing to do, and this was no different....

http://www.synobyte.com/images/flash.jpg

Whew! Hurdle #1 complete and the only really dangerous thing.

Next, reconstruct the RAID0 array and try fdisk...

http://www.synobyte.com/images/fdisk.jpg

Bingo!

Thanks Will, you're a gem :D

Proof positive that KT7a-R boards are crap :)

[wbierman]

Did it really work? If so, I'll have to try it tomorrow and add another machine to the fray.

[Martyn]

You mean you didn't know it would? LOL Yup, worked a treat, you can see fdisk ruuning in the pic above. Prior to the bios flash, fdisk reported that there were no fixed disks on my comp 100% of the time. It worked, Win 2K pro, now completely installed accross my RAID0 array, and running a treat - Thanks again man - youre a star :)

[wbierman]

I'm glad it worked for. I found about it quite by accident. I stumbled accross a BB on AMD motherboards. I was poking around and read all the posts on the Abit boards which I have had nothing but trouble with. Then I poked around the Abit site and looked for the R3 but coule not find the 3R update. Accidently found it and the rest is history...

[Martyn]

I didn't know of that particular problem, but I might have guessed it'd be down to the board. I do have some good sites for abit stuff though...

icronticforums (http://www.icronticforums.com/forumdisplay.php?forumid=22) just about everything abit goes on in here - If it had occured to me my problems were mobo related, this would prolly have been my first stop.

Also binary's bios mods (http://www.biosmods.com/) just about every bios you can think of, with hacks changes etc - the 3R is there, i found it linked from the icrontic forums - the guy hangs in there and will put together custom bios' on request - nice to know :)

[MikeTimbers]

Nice to know yours was a BIOS problem. Seeing as how my bad sectors are on a BE6-2 on the standard Intel IDE controller, mine is genuinely sick. :(

[Martyn]

I think one of the drives is genuinely poorly too. I heard some nasty noises comming from it, just prior to the crash. The IBM disk health tools - disk erase and MBR erase seem to have done the trick though. They both now get 100% clean bill of health, though how long it will last, I don't know.

[MikeTimbers]

Did you get a clicking sound or a squeaking sound?

[Martyn]

Originally posted by MikeTimbers
Did you get a clicking sound or a squeaking sound?

Best I can describe it, was intermittent bursts of unusually loud scratching, on disk access, only lasted for a couple of seconds just prior to the lockup. I think the drive will go toes up eventually, but for now, everything seems OK.

On reflection, it seems it was a double whammy. I had to format the drive twice, after the first, I was still getting poorly drive messages. Then I erased the MBR and tried again - bingo! Seems the MBR was corrupt. Whether this tripped the bios bug, or the other way round, or complete coincidence, I don't know. Whatever, poor show from both abit and IBM. These products are mainstream. Low level formatting and bios flashing are not part of the reportoire of many users, so these problems would result in a trip back to the shop, and an argument with a pimply salesman. Whatever, I'm happy now, thanks to Will.

Will - I installed Win2K onto a FAT32 partition, cos I'm unsure about the OS as yet, is there any huge advantage to formatting it as NTFS? Just want to know before I start putting all my wares onto the box :)
ta.

[MikeTimbers]

NTFS is slightly slower but allows for bigger file sizes and security.

[wbierman]

Besides security there is compression (files, or folders, or partition/s), encryption, quotas, meta information, dynamic disks which replace "basic" disks. That allows you to use an unlimited # of partitions, volumes can be placed in folders, volumes can be joined or extended. Volumes can be extended via hot swap with no reboot. And a few others... You have more control of cluster size like 512 bytes to 64K. I believe FAT32 is stuck at 4K.

[Martyn]

Originally posted by wbierman
Besides security there is compression (files, or folders, or partition/s), encryption, quotas, meta information, dynamic disks which replace "basic" disks. That allows you to use an unlimited # of partitions, volumes can be placed in folders, volumes can be joined or extended. Volumes can be extended via hot swap with no reboot. And a few others... You have more control of cluster size like 512 bytes to 64K. I believe FAT32 is stuck at 4K.

OK, one question, can I revert to FAT32 at a later date should I want to?

[MikeTimbers]

Micro$oft say no but there are third party utilities that can do it such as Paragon's Partition Manager

[Martyn]

Thanks Mike, I was afraid of that. Given the trouble I've had with the drives, I think I'll leave em alone. RAID0 seems fine, although they are FAT32, I'm not sure I've got much need for the extra features of NTFS.

[wbierman]

Basically, everything is one way. FAT32 > NTFS. Basic Disk > Dynamic Disk. I would never trust any 3rd party formatting tool. Ever! If you try it and they say back up, you better damm well back up to save your ass. I've been in that boat before and got burned by Partition Magic.

Pick yourself up a copy of Executive Software's Diskeeper. Pretty much the only disk utility I use for Win2K.

[Martyn]

Yeah, I'm definitely gonna leave em FAT32! If ever I break the box down, I might want to use the disks on separate systems too, maybe a linux box (or maybe not), whatever! But if the move to NTFS is that complete, I'd be commiting both disks permanently to the box. FAT32 it is. Thanks guys - this stuff is a nightmare without help - preciate it :)

[wbierman]

Try this...

Right click on My Computer. Select Manage on the drop down list. That will open the MMC. In the MMC console go down the menu to Disk Defragmenter. Click on that and run Defragment. You will be amazed on how fragmented your new installation is. Then you might want to check in Storage for Disk Manager.