Multiple problems with Harddisks

Hello

I am currently suffering from multiple harddisk problems and I am
really at my wit's emd how to get my system working again. The
situation is rather complex, please do not hesiate to ask if some part
of my posting needs clarification.

My original setup consisted of 3 HDs, two 120 Gig Maxtors, connected
to Primary Master and Slave and another 250 Gigabyte Maxtor
connected to a Promise 133TX-Controller. The troubles began when the
second of the 120 Gig Maxtor Drives began to malfunction. Powermax
showed bad sectors, so there is probably nothing mysterious about
that. I removed the disc in question and then moved the 250 Gigabyte
Maxtor from the Promise-Controller to the now free position of Primary
Slave. The drive had two partitions, one FAT32, the other NTFS, both
using about 50 % of the available space. While booting for the first
time after that Win2k's chkdsk began to complain about error in the
seconds partition and started to "repair" them. The result was that
all files on the second partition were destroyed - the files could
still be seen in explorer, but none of them could be opened. I assumed
that this was some problem with NTFS - after all the FAT32-Partition
on that drive still worked - and so decided just to reformat the
corrupt partition with FAT32. Imagine my joy as I realized that after
formatting the second partition now even the first FAT32-Partition had
become corrupt.

I was given the information that the problems on the second drive
might be caused by the lack of support for 48bit-LBA in Win2k and was
told to set the registry value "EnableBigLba" which I did. I decided
that before I did anything more with Windows I probably should make a
backup. My normal procedure in this case is to restore a Ghost image
to Drive C, then make the necessary changed and then save the image
and use it as basis for the next restore process. So I copied the
image - the images on this PC were lost but I had copies on another PC
on the network - over to the second partition of first harddisk, which
at least had now made any problems so far, and went on to restore
Drive C with Ghost. After 3 seconds Ghost aborted with an Error 19225,
which is according to the Symantec Support a sign of the image being
corrupt. I always keep 4-5 older revisions of the image on hold, but I
always got the same error message. Strangely only Ghost complains,
md5check reports identical values for the images on the network and
the ones I copied to the local drive.

The only cause of all this malfunctions I can currently think of would
be a defect motherboard controller, but I do not have any idea how to
check this.

I am grateful for any input on this issue. As you can image my
patience is wearing thin and I don't have any idea how to get this
working again.

Thanks in advance
Stefan

On Tue, 22 Aug 2006 15:01:19 +0200, (Stefan
Malte Schumacher):

The only cause of all this malfunctions I can currently think of would
be a defect motherboard controller, but I do not have any idea how to
check this.

Seems awfully simple: put the 250-GB back to the Promise controller,
and see if it works better.
You might even want to put all the hard drives on the Promise, but
you'll have to check that the drivers are properly installed in
Windows so that it'll boot properly.

Previously Stefan Malte Schumacher wrote:
Hello

I am currently suffering from multiple harddisk problems and I am
really at my wit's emd how to get my system working again. The
situation is rather complex, please do not hesiate to ask if some part
of my posting needs clarification.

My original setup consisted of 3 HDs, two 120 Gig Maxtors, connected
to Primary Master and Slave and another 250 Gigabyte Maxtor
connected to a Promise 133TX-Controller. The troubles began when the
second of the 120 Gig Maxtor Drives began to malfunction. Powermax
showed bad sectors, so there is probably nothing mysterious about
that. I removed the disc in question and then moved the 250 Gigabyte
Maxtor from the Promise-Controller to the now free position of Primary
Slave. The drive had two partitions, one FAT32, the other NTFS, both
using about 50 % of the available space. While booting for the first
time after that Win2k's chkdsk began to complain about error in the
seconds partition and started to "repair" them. The result was that
all files on the second partition were destroyed - the files could
still be seen in explorer, but none of them could be opened. I assumed
that this was some problem with NTFS - after all the FAT32-Partition
on that drive still worked - and so decided just to reformat the
corrupt partition with FAT32. Imagine my joy as I realized that after
formatting the second partition now even the first FAT32-Partition had
become corrupt.

I was given the information that the problems on the second drive
might be caused by the lack of support for 48bit-LBA in Win2k and was

Actually that would be lack of LBA48 in you mainboard BIOS. The
promise card (if it is new enough) has the support in its
own BIOS on the card.

told to set the registry value "EnableBigLba" which I did. I decided
that before I did anything more with Windows I probably should make a
backup. My normal procedure in this case is to restore a Ghost image
to Drive C, then make the necessary changed and then save the image
and use it as basis for the next restore process. So I copied the
image - the images on this PC were lost but I had copies on another PC
on the network - over to the second partition of first harddisk, which
at least had now made any problems so far, and went on to restore
Drive C with Ghost. After 3 seconds Ghost aborted with an Error 19225,
which is according to the Symantec Support a sign of the image being
corrupt. I always keep 4-5 older revisions of the image on hold, but I
always got the same error message. Strangely only Ghost complains,
md5check reports identical values for the images on the network and
the ones I copied to the local drive.

The only cause of all this malfunctions I can currently think of would
be a defect motherboard controller, but I do not have any idea how to
check this.

I don't think so. Rather a problem with w2k not really being
able to do LBA48 with your mainboard.

I am grateful for any input on this issue. As you can image my
patience is wearing thin and I don't have any idea how to get this
working again.

Simple: Move the second disk back on the promise controller.
If you access both disks in paralell, this will be faster anyways.

Arno

"Arno Wagner" wrote in message
Previously Stefan Malte Schumacher wrote:
Hello

I am currently suffering from multiple harddisk problems and I am
really at my wit's emd how to get my system working again. The
situation is rather complex, please do not hesiate to ask if some part
of my posting needs clarification.

My original setup consisted of 3 HDs, two 120 Gig Maxtors, connected
to Primary Master and Slave and another 250 Gigabyte Maxtor
connected to a Promise 133TX-Controller. The troubles began when the
second of the 120 Gig Maxtor Drives began to malfunction. Powermax
showed bad sectors, so there is probably nothing mysterious about
that. I removed the disc in question and then moved the 250 Gigabyte
Maxtor from the Promise-Controller to the now free position of Primary
Slave. The drive had two partitions, one FAT32, the other NTFS, both
using about 50 % of the available space. While booting for the first
time after that Win2k's chkdsk began to complain about error in the
seconds partition and started to "repair" them. The result was that
all files on the second partition were destroyed - the files could
still be seen in explorer, but none of them could be opened. I assumed
that this was some problem with NTFS - after all the FAT32-Partition
on that drive still worked - and so decided just to reformat the
corrupt partition with FAT32. Imagine my joy as I realized that after
formatting the second partition now even the first FAT32-Partition had
become corrupt.

I was given the information that the problems on the second drive
might be caused by the lack of support for 48bit-LBA in Win2k and was

Actually that would be lack of LBA48 in you mainboard BIOS.

Actually you are clueless, as always.

The promise card (if it is new enough) has the support in its own BIOS
on the card.

It's not the bios stupid. It's Windows. A BIOS that doesn't
support 48-bit LBA will error out on 48-bit LBA addresses.
And Windows doesn't use the bios for file access anyway.


told to set the registry value "EnableBigLba" which I did.

You also need the correct System Patch.

I decided that before I did anything more with Windows I probably
should make a backup. My normal procedure in this case is to restore a
Ghost image to Drive C, then make the necessary changed and then save
the image and use it as basis for the next restore process. So I copied
the image - the images on this PC were lost but I had copies on another
PC on the network - over to the second partition of first harddisk, which
at least had now made any problems so far, and went on to restore Drive
C with Ghost. After 3 seconds Ghost aborted with an Error 19225,
which is according to the Symantec Support a sign of the image being
corrupt. I always keep 4-5 older revisions of the image on hold, but
I always got the same error message. Strangely only Ghost complains,
md5check reports identical values for the images on the network and
the ones I copied to the local drive.

The only cause of all this malfunctions I can currently think of would
be a defect motherboard controller, but I do not have any idea how to
check this.

I don't think so. Rather a problem with w2k not really being
able to do LBA48 with your mainboard.

I am grateful for any input on this issue. As you can image my
patience is wearing thin and I don't have any idea how to get this
working again.

Simple: Move the second disk back on the promise controller.
If you access both disks in paralell, this will be faster anyways.

Arno

told to set the registry value "EnableBigLba" which I did.

You also need the correct System Patch.

Which patch would that be ? I still have some other questions. Am I
correct in assuming that HDs connected to the Promise-Controller are
independent of atapi.sys and any EnableBigLba entries which are
necessary for it ?

As I have written before I still boot into DOS to make Backups of the
partition Win2k is installed in, which I would like to store on the
big HD connected to the Promise. I guess in DOS everything is done via
the BIOS of the Controller, so that I don't have to worry about any
48Bit-LBA issues - assuming the controller supports it, right ?

Bye
Stefan

Previously Stefan Malte Schumacher wrote:
told to set the registry value "EnableBigLba" which I did.

You also need the correct System Patch.

Which patch would that be ? I still have some other questions. Am I
correct in assuming that HDs connected to the Promise-Controller are
independent of atapi.sys and any EnableBigLba entries which are
necessary for it ?

The difference is that HDDs on the promise controlelr are controlled
by the controllers BIOS, while HDDs on the mainboard are controlled
by the mainboard. The controller has LBA48 support in the BIOS.

I have no idea what the effect on the Windows drivers is though,
just that it may be different for the cobroller and for the mainboard.

As I have written before I still boot into DOS to make Backups of the
partition Win2k is installed in, which I would like to store on the
big HD connected to the Promise. I guess in DOS everything is done via
the BIOS of the Controller,

Exactlly.

so that I don't have to worry about any
48Bit-LBA issues - assuming the controller supports it, right ?

Assuming also your DOS supports the LBA48 interface the BIOS offers.

Arno

"Stefan Malte Schumacher" wrote in message
told to set the registry value "EnableBigLba" which I did.

You also need the correct System Patch.

Which patch would that be ?

The one that made the EnableBigLba setting actually work.
http://support.microsoft.com/default...;en-us;q305098

I still have some other questions. Am I correct in assuming that HDs
connected to the Promise-Controller are independent of atapi.sys and
any EnableBigLba entries which are necessary for it ?

Either that or the Promise installation process takes care automatically
of all the EnableBigLba intricacies.


As I have written before I still boot into DOS to make Backups of the
partition Win2k is installed in, which I would like to store on the
big HD connected to the Promise.

I guess in DOS everything is done via the BIOS of the
Controller, so that I don't have to worry about any 48-Bit
LBA issues - assuming the controller supports it, right ?

That is *if* the backup/restore software is using BIOS and
doesn't install it's own (DOS) drivers.


Bye
Stefan