HDD Problems

I have an old PC laying around that I use for a media server, it has 2 HDDs
One 80GB Western Digital, and One 30GB Maxtor (for music). They are both connected using IDE. The Maxtor drive, its like, every time I access the 80GB, the 30GB "resets" its self. It has never done this before, so I checked the disk using a linux disk, It listed both of the HDDs to be Healthy. So I tried using a different PSU, same thing.
I tried using different IDE Cables, same thing.
I triple checked the jumper setting, 80GB is Master, and 30GB is Slave.
Then, out of desperation, I tried using a different HDD
An 8GB HDD I pulled out of my xbox, (yes, it's unlocked, and security is disabled.)
I put the 8GB on slave, and 80GB in master. IT STILL RESETS THE SLAVE DRIVE!
So I took BOTH HDDs out, and put them in my newer comp, no resets, or hassles, both the 8GB and 30GB work fine with the 80GB.
I haven't fiddled with the BIOS for months, and it only started doing this a few days ago. Please tell me it isn't the motherboard.

What do you mean by reset? What is actually happening there? Does the drive get inaccessable all
of a sudden, or what?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by N.Saibot

What do you mean by reset? What is actually happening there? Does the drive get inaccessable all
of a sudden, or what?

---

Well, whenever I try to access the 80GB HDD, the 30GB HDD "resets".
And What I mean by that is, when you turn the PC on, you can hear it turn on, and sweep its actuator across the disk.
It makes this noise every time I try to access the 80GB.
And yes, it becomes completely inaccessible, and the comp just freezes, not even the mouse cursor will move. I took out the 80GB and set the 30GB to master, and ran a full disk check, no problems at all. I even tried it with the 80GB, no problems.
It only does it when those 2 particular HDD are used at the same time, on that particular motherboard. I've tried everything I could think of, I even dug up the manual to that motherboard, and checked to see If I had accidentally set one of the jumpers (on the mobo, not the HDD) to the wrong setting. Which, as I figured, didn't seem to be the problem. I don't know what could be the problem. Could one of the chips be "partially" fried? Or static electricity have it's way with one of the Chips on the motherboard? At this point, I'm lost.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by funkymunky65

Well, whenever I try to access the 80GB HDD, the 30GB HDD "resets".
And What I mean by that is, when you turn the PC on, you can hear it turn on, and sweep its actuator across the disk.
It makes this noise every time I try to access the 80GB.
And yes, it becomes completely inaccessible, and the comp just freezes, not even the mouse cursor will move. I took out the 80GB and set the 30GB to master, and ran a full disk check, no problems at all. I even tried it with the 80GB, no problems.
It only does it when those 2 particular HDD are used at the same time, on that particular motherboard. I've tried everything I could think of, I even dug up the manual to that motherboard, and checked to see If I had accidentally set one of the jumpers (on the mobo, not the HDD) to the wrong setting. Which, as I figured, didn't seem to be the problem. I don't know what could be the problem. Could one of the chips be "partially" fried? Or static electricity have it's way with one of the Chips on the motherboard? At this point, I'm lost.

---

That's pretty strange, did you try connecting the two HDDs to different IDE ports on the board?
You said before, that you set one as master the other one as slave, but if you have 2 IDE ports on
the motherboard you should configure both as master and connect them to different ports.

It's the best setting anyway, as the HDDs don't have to share same bandwidth. Might also help
you resolve the "reseting" problem.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by N.Saibot

That's pretty strange, did you try connecting the two HDDs to different IDE ports on the board?
You said before, that you set one as master the other one as slave, but if you have 2 IDE ports on
the motherboard you should configure both as master and connect them to different ports.

It's the best setting anyway, as the HDDs don't have to share same bandwidth. Might also help
you resolve the "reseting" problem.

---

Hmm, I'll give it a try. I post here if it works, or not.

Well, that sucks, putting both drives on their own channel didn't work. It still resets the 30GB. It's like the 30GB loses power for a spit second, then turns back on. I even tried using a different PSU, no go.

At this point I am lost, and frustrated.

*repeatedly smashes head into keyboard*

Your HDD might have a short circuit. Check the power lines

Quote:

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Originally Posted by funkymunky65

Well, that sucks, putting both drives on their own channel didn't work. It still resets the 30GB. It's like the 30GB loses power for a spit second, then turns back on. I even tried using a different PSU, no go.

At this point I am lost, and frustrated.

*repeatedly smashes head into keyboard*

---

If the same kind of problem doesn't occur with different motherboards I'll say it is your motherboards
fault. I'm afraid you have to either buy one big HDD to bypass that issue, or get a new motherboard.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by N.Saibot

If the same kind of problem doesn't occur with different motherboards I'll say it is your motherboards
fault. I'm afraid you have to either buy one big HDD to bypass that issue, or get a new motherboard.

---

TO EBAY! *flies away*
*whoosh*

Quote:

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Originally Posted by villahed94

Your HDD might have a short circuit. Check the power lines

---

I doubt it's a short circuit, I checked the board, and I didn't see any thing wrong.
I also used a different Power Supply, so that eliminates the chance of it being short circuited. It only does it with that specific mother board. I think it's just time I buy a "new" mobo. Probably off eBay for cheap, doesn't have to be anything powerful, it's just a media server. Maybe some new HDDs While I'm at it.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by N.Saibot

If the same kind of problem doesn't occur with different motherboards I'll say it is your motherboards
fault. I'm afraid you have to either buy one big HDD to bypass that issue, or get a new motherboard.

---

Agreed, process of elimination wins. It sounds like the IDE controller on the board has gone flaky. Hey, it's time to upgrade anyway, right? Mainboards are almost dirt cheap these days.

What are your current specs, make/model of the mainboard in questions??

Quote:

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Originally Posted by funkymunky65

TO EBAY! *flies away*
*whoosh*

---

Huh, you didn't sound that upset after all. I guess you really wanted an upgrade already : D

Quote:

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Originally Posted by nathanallan

Agreed, process of elimination wins. It sounds like the IDE controller on the board has gone flaky. Hey, it's time to upgrade anyway, right? Mainboards are almost dirt cheap these days.

What are your current specs, make/model of the mainboard in questions??

---

Its a PC Tech M811 With 2 DDR RAM Slots (768MB (1 x 512MB + 1 x 256MB) @ 266MHz installed), 1 x Floppy Connecter, 2 x IDE Connecters, 1 AMD Duron 1800MHz (Single Core), VIA onboard Sound, One x 4x AGP Slot (no built in video) with an nVidia FX 5200 128MB.
Year of Manufacturing: 2003

Ya, its pretty old, I'm trying to find a cheap board.


I remember I upgraded my step dads Computer with a $200 and can play most games on medium (MW2, Fear 2, etc.) It has an nVidia 6800SX 256MB, 1GB RAM, 2.5GHz Dual Core Intel Celeron (Celeron? Can't remember), 250GB SATA2 HDD, Windows 7. Runs most games on medium @ about 25-30FPS, not bad.

I have been trying to convince him to upgrade to at least a 512MB Video card, and 2GB RAM.

Most people will buy 4GB RAM, but most games only use about 512MB to 768MB RAM.
So I don't know why people buy massive amounts of ram, when the game only uses a small portion of it. -_-

The processor, yes I can understand, my PC used to have a 3.0GHz Pentium 4 w/ HT.
Now it has a 3.2GHz Intel Pentium 4 Dual Core.

And I noticed a MAJOR speed up in Assassins Creed 2.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by funkymunky65

Its a PC Tech M811 With 2 DDR RAM Slots (768MB (1 x 512MB + 1 x 256MB) @ 266MHz installed), 1 x Floppy Connecter, 2 x IDE Connecters, 1 AMD Duron 1800MHz (Single Core), VIA onboard Sound, One x 4x AGP Slot (no built in video) with an nVidia FX 5200 128MB.
Year of Manufacturing: 2003

Ya, its pretty old, I'm trying to find a cheap board.


I remember I upgraded my step dads Computer with a $200 and can play most games on medium (MW2, Fear 2, etc.) It has an nVidia 6800SX 256MB, 1GB RAM, 2.5GHz Dual Core Intel Celeron (Celeron? Can't remember), 250GB SATA2 HDD, Windows 7. Runs most games on medium @ about 25-30FPS, not bad.

I have been trying to convince him to upgrade to at least a 512MB Video card, and 2GB RAM.

Most people will buy 4GB RAM, but most games only use about 512MB to 768MB RAM.
So I don't know why people buy massive amounts of ram, when the game only uses a small portion of it. -_-

The processor, yes I can understand, my PC used to have a 3.0GHz Pentium 4 w/ HT.
Now it has a 3.2GHz Intel Pentium 4 Dual Core.

And I noticed a MAJOR speed up in Assassins Creed 2.

---

People buy 4 GB of RAM because of two reasons probably:

1. 64-bit systems can allow for more RAM than 3 GB. It is kind of pointless to have a 64-bit system
and still use under 3 GB.
2. Those people use some RAM intensive applications, like rendering 3D models in very high
quality (can't have enough RAM for that kind of thing, 16 GB is a good amount for such tasks, but
the more the better).

Quote:

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Originally Posted by N.Saibot

People buy 4 GB of RAM because of two reasons probably:

1. 64-bit systems can allow for more RAM than 3 GB. It is kind of pointless to have a 64-bit system
and still use under 3 GB.
2. Those people use some RAM intensive applications, like rendering 3D models in very high
quality (can't have enough RAM for that kind of thing, 16 GB is a good amount for such tasks, but
the more the better).

---

True, but most people buy that amount of RAM for games in the first place, ya know, when they build gaming computers. Most people have no idea how to operate rendering applications, or high-end video editing software. I once did a comparison of my PC VS. my friends PC with 8GB RAM. Both of our computers have the same CPU, and speed of RAM, and type of RAM. We both Ran MW2 on High Settings, his ran about 1 FPS faster than mine -_- Wow, 1 extra FPS, that isn't even noticeable.

However, I can under stand people wanting a SSD. They offer WAY faster speeds than HDDs. I am personally saving up for a 256GB Model. So I can run my most played games with little or no loading times.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by funkymunky65

True, but most people buy that amount of RAM for games in the first place, ya know, when they build gaming computers. Most people have no idea how to operate rendering applications, or high-end video editing software. I once did a comparison of my PC VS. my friends PC with 8GB RAM. Both of our computers have the same CPU, and speed of RAM, and type of RAM. We both Ran MW2 on High Settings, his ran about 1 FPS faster than mine -_- Wow, 1 extra FPS, that isn't even noticeable.

However, I can under stand people wanting a SSD. They offer WAY faster speeds than HDDs. I am personally saving up for a 256GB Model. So I can run my most played games with little or no loading times.

---

Yup, that's true. I'm going another route: I'm playing more old games and this way it doesn't
matter what hardware specs I have. New games don't run on my machine anyway, it has an Intel
X4500 card : D If you look it up you'll see how good it runs current games - not at all. It is officially
Direct X 10 compatible though, what a joke.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by N.Saibot

Yup, that's true. I'm going another route: I'm playing more old games and this way it doesn't
matter what hardware specs I have. New games don't run on my machine anyway, it has an Intel
X4500 card : D If you look it up you'll see how good it runs current games - not at all. It is officially
Direct X 10 compatible though, what a joke.

---

http://www.newegg.com/

Look for a new GFX card there, they are really cheap.

I buy all my computer parts from newegg, very high quality, and a cheap price.

I have bought things off of there that people say will break in a month, that has been working for 2 years :D

(Probably because they don't know how to handle or install it correctly.)

I have NEVER received a dud part from newegg.

Newegg >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> TigerDirect

Newegg FTW!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by funkymunky65

http://www.newegg.com/

Look for a new GFX card there, they are really cheap.

I buy all my computer parts from newegg, very high quality, and a cheap price.

I have bought things off of there that people say will break in a month, that has been working for 2 years :D

(Probably because they don't know how to handle or install it correctly.)

I have NEVER received a dud part from newegg.

Newegg >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> TigerDirect

Newegg FTW!

---

You're aware that I live in Germany, right? ; )

I'll probably pass on buying a new card at the moment. Intel integrated cards are the only ones
that have fully free drivers available, so in a sense they are the perfect solution. There are some
good videocards available with reverse engineered free drivers, but I'm not sure how well those will
work for gaming, usually it's a mess. Hell, even the X4500 isn't as good as in Windows
sometimes.

You may call me paranoid, but software freedom is very important to me. Free software doesn't
win the fight by just being there, it has to be preferred over all the proprietary crap and people
have to, you know, "vote with their money", aka don't buy hardware that doesn't work with free
drivers.

It is almost possible to live by that rule at the moment, you just have to basically decide what is
more important to you, a free BIOS or working 3D acceleration. I went with 3D, so that the CPU
doesn't have to render all the windows and visual effects on the desktop.

If I would have bought a motherboard that is supported by coreboot (the free BIOS project), it
wouldn't be an Intel one, thus forcing me to use some Nvidia or AMD videocard - and those have
usually unstable support for 3D. Using one of those cards means either using the vesa driver
(higher CPU load, no 3D, low performance even at the desktop) or going with the non-free driver.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by N.Saibot

You're aware that I live in Germany, right? ; )

I'll probably pass on buying a new card at the moment. Intel integrated cards are the only ones
that have fully free drivers available, so in a sense they are the perfect solution. There are some
good videocards available with reverse engineered free drivers, but I'm not sure how well those will
work for gaming, usually it's a mess. Hell, even the X4500 isn't as good as in Windows
sometimes.

You may call me paranoid, but software freedom is very important to me. Free software doesn't
win the fight by just being there, it has to be preferred over all the proprietary crap and people
have to, you know, "vote with their money", aka don't buy hardware that doesn't work with free
drivers.

It is almost possible to live by that rule at the moment, you just have to basically decide what is
more important to you, a free BIOS or working 3D acceleration. I went with 3D, so that the CPU
doesn't have to render all the windows and visual effects on the desktop.

If I would have bought a motherboard that is supported by coreboot (the free BIOS project), it
wouldn't be an Intel one, thus forcing me to use some Nvidia or AMD videocard - and those have
usually unstable support for 3D. Using one of those cards means either using the vesa driver
(higher CPU load, no 3D, low performance even at the desktop) or going with the non-free driver.

---

huh? I thought newegg shipped to germany too?

So your saying you prefer the integrated graphics (with free, reversed engineered drivers.), over the higher end ATI or Nvidia Cards (With company made drivers.)?
I don't get it. I like free software too, I also support the community that develops it.
But, reversed engineered ATI or Nvidia Drivers are scarce, and when they are found, they barely work and usually offer less features than the company-made drivers.

My computer is loaded with free software.
Example: Ubuntu 10.04 As a second OS

I only use windows when I want to play a game, or use an application I can't find for ubuntu. That, and I'm still learning how to use ubuntu. I am typing this from Ubuntu.
:D

But, what do you mean non-stable 3D support? My computer has never crashed while using the company-made drivers. I tried using reversed engineered drivers on an older card of mine, it had far less stability and features, than the company-made drivers.

But, wouldn't the company-made drivers also be considered free? I download them every time a new version comes out, and it doesn't cost a penny. It just checks your PC before installing to make sure you have the right card installed, so n00bs won't kill windows.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by funkymunky65

huh? I thought newegg shipped to germany too?

So your saying you prefer the integrated graphics (with free, reversed engineered drivers.), over the higher end ATI or Nvidia Cards (With company made drivers.)?
I don't get it. I like free software too, I also support the community that develops it.
But, reversed engineered ATI or Nvidia Drivers are scarce, and when they are found, they barely work and usually offer less features than the company-made drivers.

My computer is loaded with free software.
Example: Ubuntu 10.04 As a second OS

I only use windows when I want to play a game, or use an application I can't find for ubuntu. That, and I'm still learning how to use ubuntu. I am typing this from Ubuntu.
:D

But, what do you mean non-stable 3D support? My computer has never crashed while using the company-made drivers. I tried using reversed engineered drivers on an older card of mine, it had far less stability and features, than the company-made drivers.

But, wouldn't the company-made drivers also be considered free? I download them every time a new version comes out, and it doesn't cost a penny. It just checks your PC before installing to make sure you have the right card installed, so n00bs won't kill windows.

---

Look, you are mixing things up here. The company-made drivers are not at all free. Freedom of
software only refers to the license, under which the software is distributed. That's why we have the
term freeware, it means free of charge, not free of restrictions. To better understand what free
software means, you can watch some speeches of Richard Stallman on youtube, or just go here.

The problem nowadays is, that Linux, the kernel of GNU/Linux, is not completely free software.
Some parts of it are distributed under the GPL, but others are distributed as a binary, without the
source code available, so they actually violate the GNU GPL in most all places. The effect for the
user is, that some companies still maintain control over the behaivour of the hardware.

If you use a Radeon card with the official AMD drivers AMD controls what your card does and what
not. As was stated by AMD representatives, they are not going to make free open source drivers
possible, because that last bit of information, the firmware, contains their DRM. Radeons have
been noticed to not allow you to record some TV-shows because of the DRM, so all matches up.

Doing the right thing is less important to them, than preventing people from fully utilizing their own
piece of hardware. DRM is very important to them, so I'm not buying their shit anymore.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by N.Saibot

Look, you are mixing things up here. The company-made drivers are not at all free. Freedom of
software only refers to the license, under which the software is distributed. That's why we have the
term freeware, it means free of charge, not free of restrictions. To better understand what free
software means, you can watch some speeches of Richard Stallman on youtube, or just go here.

The problem nowadays is, that Linux, the kernel of GNU/Linux, is not completely free software.
Some parts of it are distributed under the GPL, but others are distributed as a binary, without the
source code available, so they actually violate the GNU GPL in most all places. The effect for the
user is, that some companies still maintain control over the behaivour of the hardware.

If you use a Radeon card with the official AMD drivers AMD controls what your card does and what
not. As was stated by AMD representatives, they are not going to make free open source drivers
possible, because that last bit of information, the firmware, contains their DRM. Radeons have
been noticed to not allow you to record some TV-shows because of the DRM, so all matches up.

Doing the right thing is less important to them, than preventing people from fully utilizing their own
piece of hardware. DRM is very important to them, so I'm not buying their shit anymore.

---

True, but, where else do you get high-end graphics cards for gaming? the alternative would be to buy a Game console, but, the same still applies. I do agree with you, people should be allowed to do what they want with their hardware without the company breathing down their neck. Remember when GeoHot (GeoHotz?) cracked sony's ps3 and PSP encryption system, which you can use to encrypt your homebrew, and run it on retail firmware? Sony tried to sue him (How can you sue someone if you don't know where they live or who they are?). I fully supported him. I believe when people buy something, they have all the right in the world to do what they want with it, whether its just play games on it, or hack it to play homebrew. Ironically, I own a PSP, so I essentially gave $200 to sony, but, sony lost more in the end, I have DLed un-told sums of games :D I only updated my PSP to 6.39 for one reason, 6.39 PRO-B6, so I, and the many thousands of users that also use it, can continue to give sony a nice spanking. I didn't even buy a sony-brand memstick, I bought a SanDISK. It seems that, in every new generation, games go up $10 in price. The sad thing is, it's almost impossible to find a good graphics card, (or any other product for that matter) that doesn't come with all kinds of company-imposed restrictions.

So your only hope is that someone codes a driver, that removes those "locks", sadly, most of the time, they never get past the beta. Trust me, If I can find a nice, non-company made driver, that is stable, for my graphics card, I will DL it.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by funkymunky65

True, but, where else do you get high-end graphics cards for gaming? the alternative would be to buy a Game console, but, the same still applies. I do agree with you, people should be allowed to do what they want with their hardware without the company breathing down their neck. Remember when GeoHot (GeoHotz?) cracked sony's ps3 and PSP encryption system, which you can use to encrypt your homebrew, and run it on retail firmware? Sony tried to sue him (How can you sue someone if you don't know where they live or who they are?). I fully supported him. I believe when people buy something, they have all the right in the world to do what they want with it, whether its just play games on it, or hack it to play homebrew. Ironically, I own a PSP, so I essentially gave $200 to sony, but, sony lost more in the end, I have DLed un-told sums of games :D I only updated my PSP to 6.39 for one reason, 6.39 PRO-B6, so I, and the many thousands of users that also use it, can continue to give sony a nice spanking. I didn't even buy a sony-brand memstick, I bought a SanDISK. It seems that, in every new generation, games go up $10 in price. The sad thing is, it's almost impossible to find a good graphics card, (or any other product for that matter) that doesn't come with all kinds of company-imposed restrictions.

So your only hope is that someone codes a driver, that removes those "locks", sadly, most of the time, they never get past the beta. Trust me, If I can find a nice, non-company made driver, that is stable, for my graphics card, I will DL it.

---

My main hope is that at some point free licensing will become a law and software companies will be
legally obligated to use the GNU GPL or some other free license. Regarding the videocard issue,
I'm hoping for some company making their firmware free or some company releasing a new
videocard, capable for gaming and with entirely free drivers.

I can do without modern PC games at the moment. At some point it will be nice to get a current
console I guess, but I'll buy it used and avoid driving the sales of some company I dislike ; )

Besides that I have my Mega Drive and a number of older games that run even on my configuration.


You know, there is a very interesting position on gaming in general. Now we all agree that software
should be free, right. What about games? If the video game is to be licensed freely, it would
basically mean, that anyone can make copies of his copy and sell them! This can't be right, since it
will kill off the industry and only allow for homebrews that are driven by passion and enthusiasm of a
group of dedicated people. Not that homebrews are bad, but killing off the industry is. So should the
games be an exception, or should we demand for the gaming industry to be shut down in order to
maintain a free cooperative society? It turns out, there is an actual rational solution to this and not
the two former options. It is simple. The game engine, since it is software, should be freed. The
data, like the 3D models, the script, the audio, the maps, etc. are not software, even though they
are stored on the same disc in the same way. Those should be not licensed in the same way and
their usage is not to be permitted freely. This way you will be able to legally get the tools the
programmers were working with, their game engine etc. and improve on that for a new game,
making for faster progress in video game technology and effectively making the development times
shorter!

Imagine this: a company starts a new project. It is to become a completely revolutionary game.
They need a new engine, so they start making it first. But they have only like 10 programmers
capable of creating the engine. Why not do it the FLOSS way and develop engines together with
the whole freaking world? This won't spoil anything to anyone. You can still have a secret "hideout"
where you create all the data, all the story. This will work much better than what we have now. This
shows how the FLOSS development model works much better than anything else, just free the
software and everything gets better : P