Hope you can help guys

system:
amd athlon 2000 cpu, 256mb corsair xms ddr memory, 128mb radeon 9500 pro graphics, creative SB live value soundcard, maxtor 120 gig harddrive + 80gig harddrive which isnt working!

problems:

my 80gig maxtor harddrive has died on me! The system has been into the local computer shop for repair, and they managed to get it back for a while, but it's gone again. Fortunatly, I dont have any critical stuff on there, so may just buy another, any suggestions on how to get it back otherwise though?

2. The memory is not really enough for this system, so I have ordered another 256mb, so hopefully that will help out.

3. I use pinnacle studio 8 for my video editing. Until it died, I was using the 80gig to store the video on, and had no problems transferring the footage from camera to harddrive.

Now thats broke though, I've had to use the 120gig drive, but pinnacle says the drive isn't fast enough!

When I test the data rate, it comes up way short. The 120 is divided into an 80 and 40 gig partition, with windows being on the 80gig. Any suggestions why the data rate is too slow?

Thanks for your help in advance,

chris.

 

goto www.maxtor.com and download their hdd utility powermax. the utility will check if your hdd is fubar for good. i think you can check for warranty also.

as for the speed, are you using 80 PIN ide cable? check in device manager, your hdd controller is using DMA and not PIO.

 

thanks suba, will give it a go tomorrow. just off to work in a while, on nights
will let you know how I get on,
chris.

 

***UPDATE***
I've had to buy a new harddrive My 40 gig was fubar, and my 120 gig in on the way out
So, I know have a brand spanking new 160 gig maxtor hd as a slave at the mo', and the still working 120 gig as the primary.
Here is my setup so far: 120 gig is split in 2, 80 and 40, with c/ being the 80, and h/ being the 40.
The 160 is f/ with my 2 disc drives as d/ and e/.
I have installed win2000 on the new 160 and can now boot to either of the os's on boot up. I have configured the 160 for the internet and got the latest win2000 patches.
Now, before I go any further, if I install all my programs from c/ to f/, will I then be able to unplug c/ from the primary, and plug in f/ as the primary?
Will the os recognize f/ and rename it c/ ?
Not easy is it????
Or, would it be better to swap c/ and f/ around now, boot to f/ (the new drive remember ) and install from there?
HELP!
chris.

 

lol all these maxtors failing on you and you buy more??

 

yeah, I know, brand loyalty and all that
LOL.
chris.

 

are the hdd under warranty? did the hdd utility managed to repair the hdd?

 

suba, the 120 may be under warrenty, I'll have to double check, but the utility couldn't repair it.
just need to know now how to best transfer all my stuff from the 120 to the 160
chris.

 

Ghost/Drivecopy to clone everything off of old HD onto new if you've no need to reinstall operating system. Keeps everything intact,

 

fig, how do I go about ghost/drivecopying?
cheers,
chris.

 

Cloning drives is relatively easy, some good free utils on www.majorgeeks.com, but for me I would install the new RAM youve bought and then reinstall a fresh copy of windows onto the new hard disk (obviously backing up everything first).

Maxtors tend to be very good drives, so you shouldnt have any more probs..

Chris

 

cheers christ! already installed the ram, and reinstalled win2000 on the new drive. I'll have a look tonight when I get back from work.
chris.

 

Reinstalling is always the best option, but is hassle cos you also have to reinstall all programs again (including all fixes/patches/upgrades etc) Personally wouldn't reinstall unless I had a good reason (e.g. frequent crashes/BSODs etc) I swapped from a 40gig to 120gig drive last week and used DriveCopy 4. Entire process from taking the cover off to having it all up and running took less than an hour.

If you want to continue dual-booting you'll need to reinstall everything as the boot information is stored on the original primary drive.

 

fig, had a good read on the net about DriveCopy 4, and it sounds like just what I need. Trouble is the only place I can get it is amazon, and delivery is 1 to 2 weeks
any chance of borrowing your copy?
chris (being very cheeky )

 

Please God tell me you aren't using either an ECS motherboard and/or a 300W power supply? If either is true it is possible that there is nothing wrong with the drives.


M

 

I've got an ABIT KD7 mb, and not sure about the power, why do you say that?
chris.

 

It depends on what the symptoms of the "hard drive failure" actually are. Does Windows simply keep losing them (they stop showing up on Windows Exploder) or has an external diagnostics prog found errors on them? Is SMART enabled on the drives?

I'm just suspicious you could lose two drives in such quick succession without either of them being IBM - makes me think the problem is elsewhere.


M

 

windows explorer kept losing my 40gig first of all, so ran maxtors own hd diagnostic, and both the 40 and 120 came up with problems.
Not sure what you mean by SMART being enabled?
chris.

 

SMART is diagnostic firmware built into the drives that can be read by the BIOS. It needs to be enabled in BIOS first.


If the Maxtor software says the drive is duff then it is, but you do seem extrardinarily unlucky: I have about five Maxtor drives running here and none have ever failed.


Well, that probably did it....


M

 

M, watch em tumble m8
thanks for that, I'll check my bios settings, see if thats enabled (thats if I can find it!)
all is still running hunkey dorey at the mo', just need some software like Drivecopy
chris.

 

Chris, you have PM

 

Hang on...were both your duff drives running off the same interface?

I did once have avery bizzare intermittant problem which seemed to be a dying hard drive. I tried the drive in another system and re-ran the tests to confirm, and it was OK!

Turns out the interface cable was knackered.

I find it hard to believe two maxtors on the same system can fail - you must be very unlucky!!

 

ok, story so far: left the pc alone today running drive copy 4
came home, followed the last of the on screen instructions and now have 2 identical operating systems on 2 seperate hd's
only trouble is I cant get the 160gig to be my active drive
and to cap it all, I had a play in the bios when it had finished, and enabled ultra dma support for both drives, now, pinnacle dv software will transfer to the original 120 gig no problem
It looks like for some reason, dma was not working, and the drive was very slow. I presumed the drive was going down, so bought another one
still, I have now got a brand new 160gig hd and can still use my original 120 gig
I will run the maxtor utility again on the 120 to see if it is still coming up as failing, if not, the problem was maybe the bios settings after all
time for bed though now I think
chris.

 

Chris,

Reason for that is DriveCopy hides the new drives boot info (i.e. makes it inactive) to prevent conflicts where both drives attempt to boot together.

Look on the tools menu, there is an option to select the active partition. This should be the drive that is the Master on IDE0 (or IDE1 if yours are marked 1 and 2)