HonestJhon

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Apr 29, 2001
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alright, i am having a problem with my little sister's system...
this is a really dumb situation...
i have tried 3 different hard drives on two different motherboards....and two different cpu's, and two different video cards, two different psu's, two different mice, two different monitors, two different sticks of ram (one brand new!), and two different brands of hard drive...
i am at a total loss...
what happens is that when i try to format any hard drive, i get an error...
the error reads as follows:

"the setup of drive 1 failed
because creation of the boot track failed
because there was a device error zeroing drive 1
absolute sector 1 count 16
because there was a device error reading drive 1
absolute sector 0 count 1
because there was a device error reading drive 1
absolute sector 5263360 count 1
because there was a device error reading drive 1
absolute sector 14737496 count 1 "

i dont know what the hell this means, but i think that it is something common, but the only thing that has stayed the same is the keyboard....could this be the keyboard messing with the io of the motherboard???????
i am going insane here...because i thought that it was the old hard drive going bad, and i put in my old 10 gig, which i was using in my system TODAY, and is working still, because i put it in my system again, just to make sure..
the only thing i can think of is the keyboard...if anyone can confirm this, then let me know, because i would like to solve this TONIGHT, as i would like to stop fiddling with this system, and give it to my sister tomorrow, in full working order...
i took out all the cards, and left only the video card, and still got the error....
i am going to go downstairs, and get a different keyboard, and see if that is the problem, i will post back with the results..
i hope that someone has any ideas!!!!!

-DAvid

-Live, Learn, then build your own computer!-
 

Lars_Coleman

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I bet you are using the Maxblast software!?! Did this drive come with a CD? They started shipping Maxblast Plus 2 which comes with a CD and a floppy.

Check your BIOS settings. I would set it to Auto detect and set LBA enabled. As long as those are correct and your still getting the error, run the PowerMax diagnostics and do a LLF under the test "Write Disk Pack (Low Level Format)". Once that goes through see if you can partition and format the drive with that software again. Also if the system supports the entire size of the drive try just using fdisk and format from a startup disk ...

<font color=red>BIOS updates do wonders ....</font color=red>
 

HonestJhon

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Apr 29, 2001
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well, i bought my new drive OEM, and it was just the drive, so i downloaded the latest maxblast from maxtor's site...
and it worked fine on my new drive..
and my old 10 gig, that i am putting in my little sister's system, has been in there before, and did work in this computer i am using now...
and two different computers did the same thing with three different hard drives!!!!!!!!!
i am completely stumped, but i will do what you suggested, because the keyboard was not the problem..
and i also figured that the floppy drive might be the problem...so i disconnected that, and nothing..
the only thing connected other than the hard drive was the mouse ps2 port, and the video card....this is nutz
i am off to try that llf....
but the odd thing is, when there was a WD in this thing, i tried to do a llf with the wd software, and it finished, and reported the drive as having no errors, even when i did the extended test...
but then when i would try to partition and format, it would give me an error...
ugh...

-DAvid

-Live, Learn, then build your own computer!-
 

HonestJhon

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ok, well, i tried it in my friends old k6-2 500, and it was giving me the same problem...i tried everything....and then it started to give me beeps.....
one long one followed by three short.....
pretty sure that that means video card error...
so i tried reseating the video card...and BAM...it works!!
and i even got it up and running...
i still have to figure out what the hell was going on with the other motehrboards...
i will keep you all updated on that...
oh yeah, i tried to do a llf on the 10 gig, and it froze when it started doing it..so i did it on my system....
and it worked...went pretty quick too...
and now my little sister has a k6-2 450 system with 256 megs of pc-100, and a 10 gig hard drive...much better than the pentium1 200 that she was running on...with 64 megs of ram, and 5 gigs of hard drive space...
now all i have to do is finish updating all the drivers and stuff, and then put it in her room....boy, she'll be surprised when she wakes up tomorrow and there is a totally different computer sitting there...hehe

-DAvid

-Live, Learn, then build your own computer!-
 

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