2nd Hard Drive Problem

**SMEGHEAD** · 16th February 2005

Recently added a second hard drive to my pc, mainly due to the amount of downloading I do as my original drive was rapidly running out of room.Install all went fine however whenever I download files to this drive or transfer from my existing drive the files are almost always corrupted.Likewise software installations seem a bit hit and miss.Some are fine others appear to install ok but crash, yet are fine if installed on the original drive.
Any advice much appreciated...

**tombott** · 16th February 2005

Whats OS you using SMEGHEAD ?
Was the drive you put it in new ?
Maybe worth removing partition on disk, then creariing a new one.
How did you format the disk ?

**SMEGHEAD** · 16th February 2005

Originally Posted by tombott

Whats OS you using SMEGHEAD ?
Was the drive you put it in new ?
Maybe worth removing partition on disk, then creariing a new one.
How did you format the disk ?

thanks for the reply,using xp home,yes it was a new drive .Formatted the disk using xp built in drive management tools.Originally just had one partition but after noticing issues reformatted and created 4 separate partitions but problems still remain...

**BertRoot** · 16th February 2005

You using a new drive cable? What else is on the cable?

**tombott** · 16th February 2005

Try a diffferent cable, if problem still persists I would get the drive swapped mate.

**SMEGHEAD** · 16th February 2005

thanks for the replies,using existing drive cable that also has dvd-rw connected.Will deffo pop out tomorrow and get a new cable,must admit the old one was a tight fit think I'll treat my pc to one of the newer round cables seem a lot more flexible

**mark1984** · 16th February 2005

I think thats your problem, you not suppose to connect hard drives with the cd/dvd drives.

Have you only got 2 hard drives, if so, put the new one on the same ide channel as the other hard drive, should be the primary IDE and then make sure the new drive is set to slave.

**tombott** · 16th February 2005

Originally Posted by mark1984

I think thats your problem, you not suppose to connect hard drives with the cd/dvd drives.

Have you only got 2 hard drives, if so, put the new one on the same ide channel as the other hard drive, should be the primary IDE and then make sure the new drive is set to slave.

What makes you say that ?

I have 3 HD's and a DVD drive, obvioulsy 1 HD and DVD drive are sharing the same cable. I've never had an issue with it.

**ramtec** · 16th February 2005

I too have a hard drive and DVD writer on the same ide cable without any probs BUT do know of others who have had problems. I would make sure the bios is up to date and try another cable but also try the one you already have and just disconnect your CD/DVD drive to see if this resolves the problem

**ramtec** · 16th February 2005

oh and to add set the drives to CS (cable select) that way the bios will determine the prim master and sec master

**mark1984** · 16th February 2005

I heard from someone that its recommend you use one IDE channel for Hard disks and one for CD drives, due to data transfer speeds I think, hard drives read a lot faster then a CD drive so if your reading from a CD drive and from the hard drive at the same time your gonna have the hard drive running at the slower speed so it'll match the CD drive.

Correct me if im wrong but thats what I've believed for the past years.

**tombott** · 16th February 2005

Originally Posted by mark1984

I heard from someone that its recommend you use one IDE channel for Hard disks and one for CD drives, due to data transfer speeds I think, hard drives read a lot faster then a CD drive so if your reading from a CD drive and from the hard drive at the same time your gonna have the hard drive running at the slower speed so it'll match the CD drive.

Correct me if im wrong but thats what I've believed for the past years.

i can see where you cominig from with that, but don't think it would make the data corrupt.

**SMEGHEAD** · 16th February 2005

the original setup is hd and cdrw drive on one channel and dvd rom on the other with one spare socket.Upgraded the cdrw to dvdrw and later added the second drive on the spare socket.All are recognised correctly in the bios.
never had any issues with the 1st hd sharing with the cd-rw or dvd-rw drive so dont really see why there should be a problem with the 2nd channel.
Anyway will try new cables first and see how I get on....

**andyinlondon** · 17th February 2005

i have seen this sort of thing before when the drives are set as slave and master but put on the wrong positions on the ide cable.

slave should be in the middle and master on the end.

otherwise the controller on the motherboard can get confused trying to sort out what drive is what and transfering data too.

but as for mixing cdr or dvdrs and hard drives on an ide it should not make much difference to the reliability.
the performance when burning a dvd at 8x or more can be helped if the source drive and the burner are on different ide channels but apart from that should make no difference where you put your drives.

**SMEGHEAD** · 17th February 2005

well bought new cables today,in fact took the opportunity to replace the lot from ribbon to round.cant go wrong with fitting em cos they are pre-labelled!
Tested with a download of a rar file and... corrupt still!

**windy1603** · 17th February 2005

Have you overclocked your system. I have had problems with newer drives corrupting data when my system was overclocked. Also check on boot what dma mode the drives are using and if your bios allows set them both at the slowest speed as again i have had problems with this in the past with Maxtor drives.

**SMEGHEAD** · 20th February 2005

thanks for all the replies,looks like it was a dodgy drive.Replaced it today and installed a game that wouldnt run on the old one and it was fine.Downloaded a few large rar files and they extracted ok...

**killer2004** · 24th February 2005

hi try formattin ur hard drive again and then install windows on the old hard drive if ur usin xp ur hard drive should automatically come up then try downloadin should wrk!! if not go giv it back

**Kam** · 26th February 2005

The only thing i can think of is your HD settings cylinder head etc.. are wrong and the computer is writing to the wrong part of your hard drive e.g going past the end and writing half at the start etc..
Have you tried setting your bios to auto detect so screen would be something like

HD Type Cyl Head Sec Pre Mode
0 Auto - - - - Auto
1 Auto - - - - Auto

and then reformat it if that doesnt work try using autodetect from the bios its normally pressing enter and reformat the hard drive.

**colin9969** · 26th February 2005

hi all
I here you are useing cable select i would suggest that you set the master and slave on each hard drive AND RETRY

ALSO DOES THE BOARD SUPPORT RAID ON THE IDE CHANNELS?

COLIN