bad Hard Drive?

[ran]

Well last month I got XP Pro reloaded on my existing Seagate 320 GB PATA. Failed to load this morning, asks for Repair because of missing Config files. With everything I have gone through, this must be a bad HD?? I realize this D865 is a 9-10 yr old mobo. Must be HD???

 

[harper7]

Well last month I got XP Pro reloaded on my existing Seagate 320 GB PATA. Failed to load this morning, asks for Repair because of missing Config files. With everything I have gone through, this must be a bad HD?? I realize this D865 is a 9-10 yr old mobo. Must be HD???

Could be bad hard drive,XP load,virus or bad I/O chip on motherboard and odds are it's your hard drive . If the hard drive has bad sectors they keep growing and taking out needed files.Used to see it many times where the OS would load fine and then start dropping files til it wouldn't boot. Now I run diagnostics on all used hard drives before I load them.

Here is the link for Seagates diagnostic tool called Sea Tools..........| Seagate

 

[ran]

It would not take XP, kept failing. I put it into an old P-3 and ran Seagate tools, write zeros, etc. finally I got it to load Windows last month. Fail today, no point in trying to fix it anymore? Older mobo, will look for a 200-300 GB HD for the time being. unemployed, doing this on a budget. thanks

 

[Briangp]

Do not rule out possibly memory issues, or even a power supply. The most recent desktop I worked on had a myriad of issues that progressively got worse. I don't know how I ever figured out it was the power supply, but too many things went wrong to be a simple component.



More than likely your hard drive, but if you have other components to swap and test out, give em all a shot!

 

[ran]

Well it is a D865 P-4/800 mobo. same Mushkin MB all this time. changed out PS a while back, probably 12.4 or better last time I checked. Tried reseating cards, and MB. (D865=10+ yrs old?) Just trying to push my luck a bit more. Probbly a 250-350 GB HD next. thanks, ran

 

[Briangp]

Can you boot from another device? USB? Maybe an CDROM copy of Linux? It would hopefully rule out your memory.

How many times did you try installing windows? Did the installation succeed everytime and then the failure came on startup?

 

[Briangp]

btw, I'm here to offer all the help I can. I'm kinda starting a minor crapstorm here and probably wont remain a member here for long, but I'm here for now.

 

[ran]

last month it took numerous tries to get it loaded. Installed failed after first reboot, if you know XP load. Writing zeros to drive cleaned it up enough to do a clean load. Back in this machine. I may do 'repair' and reload. just figure it is going to fail anyway. Fluke-12.00VDC I have a WD 80GB I could try later.

 

[Briangp]

I've never had a repair actually work. Sounds like I'd just go with another hard drive. If its not the case, it never hurts to have a spare.

If both hard drives fail, pull out individual sticks of memory, one at a time and reboot. If that fails, change your power supply.

Lemme know.


OH BTW, I see you measured 12VDC, did you measure while it was under load or static? Two totally different beasts.

 

[ran]

I let it boot to the error widow, and grabbed the floopy drive end and measured. Fluke 87 III (yes, tech from Monterey Co). 50 years in CA, miss a foggy morning along the coast. Actually I will try the 80 GB and see if it loads just for giggles. thanks CA guy mabuhay

 

[Briangp]

I let it boot to the error widow, and grabbed the floopy drive end and measured. Fluke 87 III (yes, tech from Monterey Co). 50 years in CA, miss a foggy morning along the coast. Actually I will try the 80 GB and see if it loads just for giggles. thanks CA guy mabuhay

Ahhh Fluke 87s, tried, tested and true. Ours go through hell at work

 

[ran]

Just finished XP Pro and SP-2 to this WD 80 GB HD. no problems after numerous reboots. This will give me time to get a good price on a HD. Thanks for all the help, Ran
_____________
'07 SE V6 4x4 Titanium

 

[Briangp]

np man, good luck!