C: drive has continual errors found.....

[Rod Speed]

It sounds like your OS has become corrupted beyond repair, since ChkDsk will repair errors that
it's capable of.

The problem is actually that its running the drive with DMA disabled.

Sorry to say it's about time to reformat and reinstall the OS and your programs.

Waste of time unless the bad cable is replaced.

This happens with regularity with any Windows installation unfortunately.

Wrong with XP.

 

[Rod Speed]

I checked the CMOS for some option about drive data transfer mode.
Every option on the first page of CMOS about drives is alreadyset for
AUTO. Elsewhere there was nothing to set transfer mode....except for
the printer there was an option about DMA modes. Its an ABIT A7N8X
mobo. Anyway the BIOS has never been changed.

Yeah, it wont be that, its an OS level problem, nothing to do with the bios.

MS had a doc about this problem....it says that after 6 CRC errors it
will revert to PIO mode...and switching back to DMA mode is NOT
automatic. I applied what it said would be the fix. Per instructions,
I added the registry value "Drive error counter success=1"
(it wasn't exactly that, but something to that effect). This is
supposed to reset the CRC error counter, and allow Windows to
re-enable DMA once again....but after adding this value for IDE
channel 001, and rebooting, it is still operating in DMA mode.

You need to do it this way, from
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/817472/

To re-enable the typical, or faster, transfer mode for an affected device: 1. Double-click
Administrative Tools, and then click Computer Management.
2. Click System Tools, and then click Device Manager.
3. Expand the IDE ATA/ATAPI Controllers node.
4. Double-click the controller for which you want to restore the typical DMA transfer mode.
5. Click the Driver tab.
6. Click Uninstall.
7. When the process completes, restart your computer. When Windows restarts, the hard disk
controller is re-enumerated and the transfer mode is reset to the default value for each device that
is connected to the controller.

I need to look at some Windows event log (Where?)

Computer Management, or put event log in the help.

and see if perhaps errors are continuing even with a new cable.

Yes, if the above doesnt restore DMA mode.

 

[Geoff]

I had the same issue with a drive, used WD's utilities and seagate's, and
they claim to fix things but it still had a problem.

So, I bought SpinRite, drive works like a champ now.

-g

 

[geronimo]

Am happy to report that your fix....to uninstall the driver for
primary channel, then reboot....worked! Problem gone.

Now this stupid Diskkeeper 10 keeps telling me that Windows has found
errors on the C: drive, and has scheduled CHKDSK to run on next
boot-up, so Diskeeper cannot defrag the drive. Yet, when the PC boots
up now (A LOT faster!) CHKDSK does not pop up! What is up with that?
I may uninstall Diskkeeper and see what WIndows XP's own defragger
does. (Probably Windows will report the same thing to its own defrag
utility, and so it will still not run).

Thanks....U DA MAN! Geronimo

 

[Rod Speed]

Am happy to report that your fix....to uninstall the driver for
primary channel, then reboot....worked! Problem gone.

Thanks for that feedback.

Now this stupid Diskkeeper 10 keeps telling me that Windows has found
errors on the C: drive, and has scheduled CHKDSK to run on next
boot-up, so Diskeeper cannot defrag the drive. Yet, when the PC boots
up now (A LOT faster!) CHKDSK does not pop up! What is up with that?

You can boot the XP CD and run chkdsk from there. You should only
have to do that once now that the original problem has been fixed.

I may uninstall Diskkeeper and see what WIndows XP's
own defragger does. (Probably Windows will report the
same thing to its own defrag utility, and so it will still not run).

I've given up defragging myself, modern hard drives are now
so fast seeking and modern OSs are doing so much head
movement wise all the time that defragging usually isnt
detectable with a proper double blind trial in all but the
most specialised system uses now and you dont see that
much at all with personal desktop systems anymore.

Thanks....U DA MAN! Geronimo

No problem, thats what these technical newsgroups are for.