Computer cant identify drive on boot

[Licensed to Quill]

Am having a problem with a Western Digital 26400 drive

It isn't identified on boot up (boot sees the CD-rom as a Master but records
NO MASTER DRIVE: This with the jumper set at 'MASTER' and also set at, I
thought I would try 'slave' just for fun).

It then boots properly to (for example) an a: boot disc. I can then install
XP onto the drive from the CD-ROM and the installation process identifies
the drive and installs the OS

When the install process first reboots, the install process fails completely
with the error message that it cant find a boot sector. and obviously wont
carry on. I tried recovery mode of XP install and redoing the boot with
FIXBOOT but this didn't help (nor did FIXMBR)

The mystery is that the drive checks out properly on the manufacturer's
utility. DLGDIAG runs properly although it did find some bad sectors at
first and transferred the data to another sector

Now it identifies and checks the drive properly and finds not problems with
it: It finds it properly OK as does scandisc.

Licensed to Quill

 

[Rod Speed]

Am having a problem with a Western Digital 26400 drive

It isn't identified on boot up (boot sees the CD-rom as a Master but
records NO MASTER DRIVE: This with the jumper set at 'MASTER'
and also set at, I thought I would try 'slave' just for fun).

Thats incomprehensively mangled, try again.

It then boots properly to (for example) an a: boot disc.
I can then install XP onto the drive from the CD-ROM and
the installation process identifies the drive and installs the OS

When the install process first reboots, the install process fails
completely with the error message that it cant find a boot sector.

Presumably for the original reason, the bios cant see the drive. Its the
bios that needs to be able to see the drive at that phase of the boot.

and obviously wont carry on. I tried recovery mode of XP install and
redoing the boot with FIXBOOT but this didn't help (nor did FIXMBR)

You need to have the drive seen properly by the bios at boot
time. That other stuff is used after that early boot phase stuff.

The mystery is that the drive checks out properly on the manufacturer's
utility. DLGDIAG runs properly although it did find some bad sectors at
first and transferred the data to another sector

Now it identifies and checks the drive properly and finds not
problems with it: It finds it properly OK as does scandisc.

It may have an intermittent fault.

 

[Licensed to Quill]

Hi Rod

The fault is always present, it isn't intermittent and I THOUGHT that
whatever the problem with a hard drive, even if it was completely dead, the
BIOS always managed to identify at the very least what it was?

I can get into the BIOS and WD tells you on their site to auto-identify it
in the BIOS which it is.

I know that some computers let you have TWO IDE cables with drives or CDs on
each but cant imagine that this is the problem?
This is an Acer computer on which I have often changed drives, everything
has always been autoidentified and I have never had this problem before?
(I once did have a problem with a drive but that was when I tried to input
all the manufacturers data myself and it went away when I auto-identified
that drive).

The only think which struck me as a novice to identifying problems with
drives is that there might be some kind of firmware needed to do this?

L2Q
BTW I never kept the jumper at 'slave' to the CD-ROM for any longer than
that one occasion I tried to get the system to identify it that way

 

[Bruce T. Berger]

If a drive is really fried, the BIOS cannot see it.

btb

 

[Rod Speed]

The fault is always present, it isn't intermittent and I THOUGHT that
whatever the problem with a hard drive, even if it was completely dead,
the BIOS always managed to identify at the very least what it was?

No, not of the logic card on the drive has a problem.

I can get into the BIOS and WD tells you on
their site to auto-identify it in the BIOS which it is.

I know that some computers let you have
TWO IDE cables with drives or CDs on each

Not sure what you mean here.

but cant imagine that this is the problem?

This is an Acer computer on which I have often changed drives, everything
has always been autoidentified and I have never had this problem before?

Trouble is I still cant understand what you
meant below, exactly what happens now.

(I once did have a problem with a drive but that was
when I tried to input all the manufacturers data myself
and it went away when I auto-identified that drive).

You can sometimes see problems with the auto identify when
there is some data in the MBR that produces a result like that.
The fix for that is to run something like clearhdd from
http://www.samsung.com/Products/HardDiskDrive/utilities/clearhdd.htm
to wipe the drive data completely and start over partitioning and formatting.

The only think which struck me as a novice to identifying problems with
drives is that there might be some kind of firmware needed to do this?

Shouldnt be. Would be worth a try if you can update the firmware tho.

L2Q
BTW I never kept the jumper at 'slave' to the CD-ROM for any longer
than that one occasion I tried to get the system to identify it that way

I cant understand what you are saying here either.

 

[Rod Speed]

http://www.samsung.com/Products/HardDiskDrive/utilities/clearhdd.htm

Thanks Rod, I may have to do that but was hoping that
there was someother way of fixing the MBR or boot sector:

It looks like a more fundamental problem than that, particularly that
bad sector that the diagnostic found. Thats unlikely to be a coincidence.

Remember, this is a drive which to all intents and
purposes seems to be working properly and tests
OK according to the manufacuturer's own utility.

Thats overstating it with the bad sector found.

Wouldnt be the first time a diagnostic
claimed the drive is fine when it isnt.

It just isnt recognised as a Western DIgital hard drive by the
BIOS which reports NO MASTER HARD DRIVE FOUND

With EXACTLY what jumpering on that drive
and the other one on the ribbon cable ?

You should try it with that drive alone on the ribbon
cable for a test and remember that WD drives have
a unique jumper config for that config, just their drive
on the ribbon cable, if you arent using cable select.

You might be seeing a pair of drives that
dont like to coexist on a ribbon cable.

and then proceeds to let you read from
and write data to whatever it didnt find!

That isnt that uncommon with a pair that doesnt like to coexist.

(anything except, of course, a boot sector)

That too. The boot sector is read from the drive using rather more
primitive ops by the BIOS than are used by the OS later. So you
can get a failure to read the boot sector successfully but the drive
is visible once the OS has loaded its device driver that accesses
the drive more thoroughly, particularly with read errors seen etc.

As I said the WD utility DID find a bad sector

Which is a real worry given the other symptoms you are seeing.
You may have a situation that gives the illusion of a bad sector
which isnt actually a bad sector at the level of the magnetics
on the platter surface. That problem may be why the boot
sector isnt being seen properly by the relatively primitive ops
that the bios uses in the very early boot phase and may also
be the reason for that error message from the bios too.

and now there is a 6 gig partition with a tiny 8 meg other partition
which may have been created by the manufacturer's utility.

That shouldnt be happening either. Things are very comprehensively
screwed for some reason, so I would certainly use clearhdd to
reset everything right back to basics and start over again.

But if I use the Samsung utility to wipe it clean,
and then run the WD utility again to see what
happens, that might solve the problem?

Yes, thats why I suggested trying that.