strange issue with mobo, hd, xp..

[technut]

during windows startup.. there is a floppy drive seek that is causing
my primary sata boot drive to hard seek, spin down and spin up again.
its really weird. i replaced the floppy and its cable. i disabled the
floppy drive controller in windows and turned it off in bios that
resolved the issue but i need access to the floppy for some things i
work on.

i've searched for information on this issue all over the net but to no
avail. its buggin the heck out of me and my wife is about to toss me
and the computer out the house 'cause she know's i wont leave it alone
till i find a reason and a solution other than just turning off access
to the floppy.

motherboard: asus m3a78 pro / 4 gigs corsair mem / sony dvd/cd -
phillips cdrw on primary ide slot / wd 160gb sata 1 - wd 1tb on sata 2
- wd 1tb on sata 3 / windows xp sp3.

datalifegaurd says all the hard drives are fine.. this is an ongoing
issue starting with the introduction of a seagate 702.11 1.5tb drive
with bad firmware. i've replaced the privious motherboard [asus m3a]
with the one i have now as a precaution against the board maybe having
a short due to repeated power cycling during data recovery processes.
so this is a fairly new board and everything worked fine till the
introduction of the seagate.

the seagates have been shipped back to the manufacturer and money
returned by the vendor.

any ideas out there?

thanks

 

[Paul]

during windows startup.. there is a floppy drive seek that is causing
my primary sata boot drive to hard seek, spin down and spin up again.
its really weird. i replaced the floppy and its cable. i disabled the
floppy drive controller in windows and turned it off in bios that
resolved the issue but i need access to the floppy for some things i
work on.

i've searched for information on this issue all over the net but to no
avail. its buggin the heck out of me and my wife is about to toss me
and the computer out the house 'cause she know's i wont leave it alone
till i find a reason and a solution other than just turning off access
to the floppy.

motherboard: asus m3a78 pro / 4 gigs corsair mem / sony dvd/cd -
phillips cdrw on primary ide slot / wd 160gb sata 1 - wd 1tb on sata 2
- wd 1tb on sata 3 / windows xp sp3.

datalifegaurd says all the hard drives are fine.. this is an ongoing
issue starting with the introduction of a seagate 702.11 1.5tb drive
with bad firmware. i've replaced the privious motherboard [asus m3a]
with the one i have now as a precaution against the board maybe having
a short due to repeated power cycling during data recovery processes.
so this is a fairly new board and everything worked fine till the
introduction of the seagate.

the seagates have been shipped back to the manufacturer and money
returned by the vendor.

any ideas out there?

thanks

Well, consider what resources they share.

The floppy runs from +5V. The controller board on the
hard drive runs from +5V as well. The motor on the hard
drive runs from +12V. Hard drives seem to be sensitive
to the voltage level on +12V, perhaps by the controller
watching the voltage, and carrying out some action in response
to a relatively minor change. (Like the +12V for the motor and
other stuff that moves, dipping to +11V. It may trigger a
complete restart on the drive.)

I don't know if I could trace a dependency other than that,
on the motherboard itself. The floppy interface is usually
on the SuperI/O chip, while the SATA is on the Southbridge.
If there was a circuit upset, which affected both of them,
then you'd expect the computer to just "crash and burn", rather
than exhibit the symptoms you describe.

So my guess is it is power related, but you're going to have to either

1) Make measurements to prove it is a power problem. Depending
on what the power problem is (like a transient), that may prove
more difficult than just checking with a $20 multimeter.

2) Blindly swap the power supply, for another one, and "see what happens".

If you've seen problems exhibited by the computer when it is cold,
or funny sounds coming from the power supply just at startup and
at no other time, or if you've seen more than the normal amount
of fluctuation in the operating speed of fixed fans, then you
may already have been given some hints that the power supply is
about to fail. I've had two power supplies now, where the fan speed
wobbles a bit more than normal, a week or two before the supply failed.

HTH,
Paul

 

[Anna]

during windows startup.. there is a floppy drive seek that is causing
my primary sata boot drive to hard seek, spin down and spin up again.
its really weird. i replaced the floppy and its cable. i disabled the
floppy drive controller in windows and turned it off in bios that
resolved the issue but i need access to the floppy for some things i
work on.

i've searched for information on this issue all over the net but to no
avail. its buggin the heck out of me and my wife is about to toss me
and the computer out the house 'cause she know's i wont leave it alone
till i find a reason and a solution other than just turning off access
to the floppy.

motherboard: asus m3a78 pro / 4 gigs corsair mem / sony dvd/cd -
phillips cdrw on primary ide slot / wd 160gb sata 1 - wd 1tb on sata 2
- wd 1tb on sata 3 / windows xp sp3.

datalifegaurd says all the hard drives are fine.. this is an ongoing
issue starting with the introduction of a seagate 702.11 1.5tb drive
with bad firmware. i've replaced the privious motherboard [asus m3a]
with the one i have now as a precaution against the board maybe having
a short due to repeated power cycling during data recovery processes.
so this is a fairly new board and everything worked fine till the
introduction of the seagate.

the seagates have been shipped back to the manufacturer and money
returned by the vendor.

any ideas out there?

thanks

technut:
What happens when you remove the floppy drive from the boot device priority
in the BIOS settings? Or set it so that the floppy drive is last in the boot
priority order (following the HDD & the CD-ROM). Same problem?
Anna

 

[technut]

during windows startup.. there is a floppy drive seek that is causing
my primary sata boot drive to hard seek, spin down and spin up again.
its really weird. i replaced the floppy and its cable. i disabled the
floppy drive controller in windows and turned it off in bios that
resolved the issue but i need access to the floppy for some things i
work on.

i've searched for information on this issue all over the net but to no
avail. its buggin the heck out of me and my wife is about to toss me
and the computer out the house 'cause she know's i wont leave it alone
till i find a reason and a solution other than just turning off access
to the floppy.

motherboard: asus m3a78 pro / 4 gigs corsair mem / sony dvd/cd -
phillips cdrw on primary ide slot / wd 160gb sata 1 - wd 1tb on sata 2
- wd 1tb on sata 3 / windows xp sp3.

datalifegaurd says all the hard drives are fine.. this is an ongoing
issue starting with the introduction of a seagate 702.11 1.5tb drive
with bad firmware.  i've replaced the privious motherboard [asus m3a]
with the one i have now as a precaution against the board maybe having
a short due to repeated power cycling during data recovery processes.
so this is a fairly new board and everything worked fine till the
introduction of the seagate.

the seagates have been shipped back to the manufacturer and money
returned by the vendor.

any ideas out there?

thanks

Well, consider what resources they share.

The floppy runs from +5V. The controller board on the
hard drive runs from +5V as well. The motor on the hard
drive runs from +12V. Hard drives seem to be sensitive
to the voltage level on +12V, perhaps by the controller
watching the voltage, and carrying out some action in response
to a relatively minor change. (Like the +12V for the motor and
other stuff that moves, dipping to +11V. It may trigger a
complete restart on the drive.)

I don't know if I could trace a dependency other than that,
on the motherboard itself. The floppy interface is usually
on the SuperI/O chip, while the SATA is on the Southbridge.
If there was a circuit upset, which affected both of them,
then you'd expect the computer to just "crash and burn", rather
than exhibit the symptoms you describe.

So my guess is it is power related, but you're going to have to either

1) Make measurements to prove it is a power problem. Depending
    on what the power problem is (like a transient), that may prove
    more difficult than just checking with a $20 multimeter.

2) Blindly swap the power supply, for another one, and "see what happens"..

If you've seen problems exhibited by the computer when it is cold,
or funny sounds coming from the power supply just at startup and
at no other time, or if you've seen more than the normal amount
of fluctuation in the operating speed of fixed fans, then you
may already have been given some hints that the power supply is
about to fail. I've had two power supplies now, where the fan speed
wobbles a bit more than normal, a week or two before the supply failed.

HTH,
      Paul- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

i like this train of thought.. however, if we run the course of logic
fully thru.. wouldn't the drive [hd] exibit the same behavior outside
of windows also.. such as during post, when the floppy is checked by
bios? instead of just during windows desktop logon process? i'm also
wondering if it could possibly be related to a driver conflict. so i
stopped by microcenter this mornin and picked up another of the same
drive so as to mirror this os on to it. then i'll format it, pop
windows fresh on it and see if it continues. can't trust safe boot
with this because it may still be loading latent drivers even though
its supposed to be a vanilla load. i'll get back to you on the out
come.

thanks for the response.

tn

 

[technut]

during windows startup.. there is a floppy drive seek that is causing
my primary sata boot drive to hard seek, spin down and spin up again.
its really weird. i replaced the floppy and its cable. i disabled the
floppy drive controller in windows and turned it off in bios that
resolved the issue but i need access to the floppy for some things i
work on.

i've searched for information on this issue all over the net but to no
avail. its buggin the heck out of me and my wife is about to toss me
and the computer out the house 'cause she know's i wont leave it alone
till i find a reason and a solution other than just turning off access
to the floppy.

motherboard: asus m3a78 pro / 4 gigs corsair mem / sony dvd/cd -
phillips cdrw on primary ide slot / wd 160gb sata 1 - wd 1tb on sata 2
- wd 1tb on sata 3 / windows xp sp3.

datalifegaurd says all the hard drives are fine.. this is an ongoing
issue starting with the introduction of a seagate 702.11 1.5tb drive
with bad firmware.  i've replaced the privious motherboard [asus m3a]
with the one i have now as a precaution against the board maybe having
a short due to repeated power cycling during data recovery processes.
so this is a fairly new board and everything worked fine till the
introduction of the seagate.

the seagates have been shipped back to the manufacturer and money
returned by the vendor.

any ideas out there?

thanks

technut:
What happens when you remove the floppy drive from the boot device priority
in the BIOS settings? Or set it so that the floppy drive is last in the boot
priority order (following the HDD & the CD-ROM). Same problem?
Anna- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

hi anna.. happy valentine's day.. :O) while i'm at it.. happy
valentine's day to all of our other halves in cyberville.. <G>

now... when i remove it from bios [disable], windows will still engage
the floppy and it still causes the issue.. even if i place it last in
the boot sequence. however, if i disable the floppy controller in
windows [device manager] it clean loads. so thinking along that line i
removed the floppy and controller from device manager and then killed
the registry keys related to the floppy and hard drives. it was risky
but i tried it anyway. cleared up some slow load issues but didn't
clear up the hard seek spin down issue.

thanks for the response

tn

 

[Lil' Dave]

during windows startup.. there is a floppy drive seek that is causing
my primary sata boot drive to hard seek, spin down and spin up again.
its really weird. i replaced the floppy and its cable. i disabled the
floppy drive controller in windows and turned it off in bios that
resolved the issue but i need access to the floppy for some things i
work on.

i've searched for information on this issue all over the net but to no
avail. its buggin the heck out of me and my wife is about to toss me
and the computer out the house 'cause she know's i wont leave it alone
till i find a reason and a solution other than just turning off access
to the floppy.

motherboard: asus m3a78 pro / 4 gigs corsair mem / sony dvd/cd -
phillips cdrw on primary ide slot / wd 160gb sata 1 - wd 1tb on sata 2
- wd 1tb on sata 3 / windows xp sp3.

datalifegaurd says all the hard drives are fine.. this is an ongoing
issue starting with the introduction of a seagate 702.11 1.5tb drive
with bad firmware. i've replaced the privious motherboard [asus m3a]
with the one i have now as a precaution against the board maybe having
a short due to repeated power cycling during data recovery processes.
so this is a fairly new board and everything worked fine till the
introduction of the seagate.

the seagates have been shipped back to the manufacturer and money
returned by the vendor.

any ideas out there?

thanks

How did you determine that the boot drive is the one with the
spinup/spindown problem, as you have 3 SATA hard drives? Describe when in
the boot process of XP that you see this problem, and what symptoms you
see/hear that lead you to your conclusion.
--
Dave

CDOs are how we got here.
A modified version, new taxes in the future, is how Congress will get us
out?

 

[SC Tom]

during windows startup.. there is a floppy drive seek that is causing
my primary sata boot drive to hard seek, spin down and spin up again.
its really weird. i replaced the floppy and its cable. i disabled the
floppy drive controller in windows and turned it off in bios that
resolved the issue but i need access to the floppy for some things i
work on.

i've searched for information on this issue all over the net but to no
avail. its buggin the heck out of me and my wife is about to toss me
and the computer out the house 'cause she know's i wont leave it alone
till i find a reason and a solution other than just turning off access
to the floppy.

motherboard: asus m3a78 pro / 4 gigs corsair mem / sony dvd/cd -
phillips cdrw on primary ide slot / wd 160gb sata 1 - wd 1tb on sata 2
- wd 1tb on sata 3 / windows xp sp3.

datalifegaurd says all the hard drives are fine.. this is an ongoing
issue starting with the introduction of a seagate 702.11 1.5tb drive
with bad firmware. i've replaced the privious motherboard [asus m3a]
with the one i have now as a precaution against the board maybe having
a short due to repeated power cycling during data recovery processes.
so this is a fairly new board and everything worked fine till the
introduction of the seagate.

the seagates have been shipped back to the manufacturer and money
returned by the vendor.

any ideas out there?

thanks

technut:
What happens when you remove the floppy drive from the boot device
priority
in the BIOS settings? Or set it so that the floppy drive is last in the
boot
priority order (following the HDD & the CD-ROM). Same problem?
Anna- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

hi anna.. happy valentine's day.. :O) while i'm at it.. happy
valentine's day to all of our other halves in cyberville.. <G>

now... when i remove it from bios [disable], windows will still engage
the floppy and it still causes the issue.. even if i place it last in
the boot sequence. however, if i disable the floppy controller in
windows [device manager] it clean loads. so thinking along that line i
removed the floppy and controller from device manager and then killed
the registry keys related to the floppy and hard drives. it was risky
but i tried it anyway. cleared up some slow load issues but didn't
clear up the hard seek spin down issue.

thanks for the response

tn

What happens if you unplug the floppy from the MB and remove power to it? Do
the remaining HDD's exhibit the same behavior? How about if the optical
drives are unplugged also?

SC Tom

 

[technut]

during windows startup.. there is a floppy drive seek that is causing
my primary sata boot drive to hard seek, spin down and spin up again.
its really weird. i replaced the floppy and its cable. i disabled the
floppy drive controller in windows and turned it off in bios that
resolved the issue but i need access to the floppy for some things i
work on.

i've searched for information on this issue all over the net but to no
avail. its buggin the heck out of me and my wife is about to toss me
and the computer out the house 'cause she know's i wont leave it alone
till i find a reason and a solution other than just turning off access
to the floppy.

motherboard: asus m3a78 pro / 4 gigs corsair mem / sony dvd/cd -
phillips cdrw on primary ide slot / wd 160gb sata 1 - wd 1tb on sata 2
- wd 1tb on sata 3 / windows xp sp3.

datalifegaurd says all the hard drives are fine.. this is an ongoing
issue starting with the introduction of a seagate 702.11 1.5tb drive
with bad firmware.  i've replaced the privious motherboard [asus m3a]
with the one i have now as a precaution against the board maybe having
a short due to repeated power cycling during data recovery processes.
so this is a fairly new board and everything worked fine till the
introduction of the seagate.

the seagates have been shipped back to the manufacturer and money
returned by the vendor.

any ideas out there?

thanks

How did you determine that the boot drive is the one with the
spinup/spindown problem, as you have 3 SATA hard drives?  Describe whenin
the boot process of XP that you see this problem, and what symptoms you
see/hear that lead you to your conclusion.
--
Dave

CDOs are how we got here.
A modified version, new taxes in the future, is how Congress will get us
out?- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

simple enough.. removed the other drives.. cd/dvd's included. problem
exists. disable floppy controller in device manager problem goes away.
its only occuring when the desktop is loading. because there is no
transparancy to what is loading behind the desktop [drivers, services
etc..] its nearly impossible to see if a driver is causing the issue.
like it'd be really kewl to be able to say it happens everytime
jgogo.sys is loading. i could then pull jgogo.sys and see if the
problem persists. but nothing like that exists for windows as yet that
i know of. and again.. even when i safe mode it will happen.

thanks for the response

tn

 

[technut]

news:19d9604e-08a2-4581-8c2a-c4a365b8babb@f20g2000yqg.googlegroups.com....

during windows startup.. there is a floppy drive seek that is causing
my primary sata boot drive to hard seek, spin down and spin up again.
its really weird. i replaced the floppy and its cable. i disabled the
floppy drive controller in windows and turned it off in bios that
resolved the issue but i need access to the floppy for some things i
work on.
i've searched for information on this issue all over the net but to no
avail. its buggin the heck out of me and my wife is about to toss me
and the computer out the house 'cause she know's i wont leave it alone
till i find a reason and a solution other than just turning off access
to the floppy.
motherboard: asus m3a78 pro / 4 gigs corsair mem / sony dvd/cd -
phillips cdrw on primary ide slot / wd 160gb sata 1 - wd 1tb on sata 2
- wd 1tb on sata 3 / windows xp sp3.
datalifegaurd says all the hard drives are fine.. this is an ongoing
issue starting with the introduction of a seagate 702.11 1.5tb drive
with bad firmware. i've replaced the privious motherboard [asus m3a]
with the one i have now as a precaution against the board maybe having
a short due to repeated power cycling during data recovery processes.
so this is a fairly new board and everything worked fine till the
introduction of the seagate.
the seagates have been shipped back to the manufacturer and money
returned by the vendor.
any ideas out there?
thanks

technut:
What happens when you remove the floppy drive from the boot device
priority
in the BIOS settings? Or set it so that the floppy drive is last in the
boot
priority order (following the HDD & the CD-ROM). Same problem?
Anna- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -
hi anna.. happy valentine's day.. :O)  while i'm at it.. happy
valentine's day to all of our other halves in cyberville.. <G>
now... when i remove it from bios [disable], windows will still engage
the floppy and it still causes the issue.. even if i place it last in
the boot sequence. however, if i disable the floppy controller in
windows [device manager] it clean loads. so thinking along that line i
removed the floppy and controller from device manager and then killed
the registry keys related to the floppy and hard drives. it was risky
but i tried it anyway. cleared up some slow load issues but didn't
clear up the hard seek spin down issue.
thanks for the response
tn

What happens if you unplug the floppy from the MB and remove power to it?Do
the remaining HDD's exhibit the same behavior? How about if the optical
drives are unplugged also?

SC Tom- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

as long as the floppy is disengaged from the process.. the problem
does not exist. that's what makes it so strange. and as yet, i've
heard nothing from asus about perhaps a controller issue with this
board line.

thanks for the response

tn

 

[SC Tom]

news:19d9604e-08a2-4581-8c2a-c4a365b8babb@f20g2000yqg.googlegroups.com...

during windows startup.. there is a floppy drive seek that is causing
my primary sata boot drive to hard seek, spin down and spin up again.
its really weird. i replaced the floppy and its cable. i disabled the
floppy drive controller in windows and turned it off in bios that
resolved the issue but i need access to the floppy for some things i
work on.
i've searched for information on this issue all over the net but to no
avail. its buggin the heck out of me and my wife is about to toss me
and the computer out the house 'cause she know's i wont leave it alone
till i find a reason and a solution other than just turning off access
to the floppy.
motherboard: asus m3a78 pro / 4 gigs corsair mem / sony dvd/cd -
phillips cdrw on primary ide slot / wd 160gb sata 1 - wd 1tb on sata 2
- wd 1tb on sata 3 / windows xp sp3.
datalifegaurd says all the hard drives are fine.. this is an ongoing
issue starting with the introduction of a seagate 702.11 1.5tb drive
with bad firmware. i've replaced the privious motherboard [asus m3a]
with the one i have now as a precaution against the board maybe having
a short due to repeated power cycling during data recovery processes.
so this is a fairly new board and everything worked fine till the
introduction of the seagate.
the seagates have been shipped back to the manufacturer and money
returned by the vendor.
any ideas out there?
thanks

technut:
What happens when you remove the floppy drive from the boot device
priority
in the BIOS settings? Or set it so that the floppy drive is last in the
boot
priority order (following the HDD & the CD-ROM). Same problem?
Anna- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -
hi anna.. happy valentine's day.. :O) while i'm at it.. happy
valentine's day to all of our other halves in cyberville.. <G>
now... when i remove it from bios [disable], windows will still engage
the floppy and it still causes the issue.. even if i place it last in
the boot sequence. however, if i disable the floppy controller in
windows [device manager] it clean loads. so thinking along that line i
removed the floppy and controller from device manager and then killed
the registry keys related to the floppy and hard drives. it was risky
but i tried it anyway. cleared up some slow load issues but didn't
clear up the hard seek spin down issue.
thanks for the response
tn

What happens if you unplug the floppy from the MB and remove power to it?
Do
the remaining HDD's exhibit the same behavior? How about if the optical
drives are unplugged also?

SC Tom- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

as long as the floppy is disengaged from the process.. the problem
does not exist. that's what makes it so strange. and as yet, i've
heard nothing from asus about perhaps a controller issue with this
board line.

thanks for the response

tn

Do you have access to another floppy drive to plug in and try? Maybe the
drive itself is crapping out on you.

SC Tom

 

[Lil' Dave]

during windows startup.. there is a floppy drive seek that is causing
my primary sata boot drive to hard seek, spin down and spin up again.
its really weird. i replaced the floppy and its cable. i disabled the
floppy drive controller in windows and turned it off in bios that
resolved the issue but i need access to the floppy for some things i
work on.

i've searched for information on this issue all over the net but to no
avail. its buggin the heck out of me and my wife is about to toss me
and the computer out the house 'cause she know's i wont leave it alone
till i find a reason and a solution other than just turning off access
to the floppy.

motherboard: asus m3a78 pro / 4 gigs corsair mem / sony dvd/cd -
phillips cdrw on primary ide slot / wd 160gb sata 1 - wd 1tb on sata 2
- wd 1tb on sata 3 / windows xp sp3.

datalifegaurd says all the hard drives are fine.. this is an ongoing
issue starting with the introduction of a seagate 702.11 1.5tb drive
with bad firmware. i've replaced the privious motherboard [asus m3a]
with the one i have now as a precaution against the board maybe having
a short due to repeated power cycling during data recovery processes.
so this is a fairly new board and everything worked fine till the
introduction of the seagate.

the seagates have been shipped back to the manufacturer and money
returned by the vendor.

any ideas out there?

thanks

How did you determine that the boot drive is the one with the
spinup/spindown problem, as you have 3 SATA hard drives? Describe when in
the boot process of XP that you see this problem, and what symptoms you
see/hear that lead you to your conclusion.
--
Dave

CDOs are how we got here.
A modified version, new taxes in the future, is how Congress will get us
out?- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

simple enough.. removed the other drives.. cd/dvd's included. problem
exists. disable floppy controller in device manager problem goes away.
its only occuring when the desktop is loading. because there is no
transparancy to what is loading behind the desktop [drivers, services
etc..] its nearly impossible to see if a driver is causing the issue.
like it'd be really kewl to be able to say it happens everytime
jgogo.sys is loading. i could then pull jgogo.sys and see if the
problem persists. but nothing like that exists for windows as yet that
i know of. and again.. even when i safe mode it will happen.

thanks for the response

tn


----------

So, this spinup/spindown occurs after the desktop is loaded? (has gone past
the logon process)
What do you associate with calling spinning up and spinning down, (not
causes), what symptoms lead you to refer to that?
--
Dave

CDOs are how we got here.
A modified version, new taxes in the future, is how Congress will get us
out?

 

[Michael W. Ryder]

during windows startup.. there is a floppy drive seek that is causing
my primary sata boot drive to hard seek, spin down and spin up again.
its really weird. i replaced the floppy and its cable. i disabled the
floppy drive controller in windows and turned it off in bios that
resolved the issue but i need access to the floppy for some things i
work on.

i've searched for information on this issue all over the net but to no
avail. its buggin the heck out of me and my wife is about to toss me
and the computer out the house 'cause she know's i wont leave it alone
till i find a reason and a solution other than just turning off access
to the floppy.

motherboard: asus m3a78 pro / 4 gigs corsair mem / sony dvd/cd -
phillips cdrw on primary ide slot / wd 160gb sata 1 - wd 1tb on sata 2
- wd 1tb on sata 3 / windows xp sp3.

datalifegaurd says all the hard drives are fine.. this is an ongoing
issue starting with the introduction of a seagate 702.11 1.5tb drive
with bad firmware. i've replaced the privious motherboard [asus m3a]
with the one i have now as a precaution against the board maybe having
a short due to repeated power cycling during data recovery processes.
so this is a fairly new board and everything worked fine till the
introduction of the seagate.

the seagates have been shipped back to the manufacturer and money
returned by the vendor.

any ideas out there?

thanks

Have you tried to verify that nothing in your startup is looking for the
floppy drive, maybe like an anti-virus program?

 

[technut]

during windows startup.. there is a floppy drive seek that is causing
my primary sata boot drive to hard seek, spin down and spin up again.
its really weird. i replaced the floppy and its cable. i disabled the
floppy drive controller in windows and turned it off in bios that
resolved the issue but i need access to the floppy for some things i
work on.

i've searched for information on this issue all over the net but to no
avail. its buggin the heck out of me and my wife is about to toss me
and the computer out the house 'cause she know's i wont leave it alone
till i find a reason and a solution other than just turning off access
to the floppy.

motherboard: asus m3a78 pro / 4 gigs corsair mem / sony dvd/cd -
phillips cdrw on primary ide slot / wd 160gb sata 1 - wd 1tb on sata 2
- wd 1tb on sata 3 / windows xp sp3.

datalifegaurd says all the hard drives are fine.. this is an ongoing
issue starting with the introduction of a seagate 702.11 1.5tb drive
with bad firmware.  i've replaced the privious motherboard [asus m3a]
with the one i have now as a precaution against the board maybe having
a short due to repeated power cycling during data recovery processes.
so this is a fairly new board and everything worked fine till the
introduction of the seagate.

the seagates have been shipped back to the manufacturer and money
returned by the vendor.

any ideas out there?

thanks

Have you tried to verify that nothing in your startup is looking for the
floppy drive, maybe like an anti-virus program?- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

yes sir.. tried that too.. however, the issue has been resolved.
here's what i found in the process.

when the seagate with the bad firmware started doing hard seeks
[failing] it caused me to have to repeatedly restart the system to get
it to show up in windows so that i could retrieve the data from it.
now doing that cause acronis to have to check the drives for errors
upon reboot. after doing this several times, drive performance fell
off because windows put the drives into pio mode. so even after i
pulled the seagate the boot drive was still loading in windows under
pio mode. when windows would load and seek all drives during desktop
load it would cause the drive to spin down because of the erroneous
information in the boot drive parameters in the registry. once i
cleared out all of the registry entries relating to the cd/dvd,
floppy, usb drives, hard drives and rebooted windows the issue was
resolved. as stated before i ran maleware tests and other process
tests to make sure i was not under attack, even switched from norton
to mcafee. had to use their removal tool and a manual registry dive
to be sure. the last part was to pull out my vmeter to check voltages
across the hardware to make sure they were in permitted ranges. been
testing it for the past 4 days so its taken me that long to get back
to you guys with the results. just as a precaution though, i still
purchased the other wd 160g hard drive and have a mirror of the os on
it with all of my settings ready to go. that took some doing because
i don't keep anything on the primary drive except the os. the
programs, documents and settings all reside on my external usb 1tb wd
drive and i keep an outlook account settings restoration image there
as well.

thanks everyone for your assistance, ideas and well wishes while i
worked through this issue.. if you ever need me, just holler. :O)

tn

 

[vinnievideo]

I am having problems with seagate HDD's Mine are constantly rebooting over
and over and I never get to the main xp screen except for a few seconds. I am
writing this to you on safe running. While I do not use a floppy drive. The
constant rebooting is driving ME nuts! I may have to reinstall a new MOBO
because I tossed the last Seagate drive, it was just out of warranty. The
only new drive I had lying around was another Seagate and I put it in, and
all was well as I installed OS and program after program. Came back the next
day, boot it up and it goes into this power up/down cycle. Simply
amazing...PC's!!!