flaky Seagate 80gig drive

I bought a 2nd Seagate SATA 80gig for use as a cloning drive. (this is
a bit anal of me as I backup by imaging software, but I once had a
sector go out and my backup image wrote it right back on when I tried
to restore it)

I mounted the drive on SATA5, partitioned and formatted. I then used
Max Blast 5 to clone my c: -> the new 80gig drive. I then disconnected
power and ran without the clone drive.

When next I wanted to clone I connected power to the drive and booted
(on my regualar c: drive). MaxBlast 5 hung up while looking at the
clone drive partition. PartitionMagic7 hung when trying to error check
it. DiskManagement was unable to delete the partiion and hung.

Using SeagateDOS Tools diskette I resized it. Then I could boot to
Windows and delete the partition. Back to SeagateTools, size partition
back to 80gig. Format. Put clone drive on SATA6 connector. MaxBlast 5
to clone c;->the clone. Unhook drive's power.

Today I hooked power back on the clone drive, booted SeagateDOS Tools
diskette and ran the long test on clone drive ok. Booted Windows. It
said it had installed 'new hardware' but might not run right till I
rebooted. I did reboot,, ran Windows error check ok on clone drive.
Brought up MaxBlast 5, it hung looking at the clone drive.
PartitionMagic7 will hang on it. Locked out of DiskManagement
completely.

Does this sound like a bad drive, or am I doing something wrong? If it
is the drive, is there a test that will prove it? Could Windows be
screwing it up when it 'adds hardware'?

John B. Smith wrote:
> I bought a 2nd Seagate SATA 80gig for use as a cloning drive. (this is
> a bit anal of me as I backup by imaging software, but I once had a
> sector go out and my backup image wrote it right back on when I tried
> to restore it)
>
> I mounted the drive on SATA5, partitioned and formatted. I then used
> Max Blast 5 to clone my c: -> the new 80gig drive. I then disconnected
> power and ran without the clone drive.
>
> When next I wanted to clone I connected power to the drive and booted
> (on my regualar c: drive). MaxBlast 5 hung up while looking at the
> clone drive partition. PartitionMagic7 hung when trying to error check
> it. DiskManagement was unable to delete the partiion and hung.
>
> Using SeagateDOS Tools diskette I resized it. Then I could boot to
> Windows and delete the partition. Back to SeagateTools, size partition
> back to 80gig. Format. Put clone drive on SATA6 connector. MaxBlast 5
> to clone c;->the clone. Unhook drive's power.
>
> Today I hooked power back on the clone drive, booted SeagateDOS Tools
> diskette and ran the long test on clone drive ok. Booted Windows. It
> said it had installed 'new hardware' but might not run right till I
> rebooted. I did reboot,, ran Windows error check ok on clone drive.
> Brought up MaxBlast 5, it hung looking at the clone drive.
> PartitionMagic7 will hang on it. Locked out of DiskManagement
> completely.
>
> Does this sound like a bad drive, or am I doing something wrong? If it
> is the drive, is there a test that will prove it? Could Windows be
> screwing it up when it 'adds hardware'?

Could you try another SATA port ? Like port number 1 or 2 ?
The SATA ports do not have identical properties, and may be
handled by two separate logic blocks in the chipset. Perhaps
a group of 4 and a group of 2 for example.

An alternative experiment, is to install the "Force 150" jumper
on the drive. That forces it to the original SATA transfer
rate. It really should not be necessary, but is another experiment
you can try. Hitachi drives don't have a jumper like that, but
the Seagate should have room for one. There is probably a
1x4 jumper area, with room for two jumpers. One position is
Force 150, and the other is Spread Spectrum (a don't care, except
if connecting the drive to an old Macintosh).

Seagate probably has a diagnostic, which they'd tell you to use
before requesting an RMA. You could run that and see if it
fails the drive.

Paul

On Oct 2, 10:16*am, John B. Smith <cra...@verizon.net> wrote:
> I bought a 2nd Seagate SATA 80gig for use as a cloning drive. (this is
> a bit anal of me as I backup by imaging software, but I once had a
> sector go out and my backup image wrote it right back on when I tried
> to restore it)
>
> I mounted the drive on SATA5, partitioned and formatted. I then used
> Max Blast 5 to clone my c: -> the new 80gig drive. I then disconnected
> power and ran without the clone drive.
>
> When next I wanted to clone I connected power to the drive and booted
> (on my regualar c: drive). MaxBlast 5 hung up while looking at the
> clone drive partition. PartitionMagic7 hung when trying to error check
> it. DiskManagement was unable to delete the partiion and hung.
>
> Using SeagateDOS Tools diskette I *resized it. Then I could boot to
> Windows and delete the partition. Back to SeagateTools, size partition
> back to 80gig. Format. Put clone drive on SATA6 connector. MaxBlast 5
> to clone c;->the clone. Unhook drive's power.
>
> Today I hooked power back on the clone drive, booted SeagateDOS Tools
> diskette and ran the long test on clone drive ok. Booted Windows. It
> said it had installed 'new hardware' but might not run right till I
> rebooted. I did reboot,, ran Windows error check ok on clone drive.
> Brought up MaxBlast 5, it hung looking at the clone drive.
> PartitionMagic7 will hang on it. Locked out of DiskManagement
> completely.
>
> Does this sound like a bad drive, or am I doing something wrong? If it
> is the drive, is there a test that will prove it? Could Windows be
> screwing it up when it 'adds hardware'?

This sounds like something that would happen if you had the MaxBlast
drive overlay interfering with Windows' native handling of the drive.

In article <gc4eqq$n50$1@registered.motzarella.org>,
nospam@needed.com says...
<snip>
>

Just a thought, I'm not familiar with Maxblast, but when the OP
cloned his drive the first time the program created a mirror image
"C" drive. When he reconnected the drive again maybe the Bios choked
when it saw two bootable "C" drives attatched at the same time when
the PC was turned on. Just a WAG.

Bill
--
GMail & Google Goobers.
This century's answer to AOL and WebTV.

On Fri, 03 Oct 2008 02:47:22 -0400, Paul <nospam@needed.com> wrote:
>
>Could you try another SATA port ? Like port number 1 or 2 ?
>The SATA ports do not have identical properties, and may be
>handled by two separate logic blocks in the chipset. Perhaps
>a group of 4 and a group of 2 for example.
>
>An alternative experiment, is to install the "Force 150" jumper
>on the drive. That forces it to the original SATA transfer
>rate. It really should not be necessary, but is another experiment
>you can try. Hitachi drives don't have a jumper like that, but
>the Seagate should have room for one. There is probably a
>1x4 jumper area, with room for two jumpers. One position is
>Force 150, and the other is Spread Spectrum (a don't care, except
>if connecting the drive to an old Macintosh).
>
>Seagate probably has a diagnostic, which they'd tell you to use
>before requesting an RMA. You could run that and see if it
>fails the drive.
>
> Paul
The second time I cloned I did change from SATA5 to SATA6. And after
successful completion on the cloning I did boot up again with the
clone attached. My note says "after cloning reboot - error ck SATA6
clone drive d: ok. PM7 cks it ok."

I've previously run a similar clone operation on my older pc, with the
clone drive attached in a USB enclosure - IDE only, no SATA involved.
I never had these type problems. Both are XPpro. 32bit.

From your responses I've concluded that MAYBE having the cloned drive
online with the original c: in Windows is somehow confusing the
system. However, it never bothered my old system (MSI, IDE) when I did
this.

So... I again set the clone's capacity to 32GB with
SeagateToolsForDOS, booted Windows, deleted 32gb partition, booted
SeaTools, set to MaxNativeCapacity again, booted Windows created
partition and formatted. MaxBlast5 to clone original c:. Turn off.
Swapped SATA1 cable to clone drive, disconnect power original c:.
Boot Windows - error check the cloned c: - OK.

I'm now running on the clone drive for the last 20 minutes. I will
keep it like this for a few days, if no errors I'll switch back.

Clone drive trial is over and it seems to work ok. Hopefully, the
problem was having two 'C:' drives online in XP at same time (even
though the clone comes in as 'D:'). When next I clone I'll modify the
clone with SeagateDOStools BEFORE booting to Windows with it hooked
on.

In article <t76ke4tddgao5pffldevbr0iaviod4a9e8@4ax.com>,
crasso@verizon.net says...
> Clone drive trial is over and it seems to work ok. Hopefully, the
> problem was having two 'C:' drives online in XP at same time (even
> though the clone comes in as 'D:'). When next I clone I'll modify the
> clone with SeagateDOStools BEFORE booting to Windows with it hooked
> on.
>

Just for clarity, I think the reason is you had two drives with
active, bootable partitions, as well as that they were both named C.

Maybe somebody that knows for sure can comment.

Bill
--
GMail & Google Goobers.
This century's answer to AOL and WebTV.