Large Hard Drives refuse to format despite 48-bit LBA support

[Snufkin]

I am now on my second identical hard drive which has
exhibited the same strange behavior:

I am attempting to install a 200GB Seagate hard drive on a
computer running Windows XP SP2, with a P4G8X Deluxe
motherboard.

Windows sees the entire hard drive--all 185 GB of it. If I
attempt to format (NTFS), either through disk management
or by right clicking on the drive, the format plods along
for a couple of hours, reaches 100%...and then reports
that the format could not complete.

If I attempt to access the drive, Windows informs me that
the drive is not formatted (RAW), and asks if I wish to
format it.

As an experiment, I partitioned and formatted the first
100GB of the drive. This worked fine. I then partitioned
and attempted to format the other 85GB. The format failed
at 100%.

If I boot to a seagate floppy and format from there, the
format completes succesfully, and Windows sees the drive
as fully formatted NTFS. HOWEVER, after writing a few
gigabytes of data to test it, I started receiving I/O
Errors trying to read some files. Checkdisk invariably
failed to complete, usually at 100%.

The first time this happened, I assumed the drive was
faulty and returned it for replacement. The replacement is
giving identical results.

I initially tried this all on SP1, which of course has 48-
bit LBA support. I upgraded to SP2 in the hopes that would
fix things, but the upgrade made no difference.

I have swapped ide cables, changed the drive from slave to
master to cable select master/slave and back again, and
swapped ide channels. Nothing changed the behavior of the
drive.

My motherboard also supports 48-bit LBA, and has the
newest BIOS. Another older drive substituted in place of
the new one functions correctly. I can only assume that
this computer is having issues formatting above 137GB, and
having mostly eliminated hardware as the culprit, it seems
Windows must be glitching somehow.

Anyone have any ideas?

 

[TJ]

Don't know if this applies. But, when I installed a Maxtor 160gb drive, the
directions said to use Maxtor's tool to format it and that tool subsequently
added a EnableBigLBA key to the registry. Have you tried using the tool
that came with the drive, maybe it will add this key.
According to the maxtor doc, not only do you have to have XPSP1 or higher,
but you also have to install that registry setting. Maxtor's tool installed
it automatically when I used it to format the drive.

"Once you have installed the latest Service Pack, you must also install and
run the Windows version of Maxblast to enable complete support of larger
drives..... Maxblast checks for the existence of Windows 2000 XP3 or
Windows XP SP1 and installs the EnableBigLBA patch into the Windows
Registry. Installing the latest Service Pack without running the Maxblast
setup will not fully enable large drive support and may lead to data loss."

Check with the Seagate web site support and see how to install this registry
requirement.

 

[TJ]

Go here and look at the item called "Reg48bitLBA for Windows XP SP1 and
Windows 2000 SP3"
This may be the utility you need. I would format with the seagate disk, run
this utility and install the registry patch, then format the disk again just
to be sure....

 

[TJ]

Oops, sorry, here's the link:
http://www.seagate.com/support/disc/utils.html

Third item on the left. "Reg48bitLBA for Windows XP SP1 and Windows 2000
SP3"

 

[Snufkin]

Believe it or not, I already used the seagate tool to set
the LBA-enabling bit, just in case. It didn't make a
difference.

Sorry for not including that in my original description of
the problem.

 

[TJ]

In that case, did you run whatever the seagate diagnostics are? Just to be
sure the drive's not bad.

 

[Guest]

I'm about 95% sure the drive is functional, because:

1) It's the second drive to exhibit the same issue
2) Both drives had issues around the same place on the
disc -- around 130GB or so in.
3) I can format up to ~around~ 137GB without issue--
anything past that fails to complete the format.
4) Checkdisk doesn't report any errors--it just tells me
it couldn't complete.
5) The seagate diagnostic utility--even with the extended
drive test, which apparently does a full surface scan--has
found no errors.

What can I say? This one's driving me crazy.

 

[TJ]

You shouldn't have to do this, but if you're really curious, try formatting
as FAT32. If it works, then convert the FAT partition to NTFS.... On
second thought, I don't see why that would matter - you'd still probably end
up getting data errors just like when you formatted the whole thing NTFS
from the boot disk.
Weird. If the BIOS sees the full size of the drive (?) then you shouldn't
need any kind of DDO or whatever seagate's equivalent of EZ-BIOS is....
Sorry I'm no help.

 

[DL]

Use seagate diagnostic tool, there is such a thing as a bad batch of drives

 

[Snufkin]

Unfortunately, I've run the diagnostic tool multiple
times, and it never reports any errors...

 

[Richard Urban]

Then maybe your M/B chipset drivers need to be updated! This solved my
problem with my Asus A7N8X - Deluxe rev2 M/B!

--
Regards:

Richard Urban

aka Crusty (-: Old B@stard

 

[Snufkin]

It turns out your suggestion wasn't *too* far off the
mark. What I needed was not a driver install, but a driver
uninstall. It took a lot of diagnosing, but the problem
appears to have been caused by the Intel Application
Accelerator (v. 2.2.2, one version older than the newest),
which was listed on Asus's website amongst drivers for the
motherboard. Uninstalling the IAA fixed the problem.

Looking through Intel's website, it's not entirely clear
whether or not the e7205 chipset is supported by the IAA,
as it's not listed as supported or unsupported. Getting
information concerning this chipset, unfortunately, tends
to be a real hassle: Intel seems to be doing its best to
pretend it never existed. There aren't even any drivers
listed for it.

I've contacted Intel, and I'll probably end up contacting
Asus as well. Either the IAA is glitching, or Asus
shouldn't have it listed as a driver for the P4G8X Deluxe.

 

[Richard Urban]

Glad you got it solved!

--
Regards:

Richard Urban

aka Crusty (-: Old B@stard

 

[Paul881]

Bloody Hell!!! I have been trying to figure out my Delayed Write
problem since earlier in the year and recently the problem has driven
me nuts - My BIOS was correctly updated and could see my 200Gig HDD;
Win XP SP1 and SP2 were loaded; Reg48bitLBA was enabled - but my PC
still refused to recognise anything more than 137Gig. Until I happened
upon this thread today - so I became a member so I could post my thanks
to Snufkin for solving my problem. I would be interested in knowing
why IAA interfered with this issue, so if anyone can enlighten me, I
would be grateful.

Thanks again.


"Snufkin"
(e-mail address removed)
wrote
in message
news:aa0a01c48877$9eb0a900[/i][/QUOTE][/i][/QUOTE]
[email protected]
I am now on my second identical hard drive
which
has
exhibited the same strange behavior:

I am attempting to install a 200GB Seagate
hard
drive on a
computer running Windows XP SP2, with a
P4G8X
Deluxe
motherboard.

Windows sees the entire hard drive--all--
185--
GB of
it. If I
attempt to format (NTFS), either through
disk
management
or by right clicking on the drive, the
format
plods
along
for a couple of hours, reaches 100%...and
then
reports
that the format could not complete.

If I attempt to access the drive, Windows
informs
me that
the drive is not formatted (RAW), and asks
if I
wish to
format it.

As an experiment, I partitioned and
formatted the
first
100GB of the drive. This worked fine. I--
then--
partitioned
and attempted to format the other 85GB.--
The--
format
failed
at 100%.

If I boot to a seagate floppy and format
from
there, the
format completes succesfully, and Windows
sees
the
drive
as fully formatted NTFS. HOWEVER, after
writing a
few
gigabytes of data to test it, I started
receiving
I/O
Errors trying to read some files.--
Checkdisk--
invariably
failed to complete, usually at 100%.

The first time this happened, I assumed--
the--
drive
was
faulty and returned it for replacement.--
The--
replacement is
giving identical results.

I initially tried this all on SP1, which--
of--
course
has 48-
bit LBA support. I upgraded to SP2 in the
hopes
that would
fix things, but the upgrade made no
difference.

I have swapped ide cables, changed the
drive from
slave to
master to cable select master/slave and--
back--
again,
and
swapped ide channels. Nothing changed the
behavior
of the
drive.

My motherboard also supports 48-bit LBA,
and has
the
newest BIOS. Another older drive
substituted in
place of
the new one functions correctly. I can--
only--
assume
that
this computer is having issues formatting
above
137GB, and
having mostly eliminated hardware as the
culprit,
it seems
Windows must be glitching somehow.

Anyone have any ideas?