problems installing Maxtor drive

  • Thread starter Thread starter Gary L. Drescher
  • Start date Start date
G

Gary L. Drescher

I have a recently assembled computer (P4 2.8GHz, Intel 865GBF, 512MB
PC-3200, WinXP SP1+all updates). I'm trying to replace my hard drive (WD
120GB, NTFS) with a Maxtor Ultra Series 160GB drive. Both drives are
jumpered as Cable Select, with the WD as master and the Maxtor as slave.
Both drives are properly recognized by the BIOS. But I've had the following
problems:
1) After I boot from the Maxblast CD, I can get Maxblast to go through the
motions of formatting the Maxtor drive (one full-sized boot partition,
NTFS), but Windows does not then recognize the drive, and Maxtor's
partition-copy utility sees nonsensical partitions on the drive (e.g. 865 GB
or so, not NTFS).
2) Maxblast does not run from Windows (it immediately gets an error every
time).
3) I used Windows Disk Management to format the Maxtor drive. That worked,
and Windows then recognized the drive; and the Windows disk-check tool
showed no errors. I then tried booting from the Maxblast CD again; this
time, Maxblast recognized the correctly sized NTFS partition on the disk. I
then told it to copy the WD partition to the Maxtor partition. Seven hours
later, it claimed to have completed the copy. But afterward, Windows could
no longer recognize the Maxtor drive at all (until I reformatted it using
WDM again).

Any thoughts as to what's going wrong, or how to fix it without having to
purchase a third-party partition-copy tool? Thanks.
 
I had the same type of problem getting XP to recognize a 60 GB Maxtor set up with Maxblast. I had to reformat with XP to get it recognized.

To move the OS I used TrueImage from www.acronis.com works great.

--
Just my 2¢ worth
Jeff
__________in response to__________
| I have a recently assembled computer (P4 2.8GHz, Intel 865GBF, 512MB
| PC-3200, WinXP SP1+all updates). I'm trying to replace my hard drive (WD
| 120GB, NTFS) with a Maxtor Ultra Series 160GB drive. Both drives are
| jumpered as Cable Select, with the WD as master and the Maxtor as slave.
| Both drives are properly recognized by the BIOS. But I've had the following
| problems:
| 1) After I boot from the Maxblast CD, I can get Maxblast to go through the
| motions of formatting the Maxtor drive (one full-sized boot partition,
| NTFS), but Windows does not then recognize the drive, and Maxtor's
| partition-copy utility sees nonsensical partitions on the drive (e.g. 865 GB
| or so, not NTFS).
| 2) Maxblast does not run from Windows (it immediately gets an error every
| time).
| 3) I used Windows Disk Management to format the Maxtor drive. That worked,
| and Windows then recognized the drive; and the Windows disk-check tool
| showed no errors. I then tried booting from the Maxblast CD again; this
| time, Maxblast recognized the correctly sized NTFS partition on the disk. I
| then told it to copy the WD partition to the Maxtor partition. Seven hours
| later, it claimed to have completed the copy. But afterward, Windows could
| no longer recognize the Maxtor drive at all (until I reformatted it using
| WDM again).
|
| Any thoughts as to what's going wrong, or how to fix it without having to
| purchase a third-party partition-copy tool? Thanks.
|
|
 
Hi;
Get the special "fdisk.exe" for drive larger than 64GIGs
directly from the Microsoft Help Center.
263044 is the number of the article you're looking for.
http://support.microsoft.com

No matter what quite a few will say: Restart from scratch using that newly
extracted "fdisk.exe" added to a standard Windows' 9x Boot Disk.
As usual you set the Bios to boot from floppy first.

The trick is to copy it under the name of "fdisk64.exe" thus keeping the
original/"from-the-box "fdisk" as the regular one for disk under 64GIGs.

If you want to go "NTSF" then just put the HDD "in-action" and let XP/2000
format it to that afterwards from its GUI.

If you want "Fat32" then reboot with the floppy still in and format away.
You'll get a "formatting xx.x gigs" with the value way-off by -64GIGs .
Ex: 120 will show as 5x.x real GIGs (1024 *1024 *1024) while 250 will show
17x.x or thereabout.
This is normal (a known bug/limitation of format.com) but you get the full
"treament" anyway.

The new fdisk.exe is from Microsoft, your O/S also. Enough said!

Mikey
 
Thanks for the reply, but the article you cite says it only applies to
Windows 95-98 (not XP Pro SP1). And I had no problem formatting the drive
using XP's WDM; XP then properly recognized the drive (at 152 GB) until
Maxblast screwed it up while trying to copy a partition to it.
--Gary
 
Hi;
OK, let's go thru the procedure.
1)You partition.
2) You format to 150GIGs.
3) You leave well alone.
4) Nothing EVER goes here.

Mikey
 
Well the idea was 4) to copy the old drive's partition to the new drive's
partition (and then get rid of the old drive). But that's the part that
doesn't work.

--Gary
 
ReHi;
Appologies for being so curt/brief.
ADDENDUM to: Afterwards you drive is fully functional.

Any application that you attempt to transfer data with and that corrupts the
drive's partition is therefore (to me) guilty without reserve no matter were
it comes from.

I own and run this PC with two Maxtor 120GIGs 8Megs cache HDDs.
MaxBlast I avoid at all costs. Met with the same misfortune once on smaller
(60) drives.
I don't/won't "tempt the devil twice" even with the much improved newer
version I got with the latest drives...

I'll gracefully grant to anyone that "It was only clumsy old me at fault".

Out of the "MaxBlast ONLY Context
=========================

Point #1 that is too often Overlooked:
The drives NEED be on the same first IDE Cable/Primary Channel for quite a
few if not MOST of the Transfer/Cloning Utilities to function correctly with
OLD one as the master and the NEW as slave (that is >if I remember
correctly<: it's been a few months)!

(I read the instructions at the time and went by the (Maxtor's book with
MaxBlast and still...
(I then tried Cable #1 + Cable 2 and got another fail).

Point #2:
Added precaution is to disconnect IDE cable # 2 (if point #1 is required by
the application) so as to liberate the max. of ressources. Ain't necessary
but safer and I like playing with the odds stacked in my favor.

Mikey
 
Gary said:
I have a recently assembled computer (P4 2.8GHz, Intel 865GBF, 512MB
PC-3200, WinXP SP1+all updates). I'm trying to replace my hard drive (WD
120GB, NTFS) with a Maxtor Ultra Series 160GB drive. Both drives are
jumpered as Cable Select, with the WD as master and the Maxtor as slave.
Both drives are properly recognized by the BIOS. But I've had the following
problems:
1) After I boot from the Maxblast CD, I can get Maxblast to go through the
motions of formatting the Maxtor drive (one full-sized boot partition,
NTFS), but Windows does not then recognize the drive, and Maxtor's
partition-copy utility sees nonsensical partitions on the drive (e.g. 865 GB
or so, not NTFS).
Click to expand...

Are you using a 80 pin IDE-100 cable with the drives? I spent hours
fighting this problem with a friend's computer before finding out that
he had used the old 40 pin cable. Using the 80 pin cable fixed that
problem.
 
Michael W. Ryder said:
Are you using a 80 pin IDE-100 cable with the drives? I spent hours
fighting this problem with a friend's computer before finding out that
he had used the old 40 pin cable. Using the 80 pin cable fixed that
problem.
Click to expand...

Yes, it's the cable that came with the Maxtor drive.

--Gary
 
Mikey said:
ReHi;
Appologies for being so curt/brief.
ADDENDUM to: Afterwards you drive is fully functional.

Any application that you attempt to transfer data with and that corrupts the
drive's partition is therefore (to me) guilty without reserve no matter were
it comes from.

I own and run this PC with two Maxtor 120GIGs 8Megs cache HDDs.
MaxBlast I avoid at all costs. Met with the same misfortune once on smaller
(60) drives.
I don't/won't "tempt the devil twice" even with the much improved newer
version I got with the latest drives...
Click to expand...

I came to the same conclusion and did a fresh install on my WDM-formatted
drive, instead of attempting to copy the old partition over. Took awhile,
but worked fine.

--Gary
 
I have a recently assembled computer (P4 2.8GHz, Intel 865GBF, 512MB
PC-3200, WinXP SP1+all updates). I'm trying to replace my hard drive (WD
120GB, NTFS) with a Maxtor Ultra Series 160GB drive. Both drives are
jumpered as Cable Select, with the WD as master and the Maxtor as slave.
Both drives are properly recognized by the BIOS. But I've had the following
problems:
1) After I boot from the Maxblast CD, I can get Maxblast to go through the
motions of formatting the Maxtor drive (one full-sized boot partition,
NTFS), but Windows does not then recognize the drive, and Maxtor's
partition-copy utility sees nonsensical partitions on the drive (e.g. 865 GB
or so, not NTFS).
2) Maxblast does not run from Windows (it immediately gets an error every
time).
3) I used Windows Disk Management to format the Maxtor drive. That worked,
and Windows then recognized the drive; and the Windows disk-check tool
showed no errors. I then tried booting from the Maxblast CD again; this
time, Maxblast recognized the correctly sized NTFS partition on the disk. I
then told it to copy the WD partition to the Maxtor partition. Seven hours
later, it claimed to have completed the copy. But afterward, Windows could
no longer recognize the Maxtor drive at all (until I reformatted it using
WDM again).

Any thoughts as to what's going wrong, or how to fix it without having to
purchase a third-party partition-copy tool? Thanks.
Click to expand...
 
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