Windows XP Can't Initialize New Hard Drive

[another geek in the wall]

Hello everyone.

I've recently upgraded to WindowsXP Pro edition(with service pack 2).
Windows is installed on a smaller hard drive, IBM DeskStar 20Gb, and
it's working fine. However, my second IDE hard drive(Slave), Western
Digital WDC400EB gives me lots of problems. During Windows
installation, the the hard drive was successfully formatted to NTFS.
It worked fine for a couple of days. But today this hard drive(Windows
letter D stopped showing up in Windows Explorer. I went to
Administrative Tools -> Computer Management -> Disk Management and
checked hard drive from there. It turned out to be non-initialized.
When I right-clicked on it and tried to initialize, Windows failed to
perform this operation. The System Log n the Event Viewer showed the
following:

"The driver detected a controller error on \Device\Harddisk1\D."


I tried another initializing the disk once again, and the System Log
showed this:

"A parity error was detected on \Device\Ide\IdePort0."


Could anyone tell me please what this controller error or parity error
means and what are the ways of troubleshooting it.


Please tell me if there are any third-party tools that I can use to
check the hard drive with.

(My system is running Athlon1700+ on ECS K7VMM+ mobo with all the
device drivers, including ATA controller, provided on the
manufacturer's CD).



Thanks,
Naz

 

[Rich Barry]

Go to Western Digitals Website and download a Hard Drive Diagnostic
Utility.